Field Report: FirstLine Schools

My last update was a couple months ago, and much has happened since then. I have a pretty clear understanding of what my job here entails, and what I should accomplish by the end of my VISTA term in July.

Interns

I recently designed an Intern Request Packet for FirstLine. For the past few months, I have been posting intern openings on various websites, going to service fairs, etc. So far, I’ve only filled two positions, but the others are all in the interview phase. Until now, however, FirstLine had no real internship program. Individual staff/faculty member could seek out interns independently, but rarely had the means or time to do so.

By the time I leave, I hope to have a system in place for any employee of FLS to request and intern using a standard form, and asking HR to seek and screen candidates.

Newsletters

Three of four schools I work with regularly produce newsletter. I design the one at LHA, and the other two schools handle it themselves. I also design and produce our network newsletter, the Parent Resource Central.

There has been some skepticism as to how many parents actually read these newsletters, so I’ve set up an experiment. For the next round of publications, I’ll place a small ad in the three school newsletters. There will be an email address and phone number, and parents can enter to win a gift card. This will accomplish three things: answer to how many parents read it, answer to how parents prefer to response, and also if we ask a question it doubles as a survey. Not to mention, of course, the cumulative promotional effect.

By the end of my service year, my main priorities are to make sure every school and the network are set up to continue productions of the newsletters. I would like to to see more parents getting involved, and my goal will be to hand off to them as much as possible.

Enrollment

Every Friday I meet with the FLS Enrollment Team to assist with the student enrollment push for next school year. I produced a spreadsheet with all the local daycares centers, then split it up by geographic location and sent it to the respectively closest schools. I’m also seeking an intern or two to help with data entry and outreach needed to support enrollment efforts. When needed, I visit the schools to check in and offer assistance, share out information, or pick up and drop off more OneApp forms.

Event Promotion

Over the past few months, I’ve helped promote a number of events. These included Community Days and Food Days at various schools, plus getting the word out about parents meetings and other events. I used both the newsletters and SchoolReach as a communication tool.

In December, I helped set up for the Outreach Winter Showcase at Green Charter School. I worked with Tulane Center for Public service to use that event as an opportunity to enter the CWAM Super Service Challenge, sponsored by the Drew Brees Foundation. In the end, Outreach won $2000.

My VISTA counterpart over at Clark Prep High School is organizing a 5K + Health Fair, and she asked me to assist a little with that. I built our event website over at Eventbrite.com, designed the sponsor letter, and helped make some connections with the FirstLine K-8 schools.

Parents

I’ve been attending most of the monthly parent organization meetings at each school. This leads me to The Parent Question, a sort of step-back-and-look  that I’ve been asked to think about. The question is, “Why do we care about parents?” I’ve also expanded it to ask why do they care about us, if they do.

The first thing I realized was that the lack of parent engagement in our school does not seem to be related to logistics. You can tweak the date and time, you can expand the number of communication methods, you can bring lots of food; none of this guarantees that parents will come to your school event or meeting.

I think what our parents care about most is Legacy. If we give them more power and responsibility in their school and fold them into the story of FirstLine’s rise to success, I believe they will be more enthusiastic and involved. The newsletters could be a great way to start this process.

Etcetera

I take on various random tasks as they come up. My supervisor recently asked me to start organization an athletics award ceremony, so I’ll be looking into that soon. I went to the MLK Service Day at Arthur Ashe and help remove sod from a new garden bed.

I continue to write the occasional blog post, all of which can be viewed here: http://firstlineschools.blogspot.com/

My work at FirstLine so far has been extremely rewarding. I’ve been busy and productive, and I’ve had a great time getting to know the people here. My hope is to really get everything I started done by the end of the year, and to make sure the systems and projects I initiated this year have a way to thrive once I’m gone.

 

-Jason Lacoste, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, FirstLine Schools

Field Report: Plessy School

The last couple of months have flown by as a series of experiences.  I lived through my first hurricane, had my first drive-thru daiquiri  gutted my first house, pet my first alligator, and finally got a taste of Cajun food.  Hurricane Isaac gave me a taste of the chaos with natural disasters.  I volunteered in the 311 call center, and it left me with an invaluable sense for the culture here.  Some of the calls were desperate, while others were unbelievable.  I got one call from a man who wanted to report price gauging on his illicit drugs.  Yes, that actually happened, and if you heard this man you would just know that he was not prank calling out of boredom.  Daiquiri’s are amazing, and by that I mean the best idea ever!  While I have seen pictures and commercials before of cleaning up the wreck after a hurricane, I don’t think anything could have prepared me to stand there among the flooded homes.  The families that I met on a day of service in Braithwaite, Plaquemines Parish were some of the strongest people I have met.  While they lost everything, they never forgot that they have each other.  While they watched us tear apart the walls and floors, they never forgot to say thank you.  While they didn’t have a place to call home, they never forgot how to smile.  While they struggled to rebuild after disaster, they never lost hope.  These families and the family that became the 311 call center taught me what a community looks like in New Orleans.  It is not geographical, but the bond that is formed with your neighbors, colleagues, and friends.

