Field Report: Firstline Charter Schools

I write this field report – my first – the week after Hurricane Isaac shut down the city for nearly a week. As always, we continue on. And so I begin my sixth week as the K-8 VISTA Community Outreach Coordinator at FirstLine Schools.

It began with an orientation and tour of the schools from David Durand, the Director of Community Partnerships and my supervisor. FirstLine Schools currently operates four K-8 schools and one 9-12 (Joseph S. Clark Preparatory High School). Its mission is to create and inspire great open admissions public schools in New Orleans. While each campus maintains its own unique culture, they all share the primary objective of preparing every student for college and a fulfilling career.

Samuel J. Green Charter School, located in the Freret neighborhood, was oneof the first to be operated by FLS. It is also the birthplace of The Edible Schoolyard New Orleans (ESYNOLA), which is a flagship program being developed at each of the FirstLine campuses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arthur Ashe Charter School opened in 2007 with fewer than 50 students. Now, the school serves over 400 at a brand new, state-of-the-art campus in Gentilly.

Langston Hughes Academy came under management of FLS in 2010, but officially became a FirstLine school this year. The LHA campus was the first newly constructed school building to open its doors since 2003, and boasts a thriving ESYNOLA program in the back yard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Dibert Community School became a part of the FLS network that same year in 2010, by request from the community. The Dibert Family Organization is the strongest parent group among the FLS K-8 schools, a fact I hope to take advantage of as I work with parents from the other campuses.

That was week one: becoming familiar with the four schools I would be working with. I was also provided a desk at the FLS Main Office on Canal St. I share an office with Rebekah Cain, Director of Development & Communication, and Darcy McKinnon. Darcy was one of FirstLine’s earliest employees, and she fills a number of roles, including branding.

 

I will admit, my job is confusing.

 

FirstLine is a large, thriving organization with many employees. Finding my place – being both productive and not stepping on toes – is a challenge. I already ran into one boundary with grant writing. David had tipped me off about a potential grant opportunity, so I began to investigate. I contacted the granter, had multiple conversations, but made the mistake of not notifying Rebekah. As it turns out, that is her job and she was already working on that particular grant application. Lesson learned.

Another part of my VAD is to help plan events for and make use of a large literacy grant just awarded to some of the FLS schools. I quickly discovered that FLS already has a full-time Family Literacy Coordinator, Donnica Conway. She is also on board the Literacy Grant Team charged with taking advantage of the funds. So, my role there must also be limited.

Furthermore, I was finding it difficult to build relationships with the individual schools. Not only are they in different parts of the city, they were busy in their first couple weeks of school. The administration either didn’t know me or at least didn’t know why I was there.

Finally, while I do technically have a predecessor, he remains a mystery to me. His position was only at Green, so it was a fundamentally different job. There is no sustainability binder from that position, so far as I know. Luckily, the VISTA who was placed at Clark last year left behind a plethora of valuable resources in Dropbox.

 

Now for the good news.

 

I have come to the conclusion that my role should be focused more on the individual campuses rather than the network main office. In VISTA terms, that office appears to be at capacity. So, I have been making an effort to connect with school leaders and parents, and to get a sense for their goals and needs. While the balance between direct and indirect service seems a blur sometimes, I feel the need to take on enough responsibilities to warrant interns or other sustainability measures. This will take time.

I have two specific projects right now: newsletters and parent organization.

Each K-8 should have a quarterly newsletter, starting this month. One thing my predecessor did leave behind was a newsletter template for Green. The other schools also have similar templates. Kathleen and I are on-boarding an intern this week to handle a few jobs, including the K-8 newsletter production.

Before Isaac, I had managed to nail down a parent liaison from each school, and soon I will organize a meeting between them, Donnica, and David. We need to seek out parent leaders who are not employed by FLS – ironically, ¾ are – and formulate a strategy to grow parent involvement through training and outreach.

My VAD includes many other goals throughout the year, and I look forward to the challenge. For now, I will continue to reach out and build bridges as best I can.

 

-Jason Lacoste, Tulane Education VISTA, Firstline Charter Schools

 

 

Field Report: Benjamin Banneker Elementary School

It started the first few days I was in New Orleans, even before I began working at Banneker. I would be at a party with friends, or strike up a conversation with a stranger at a coffee shop. At some point, the following exchange would occur:

 

Me: “I’m actually going to be working in a school.”

