As executive director of the Providence After School Alliance, Hillary Salmons manages PASA and has primary responsibility for community engagement and fundraising efforts. Previously, she led an education initiative called Rhode Island Scholars where business leaders spoke to middle school students around the state about the importance of a college education and taking math and science courses while still in high school.
She also served as the vice president for program development for health and education leadership for Providence, a now-defunct coalition focused on improving the health and education of Providence children. While there, she worked to establish numerous systemic health and education initiatives. Salmons has a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.
PBN: In October, the Providence After School Alliance was awarded a $300,000 Barr Foundation grant, how will it be used?
SALMONS: PASA will work with the Providence Public School Department, Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex and the 360 High School over the next 18 months to plan innovative expanded learning pathways, both in school and beyond the classroom, which will influence postsecondary success and help students prepare for the state’s new pathway endorsement option for 2021 graduates.
The Barr Foundation-supported initiative will help identify and develop career-related and workplace-based learning experiences students can participate in during and after school from ninth to 12th grade. The plan will help students, families and teachers understand how youth can create experiences that qualify them for the state’s new career pathway diploma endorsement for 2021 graduates.
PBN: How does the organization feel learning pathways can be improved in the capital’s school system?
SALMONS: Right now, there is a patchwork quilt of career-related courses and employment opportunities for youth, which are not easy to find or directly linked. This joint venture will help identify what choices are available.
PBN: What evidence are you seeing of Providence students who are unprepared for the rigors of college and the ensuing job market?
SALMONS: Despite the great assets of our city, and our schools, Providence faces many of the social and economic issues often associated with larger urban centers. Half of Rhode Island public high school graduates who enrolled in a two- or four-year college in 2009 earned a college diploma within six years, and our state’s completion rate is the lowest of all of the states in the New England Secondary School Consortium.
Work experience during the teen years increases academic achievement, employability and wages into early adulthood. Prepare RI has issued research showing that the No. 1 request from employers is to strengthen education programs that prepare students for jobs and careers in high-demand occupations, but more than 40 percent of existing career-pathway programming does not meet this demand. We already know more than 70 percent of Rhode Island’s jobs will require some education beyond high school by 2020, but only 43 percent of current Rhode Island adults have an associate’s degree or higher.
PBN: Does this grant project build on existing framework and how will it move that thinking forward?
SALMONS: The timing of this planning grant could not be better given the coordinated career-pathway investments and plans being developed in Rhode Island. It definitely builds on the existing successful collaboration between PASA, PPSD and the two participating high schools. PASA already operates two expanded learning systems for middle and high school youth – the AfterZone and the Hub – which provide an average of 1,800 students annually with a menu of programs in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics], the visual and performing arts, athletics and career exploration annually.
The Barr Foundation grant gives us major support to continue to tap into career related experts and programs at JESC and 360, apply PASA’s experience, bring in state and regional experts and act on the recommendations and plans being advanced by Prepare RI. Namely, the grant will help build on the Prepare RI career-pathway work being jointly led by the governor’s office, R.I. Department of Education, the Governor’s Workforce Board, the Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner and the R.I. Commerce Corp.
PBN: How will improving learning pathways better prepare the capital’s students for college and a later career?
SALMONS: Providence youth have a huge untapped potential that needs to be met by schools, community businesses and government working together to prepare students for the modern economy. Because so many of our youth live in poverty, they have less exposure to after-school enrichment opportunities, summer jobs and professional networks, which can inform their college and career choices.
The credit-bearing, career-related courses that PASA has developed with outstanding community partners like DownCity Design, Youth in Action, Roger Williams Park Zoo and Providence Public Library better connect to career-related study in high schools, help build the students’ career-related individual learning plans and ultimately tie into career-related employment opportunities.
If we can tap the many and varied resources in Providence to support our youth in developing career pathways from middle through high school, they will make smart career-related, postsecondary decisions and be better qualified for college and the jobs in our modern economy.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