The hurricane was a disaster disguised as a blessing for my work at Plessy.  I was able to meet key gatekeepers into the community while working in 311, and they have since been essential to helping me spread the outreach of Plessy.  Work seems to run much more smoothly with these connections in place.  Plessy will be hosting a few of the Children’s areas during the upcoming festival season.  We will be at the Fete Marigny, Mirliton, and St. Claude Main Street Night Market festivals.  Now I must go and jump into head first into the next month!

- Jean Hsu, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Homer Plessy School

Field Report: Latino Farmers Cooperative of Louisiana

The cold winds approach,

But this VISTA is content

For Service warms me.

 

This new purpose in my life

Enriches my soul

With ardent strength, conviction.

 

Wisdom, walk with me;

Love, illuminate the path;

Doubt, wither away.

 

It’s been thirteen weeks since I started working with the Latino Farmers’ Cooperative of Louisiana (LFCL). I remember that on my first day I was intimidated by the fact that I had never held a real job before and that in my hands would be entrusted so much. I didn’t think that I would do well at first, but in the past months, I have adapted to accept more and more responsibility. Recently, we were awarded a grant of $10,000 by the Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF) as part of their initiative to ameliorate the hardships people in our community have felt since Hurricane Isaac. With the grant money from GNOF, Operation AYUDA, our two month-long initiative to assist Latinos still recovering from wage and food-losses caused by Isaac, can now move forward and provide 14,000 pounds of food to over 400 families in the area. For me, this was a personal triumph because this was the first grant that I helped write. Hearing that our proposal was accepted made me feel like I could make a difference in my community.

However, there are things that are starting to get me. For one, we have missed out on so many opportunities to go into the community and try to generate interest in our organizations. Through social media I have been able to increase our presence online. In fact, the other day two girls from Xavier University came by to gather information for a presentation they were going to give in front of their communications class. When I asked how they found us, they responded that by looking online and finding our Facebook were they able to learn more about us. While that is good and all, I do believe that this organization can expand the community’s awareness of its existence through more publicity and attendance at festivals, even if they have little relevancy with our mission. I have made it a goal of mine to convince my organization’s executive director that the only way we can find more board members and revenue is through increasing our presence throughout New Orleans. We’ll just have to wait and see what the incoming months bring.

 

-Fernando Reyes, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Latino Farmers Cooperative of Louisiana

Field Report: Firstline Schools

It occurred to me at some point that one of the most important skills to have is the ability to build bridges. While my placement at FirstLine may sometimes be confusing and scattered, it is the perfect way to practice the delicate intricacies of professional networking. Indeed, becoming familiar with school leaders and their needs is the foundation of my job. Even now, I’ve just left FirstLine’s second board meeting of the year, waiting for Arthur Ashe Charter School’s parent meeting to begin.

One of my newest projects is to measure the volunteer capacity and organization at FLS. I was advised that, before I begin trying to recruit new volunteers, I should gain an understanding of where our volunteers come from already. In a nutshell, each of the four schools I work with have three primary sources of volunteer recruitment: Edible Schoolyard, New Orleans Outreach, and parent organizations. To what degree they cross over and collaborate, I have yet to learn. Once I understand this and whatever challenges the network faces in finding and retaining volunteers, I will help find ways to improve recruitment, tracking, and assignment.

Besides mapping out the volunteer structure at FLS and trying to spur collaboration between parent groups at each school, I have also been busy writing blog posts, which can be found here: http://firstlineschools.blogspot.com/.

Over the weekend I went to Ashe’s Community Day and channeled my skills as a landscaper to help lay sod in their new ESY garden. Earlier in the week, I bounced from school to school, taking pictures of famous people. The NFL Today hosts, James “JB” Brown and Dan Marino, visited the ESY garden at Green Charter with a host of volunteers in tow. Later in the day, Hornets player Eric Gordon made an appearance at Langston Hughes Academy.

I love my job. It’s messy and ambiguous, but FirstLine is a great organization and I believe in what we’re doing. I’m learning and practicing invaluable skills, meeting and collaborating with dedicated staff and parents, and quickly training myself to be an effective organizer. Time does seem to be passing quickly, but I try to remind myself that it’s still the beginning and there’s plenty of time to get things done.