Other Guy: “What school?”

Me: “It’s called Benjamin Banneker. It’s in the Black Pearl neighborhood.”

Other Guy: “Oh…isn’t that the school that like…has a nun who runs it?”

 

Although they weren’t completely correct, all these strangers were close. Sister Marie Noel has been the assistant principal at Banneker for over ten years. I thought it was unusual that a nun would be an administrator in a public school, especially since I got most of my formal education from private schools run by nuns. Certainly the novelty of Sister Noel’s position as a both school leader and a nun was what caused people all over the city to know about her, right?

 

Over the past year I learned that people know about Sister not because of the peculiar fact that she works in a public school, nor because she constantly tells everyone she encounters that she will include them in her evening prayers. They know her name because she has an unmatched work ethic and devotion to education. I found people who had only met Sister Noel once, but had witnessed her selflessness and enthusiasm. She is truly an amazing person.

 

Of course, I witnessed all these things myself. Today is my last day at my work site. I am excited for what lies ahead of me, but there are many things I will miss about my time at Banneker. Sister Noel is at the top of that list. But I will also remember the lessons she taught me about education, devotion, and most importantly, being a good person. I am honored to call her my friend.

-George Doonan Martin, Tulane CPS Education VISTA, Benjamin Banneker Elementary School

Field Report: Joseph S. Clark Prepartory High School

 

So I’m reporting in the third official week at Joseph S. Clark Preparatory High School.  It’s been a smooth transition into a scheduled routine, I’m happy to say I have some autonomy to set my own hours. Now that mornings are more habitual, it’s becoming easier to wind the alarm clock back in order to get to Clark, located right off the I-10 236A Esplanade exit, by 9:00 or 9:30.

 

I’m thankful to report that aside from my pre-work morning routine and average 7-9 hour day, my days vary while in the “office.”  I work out of the Student Center, formerly the Front Office at Clark.  I work at a desktop and share the room with Ms. James, the College Coordinator.  However, the Student Center is also home to both of Clark’s Social Workers, the RTI Coordinator, Speech Therapist and School Nurse.  It’s safe to say that my workspace is always abuzz with the outside, energized environment of Clark’s student body.  Parents, faculty, staff and 9-12^th graders peruse, query, roam and find sanction in the Student Center.  Principals, teachers and faculty administrators are constantly in and out (the Conference Room is in the back), students request and receive information and parents resolve a whole host of questions and concerns here.

 

What do I do in the Student Center?  I’m the young woman with a lunchbox and folders who, 80% of the time, is testing the strength of the keyboard as I blast out e-mail after e-mail (“Can you teach me to type that fast?” – Principal Coleman) to pre-established partners, potential new ones and the Clark community at large.  So, you ask, where does the “varying routine” I aforementioned get brought into the mix?  Well, as my tenure (just kidding) should have it, the longer I am at Clark the more opportunities for new experiences present themselves.  I have begun meeting with new partners and existing ones, scheduling meetings and attending enriching events that give more meaning to the work I am doing.

 

The accumulation of activities came from my open and sincere interest in getting more intertwined with the Clark community.  These involvements have introduced me to new people, take on new tasks, and sparked tons of ideas in my mind.  Monday, August 13^th was the first full day of classes.  That week was incredibly hectic for everyone else in the building, but because I do not work directly with the students, this gave me the opportunity to do plenty of research and contact teachers about possibilities for the upcoming year that they tabled until the dust settled in their classrooms.  For now I feel ahead of the game.  But who am I kidding, how can I be?!

 

Since the program I am working in, Together for Tomorrow, is a 2–year pilot program, I find it important to mention that I am the second VISTA at Clark Prep High School.  This means that next year it is unlikely that there will be another VISTA member posted up at this formerly failing high school.  The surrounding Tremé community has shown wonderful signs of improvement and the same can be said of Clark.  With that said, I have a responsibility and commitment to the school to improve it’s sustainability within the year that I am here.  As my predecessor Mike Jayes put it, it is important to have our actions be deliberate, that way we do not lose time to efforts that will be discontinued upon exiting, or equally as bad, slowly dwindle away for lack of ownership and interest by the community we are serving.