-Jason Lacoste, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, FirstLine Schools

Field Report: Youth Rebuilding New Orleans

 

I can’t believe it’s been another month already!

Before Isaac came along, I had anticipated that I would use this blog to provide an update on what has been cooking at YRNO over the past month: The Youth Engagement Coordinators for the Future Leaders Initiative have started working full time at KIPP Renaisance and Sci Academy; We had (almost) secured 2 Tulane CPS interns for the fall; The project sites have been coming along nicely; YRNO was planning for a huge, 80-volunteer service day with the OG Cares Foundation.

However, the coming (and going) of Hurricane Isaac has given me a different perspective on the past month. Before Isaac hit New Orleans, my boyfriend and I were fortunate enough to be able to evacuate to his parents’ home in Mandeville. There, we were able to safely ride out the storm. I was thankful that his family was so welcoming of me into their home, that we did not lose power and that the house did not sustain any serious damage.

It wasn’t until I returned to the city, however, that I was able to fully appreciate how truly fortunate we were. This was my first hurricane. Returning to a city of flooded streets, downed power lines and debris was shocking. Soon after returning, my roommate, Betsy, and I volunteered at the NOLA 311 call center. Although I was probably more trouble to the call center than we were worth (I seem to be a magnet for technical difficulties), it was an eye-opening experience. We received calls from all across the city, heard stories of countless hardships brought on by the storm and did our best to provide assistance. Although I had complained of cabin fever from my experience, the call center made it really hit home that my experience was nothing in comparison to what many in the city faced.

Serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA during the hurricane has given me the unique opportunity to witness the ground level of the recovery effort. I am endlessly inspired by the amazing non-profits that take the initiative to keep the city afloat. I am amazed at the selflessness and the kindness demonstrated by so many members of the New Orleans community.

The leaders at YRNO are in the process of planning multiple large-scale days of service to assist those whose homes were flooded in Laplace and Lafitte. I am fortunate to be working at an organization that continually demonstrates such willingness and ability to help. Thank you, in advance, to all of those who are volunteering with YRNO!

Best wishes,

Lauren

 

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

 

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: ARISE Academy

 

In the past weeks I have learned more about the city of New Orleans than I have in the previous 3 years that I’ve lived here. Being able to be outside the “Tulane Bubble” and plopped into the St. Claude community has been quite an eye opening experience.

 

To start, the majority of the work has been developing and implementing numerous programs in the St. Claude community. From a Debate Program, to mentoring, I hope to have a school filled with young people willing to help our scholars. It has been quite difficult to get the responses that I have been searching for. I thought that with my connections at Tulane Athletics, things would just fall into place. However, that is not the case. It’s interesting that the majority of students want to their work at “already developed schools,” especially those with programs SPECIFICALLY suited for them. For instance, a music major at Tulane had emailed me the day before he was supposed to have an internship, as soon as he found out he would not be able to work exclusively in the area he wanted, he bailed fast. After that, the most important thing that i am looking for in volunteers as well as interns is their ability to be a team player. This leads me back to my own experiences with Hurricane Issac at ARISE. Because we don’t have school this week, the operations team has to help in anyway we can.

 

It’s been a rough few weeks, but I hope things will start getting better.

 

-Kylie Kastes, Tulane Education VISTA, ARISE Academy

 

Field Report: Alliance for Affordable Energy

NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE

 

To me the end of  August will always represent the end of summer. In Pennsylvania, where I grew up, the summer weather was never consistent. There were a lot of sticky humid days,  a few clear blue sky days, but plenty of rainy days. Maybe, that’s why it was so plush green during the summer.  I do remember heavy, cloudy skies more than clear, blue ones, and when September rolled in the warm weather rolled right out. Every green thing dried up and died, daylight seemed to shrink and the temperature dropped faster then we could sometimes pile on the layers of clothes to keep warm. It would rain more and more each day until the rain turned to freezing rain. You knew then that the snow wasn’t far behind, and it was rarely that good snowball packing kind of snow, but before the snow would fall I remember the brisk early morning walks to school, and wondering how summer could ever return from this cold, brown dead environment, but Spring always returned and there was always another lush green Summer that followed.