 

Want to hear something really cool? It’s cooler than reading this blog, I promise. Trey Songz visited Clark last week! His inspiring speech and singing were quite impressive to say the least.  Check it out for yourself!:

http://firstlineschools.blogspot.com/

 

-Kathleen Duffy, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Clark Prep High School

Field Report: Latino Farmers Co-Operative of Louisiana

Six years ago I was a nervous South Texan boy setting foot on Southwestern University, scared out of my mind at the prospect of starting college. Back then all I wanted to do was study the Roman Empire, learn Latin, and become a professor. Six years later I’m working for the Latino Farmers’ Cooperative of Louisiana (LFCL) as part of my AmeriCorps VISTA service. If you’d asked me at the age of 18, who at that time was as close to right-wing as any South Texan can get, if I’d be working for a non-profit years after Southwestern, I’d probably shake my head in disbelief. Nevertheless, here I am, and I love it.

One thing I noticed from the start is that six years of being in an academic setting have wired my mind to work on a “we-all-start-off-at-an-almost-equal-footing”-mentality. It goes without saying that that mindset is a wrong one for the workplace. Nothing says “learn how to swim” in the real world more than when you realize that you have coworkers who have their act together and you’ll continue to seem like the newbie for more than the first week. (Those who know me know very well how it takes me more than thrice to teach me something.) However, my boss and coworkers are really nice people and have been more than kind to show me the ropes and share their personal experiences with the LFCL.

Moreover, my first weeks here have changed my life profoundly. Before I started working for the LFCL, I was very critical about my own family’s financial shortcomings. However, my focus on my personal problems began to shift to something more significant more than two weeks ago when we had the Banco de Comida (Food Bank) at the LFCL. During our Bancos de Comida, we clear out the office, making as much space as possible for the food that has been donated to us by Second Harvest Food Bank. Once space has been made and the food has arrived, the staff and our volunteers pack the food into individual boxes that we then distribute to people who come into the office. By the end of the day, we had distributed a little more than a thousand pounds of food to more than thirty families. Did we solve the food insecurity issue among NOLA’s Latinos? No, but at least we demonstrated that we can make the difference in our community.

On my way home after the Banco de Comida, I realized just how fortunate my brothers and I were that our parents never depended on a food bank for our food security. Seeing the need in the people coming into the office that day convinced me that I can no longer dwell on my past, trying to play out the what ifs as I have for the past year or so. Instead, I have come to the realization that I must begin to plan for a better future, one in which I can help change the socioeconomic situation of Latinos not only in New Orleans but throughout this entire country. I, for one, believe that it is the duty of every educated Latino youth to give back to his/her community and make a difference. In a way, this is our debt that we owe to our grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, who gave it their all in the fields, in the factories, in the refineries, and in strangers’ homes to make it possible for us to go to college.

My future remains to be written, and I can’t wait to write it here. ¡Chao amigos!

- Luis Fernando Reyes, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Latino Farmers Co-Operative of Louisiana

Field Report: Kids Rethink New Orleans School

Working at Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools has really been quite interesting. These “kids” are thinking and speaking publicly and advocating for things that I had never even considered a part of my life until later in high school and college. The first week I was there, the Kids and staff were preparing for their annual news conference, so I was caught in the middle of the most hectic time for the summer program.

Kids Rethink has 5 committees that meet during the school year after school and occasionally on weekends. They are: Food Justice, Restorative Justice, Garden, Architecture, and Digital Media. During the summer, the committees all get together during the week and write speeches and create projects to showcase at the news conference. I have to say I was quite impressed with what the Kids were able to do with such little guidance of the staff.

The thing I often forget is that these actually are kids. They may be mature in these respects, but they are still allowed to be immature because, well, they haven’t had the time to fully grow up yet. The first day I was there, two little girls around 10 years old got really excited and wanted to show me around. It was really quite cute that they were so enthusiastic and so attached.

My goals for the first month were to get our donor database in order and send out thank you emails, set up a phone system for the office that has extensions, voice mail forwarding, and a lot of other features that would help us unclog our messages since at any one time, there may be 30 to 100 unread messages on the answering machine left in the office. I have also had to put together a volunteer packet detailing what Kids Rethink does and an application template for them to send to us so we can place them in the appropriate committee or job. I have done almost everything except for the office phone line stuff because customer service at an tech company is extremely lackluster unless the product they sell is only used by extremely tech-savvy clientele. It should be done by the end of the week, though.