In San Francisco, CA the end of August meant that Indian Summer wasn’t far behind. Two weeks of brilliant, warm blue-sky weather stretching across the whole bay area. Now, earthquakes do shake things up there, but mostly small earthquakes, and you do get use to them after awhile.  To me those little earthquakes and tremors always felt like someone giving a sharp nudge or a shove, which made you lose your balance for just a moment. It also reminded you where you were in the world, which was somewhere near the San Andreas fault, but instead of worrying about it people would hit the beach, hang out at the golden gate park, and of course enjoy the warm evenings in the city.  Even the leather jackets, which are common wear for most San Franciscans throughout the year, are tossed aside during this time. The evening fog magically holds back its clammy, drizzly self and  provides a few weeks of gorgeous weather.  Of course, the normal San Francisco weather does return and usually with vengeance. The fog rolls in and wraps around you in a bone chilling hug  and the leather wears are in quick fashion again and life goes on as usual.

In Chicago, IL the summers are painfully hot and the winters are pretty cold, but with less snow then I would have thought. At the end of August the weather changes, but gradually over time with a mix of hot days and rainy days. The mornings become cooler and the leaves dry into those burnt fall colors, which swirl around on the windy days, which are quite rare in Chicago.  It’s the politicians in the windy city that are windy not the weather. One thing I do miss in Chicago are the ice cream truck vendors that roamed the neighborhoods.  I can still hear the ice cream truck jingle that blared out in repetition on those melting, hot summer days, and the watching all the vendor trucks maneuvering up and down the neighborhood streets selling their cold sweets.  Although, once the weather starts to change you only hear the jingle from a faint distance, but I know they’ll return next summer in droves.

 

In Hawaii, on the Big Island, it rains every damn day and not just once a day, it will rain five times a day, and always  in a  torrential downpour.  It gets pretty humid there too, but an ocean breeze will float in and usually keep things comfortable. On the island, you worry about Tsunamis. In Hilo, the town I lived in, it was washed away quite a few times in the past and they have a Tsunamis museum downtown that document every event. Of course, there are volcanic eruptions  on the island too, but they happen on the other side of the island.  I drove thru an area that was recently covered by lava and it looked like giants had come thru with massive machinery and just ploughed the land up plowing over homes, apartment buildings, cars, and trees right down to the ocean.  During the day you can smell the smoke from the volcanic eruptions and watch the smoke billow skyward. At night while the tiny coqui frogs serenade each other  you can see a fuzzy orange glow in the distance from the volcano, but once the  lava flow cools, and the plants start to sprout back up people return to their land and rebuild. It’s a perpetual cycle of survival on the island.

 

Of course, here in New Orleans, LA the end of August means temperatures continue to hover around broiling with a large dose of humidity, and Hurricane watching becomes a full-time job.  Hurricanes and tropical storms are expected in this area: Heavy rains, downed power lines, uprooted trees, and everything in the path of these storms are affected. Homes flood, electricity is lost for days at a time, people lose all their things, and yet as soon as the calamity is over people return to clean up and rebuild. It’s what survivors do. No matter where you live in the world you deal with what nature throws at you and then you carry on.

 

 

 

 

-Jon Scott, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Alliance for Affordable Energy

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: Puentes New Orleans

This month Puentes’ has some important things coming up, check them out:

 

Join Puentes’ Initiative, Welcoming Louisiana, for a Film Screening

Join Welcoming Louisiana for a FREE Screening of Hawo’s Dinner Party. This film follows the trajectory of Hawo Siyad, a refugee and former nurse from Somalia. She is determined to learn English and to connect with her neighbors. But as news of “home grown terrorism” appears in the national media and as haw tries to reach out, we get an intimate glimpse into the honest and often uncomfortable confrontations that emerge. Refreshments will be provided as well as an interesting discussion after the movie. The screening will take place from 6pm to 8:30 pm at the Muslim Academy at 460 Realty Drive Gretna, LA 70056 on Friday August, 24th. Please call Puentes’ office for more information; 504-821-7228.

 

 

Public Leaders Fellowship

 

Puentes New Orleans is recruiting rising community leaders for its Public Leaders Fellowship. This program’s goal is to build the capacity of rising community leaders to meaningfully engage themselves and their communities in civic life by training them in concepts of public leadership, community organizing and advocacy, and by providing them with concrete skills and tools for accessing, engaging, and holding accountable decision-makers at all levels of government. The fellowship is completely free to all accepted participants.  We have designed the fellowship so that it has minimal interference with weekday workdays.

This eight-month program is a collaboration of Puentes New Orleans, Neighborhoods Partnership Network, and Committee for a Better New Orleans (all member of the New Orleans Coalition on Open Governance).  Please contact Rafael Delgadillo at (504) 495-4803 if you are interested in the program or know a qualified nominee.

 

-Sadira Glenndeming, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Puentes New Orleans