So far, I have mainly just been “expanding capacity” in the traditional terms, such as making it easier for staff to get their messages and relay information between each other much quicker and creating more funding through individual donors and whatnot. Though I only spent a week with the Rethinkers, I think I have gained a great deal of insight into this aspect of New Orleans. I look forward to the start of the school year.

Other than that, it’s extremely chill. All of the staff are friendly and accommodating.  Working in a professional setting is really cool because it makes me feel like a real person almost (aka not mooching off my parents, taking care of my business, not crying to anyone when something is wrong and being able to take care of it myself). My parents raised me well to be able to be completely self-sufficient at this age.

Anyway, I have to study. My next field report should be much more entertaining. Everyone should definitely check out the Rethinkers’ Web Page though. Just Google “Kids Rethink”!

When this MCAT nonsense is over with, there will be much rejoicing and a lot more hanging out with my fellow VISTAs.

-Jack Hua, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools

Field Report: Youth Rebuilding New Orleans

My First Couple of Weeks as a VISTA

 

This first couple of weeks as a VISTA has been quite a ride! I am joining Youth Rebuilding New Orleans as it is in the middle of planning for its newest program: Future Leaders. Although I’m coming in during the middle of the start-up process and, I have a lot to learn, I really look forward to being part of it. I am confident that this well-planned program has great potential to make a positive impact on the community. More information on the program is provided below (I helped write this for a grant proposal, so I’m pretty proud of how it turned out!):

The Need

The youth of New Orleans do not have adequate access to job opportunities, leadership development, financial literacy training, civic engagement and college preparation due to a lack of funding and resources within the educational system of New Orleans. Many youth are not being properly educated and trained so that they have fair and equitable opportunities upon graduation. This puts them at a disadvantage when seeking secondary education and job-placement opportunities.

 

The Project

YRNO believes that the Future Leaders Initiative will offset the educational disadvantages of these young scholars. Starting on September 1^st, we will incorporate 2 full-time employees into our team whose sole jobs are to provide academic support to the youth of New Orleans. These full-time mentors, known as Youth Engagement Coordinators, will be coming to us through the Lousiana Delta Service Corps (LDSC). This year, they will be working with the freshman classes of two of our partner high schools in New Orleans. Each freshman class consists of about 150 students.

The Youth Engagement Coordinators (YECs) will serve as consistent role models for the students that they interact with, many of whom don’t have a constant mentor to look to for guidance in their lives. Their responsibilities will include tutoring and mentoring students in various settings, including classical classrooms and more independent after-school tutoring. They will also work with our partner schools to develop and teach a curriculum that consists of lessons on personal life skills, job readiness, home-ownership and financial literacy. The last prong of these employees responsibilities will be to mix in-class service-learning exercises with on and off-site service opportunities. These opportunities may range anywhere from building benches on campus to traveling to one of YRNO’s sites to assist in the rebuilding of a home.

The Future Leaders Initiative has great potential for expansion. Once developed, YECs will modify the curriculum so that it could be taught by any teacher, anywhere. YRNO’s goal for this program is to make the largest possible impact on the community. In having a curriculum that can be taught by any teacher, anywhere, the potential of the program is limitless. The curriculum will allow YRNO to easily place more LDSCs in more partner schools. Establishment of a curriculum will allow the program’s benefits to persist into the future.

 

In other news, my roommate Betsy and I have been having a ball cooking “family” dinners together. We often feed the boys (Jack and Richard) who live right down the hall. It’s been working out much better than either of us expected, especially because we can get the boys to wash dishes and take out the trash! It’s a symbiotic relationship.

 

-Lauren Lim, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Youth Rebuilding New Orleans

Field Report: Green Light New Orleans

 

July

In order to connect with the volunteers for the ELCA event, we’ve designed a social media map to help them and their families find out about the projects they’re working on. We’ve designed a google map with different icons at the location of each project (like a vegetable at each address where a backyard vegetable garden is being built, a lawn mower at each empty lot that is being cleared, etc). The icons will all be colored red and then changed to green when they are completed. As soon as a volunteer group finishes a project, they will take a picture of themselves and send it to the Green Light office. People working in the office will upload the pictures to the map at the address of the project and change the icon on the map to Green so we will have a live update when volunteers finish a project. We will also be posting the pictures of the volunteers to Facebook. Hopefully getting to see their projects on the map will give the volunteers more of a connection to Green Light and the project they are doing.

 

August

            The ELCA event was pretty successful over all. We definitely couldn’t have pulled it off without our awesome NCCC team, River 7! They were incredibly helpful in preparations for the event and leading groups of volunteers during the event. The only unfortunate thing was that almost all of the projects got rained out on Friday the 20^th. In the morning, the buses all arrived at the different sights and the volunteers waited, hoping the thunderstorms would stop. After a while, it became clear that it was not going to stop raining, and the streets were started to flood. Eventually, we decided to send the morning volunteers home. We hoped that the afternoon volunteers might be able to work, but the rain continued throughout the day, and eventually we had to cancel the afternoon groups too. That was disappointing, but Green Light is partnering with 400 volunteers from the AARP in September and they will be able to complete all the projects that were not finished on Friday.

I ended up working in the office during the event, answering phone calls and live updating the impact map, which I wrote about in my July field report, as volunteers sent pictures. The impact map was pretty cool, especially for bragging purposes. A lot of the volunteers never ended up sending pictures of their groups, so we don’t have pictures of everyone, but for most of the projects, we were at least able to list the names of the volunteers.

 

You can check out the impact map here: http://www.greenlightneworleans.org/ELCA/ELCAeventimpact719.html

 

Things are going to be much quieter here now that ELCA is over, but soon we’re going to start planning for the AARP event in September. 400 volunteers are going to seem pretty easy to deal with after 2,400!

 

-Selena Poznak, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Green Light New Orleans

 

Field Report: Carrollton- Hollygrove CDC- Market and Farm

 

 

 

 

Hollygrove Market and Farm is proud to announce the re-launch of its Youth Garden Tour! The tour highlights an urban farm, community garden space, chicken coop and local produce market. By encouraging participating youth to sample herbs and harvest garden produce, the Youth Garden Tour presents a fun and engaging, hands-on learning experience.Our Garden Educator Interns provide lessons on food systems, nutrition and sustainable growing practices. The tour is offered to schools, summer camps and youth programs at no cost and can accommodate up to 50 participants. Visiting groups are encouraged to provide a small donation if they select to receive a garden salad or local produce snack. Hollygrove Market and Farm is currently available to lead tours on Monday and Wednesday mornings between 9:00am and 12:00pm. The summer session of the Youth Garden and Farm Tour will run until August 18^th. Check out the pictures below from some of our recent tours!

 

-Lora White, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Carrollton- Hollygrove Community Development Corporation

 

August Friday Schedule

Friday VISTA Schedule for the Month of

AUGUST

 

3- Service Project

VISTA Site Benjamin Banneker Elementary From 9-3

 

10- Leadership

Training on Age Diversity

 

17- Documentary Series/ Program Evaluation

Partnership Development Series will take place this day as well with our Assistant Director of the Campus Community Partnerships, Amanda Bruberger

 

24- Professional Development

Training with Janet Johnson- Economics of Poverty

 

31- Professional Development

Training with Janet Johnson- Nonprofit Sector

Field Report: Southern Food and Beverage Museum

We’ve been cooking up a storm at Kids Culinary Camp. Check out the blog for updates on the daily activities, Sofabkidsculinarycamp2012.wordpress.com, or read on for some highlights!

Most recipes start with chopping!

Making corn fritters

Look how onions change when you sauté them, and notice the smell!

everyone talking about a recipe that’s important to them and their family

We all take turns adding a different ingredient, then we stir like crazy!

Making butter by shaking a bottle of heavy whipping cream. It’s more fun if you dance while you do it!

Squeezing oranges to make orange juice with the New Orleans Fruit Tree Project

Learning about the origins of traditional New Orleans dishes

A scavenger hunt through the museum, “What makes up the Trinity?” “Where did the name Po-Boy come from?”

Everyone drew their favorite meal from the week and described how it tasted using deccriptive words such as spicy, savory, tangy!

Writing the recipes in our cookbooks so we can make it again at home

We end each day by setting the table and sharing a meal together. It always tastes better because we worked so hard to prepare it and we leave camp full of good food and good conversation!

-Lucy Rosenbloom, Tulane CPS AmeriCorps VISTA, Southern Food and Beverage Museum