Community Schools RPS

The price for Richmond’s children to attend schools that aren’t falling in and oozing sludge, have dangerously high levels of mold, or failing HVAC systems will be $500-$600 million dollars and take 15 years.

In working on the school facilities task force for the past year, I’ll take an educated guess that RPS will easily spend more than $500 million on facilities within the next 15 years, with or without a plan for reform.

In the near future there will be more forced schools closings due to structural or environmental failures. Large sums of money will be spent on short-term, band-aid efforts to continue the lifespan of outdated, inefficient mechanical equipment or outdoor classrooms to address overpopulation.

The fact is if the status quo – reaction – remains, money will not be used for new assets that will accrue capital and cost savings over time. The albatross that is failing facility cost will continue to drain necessary classroom resources, thus forcing the board to make damaging cuts to classroom education, as was seen in the leveling cuts this spring.

It’s a simple concept: if you don’t plan to manage your money, your money will manage you.

The path forward

This isn’t an impossible mountain to climb. In 2000, Cincinnati Public Schools faced a similar situation, the difference being the final price tag was $1 billion. After a year-long facilities master plan, stewarded by administration and vetted by the community, the system adopted a plan for reform and used a combination of state funds and a local bond referendum to secure the necessary funding for a 10-year plan.

In talking with Darlene Kamine who helped lead the reform effort, the key element that led to community buy-in (to pass the bond referendum) was the adoption of a community school model.

Darlene Kamine (NPR Marketplace, 2012)

What are community schools?

Community schools are asset-based, meaning that local resources and attributes drive programming, not outside voices or resources. A public-private partnership is established where the private organization has a physical location on-site and is managed by a resource coordinator. Essential to this model is creating an active school by offering after-school, weekend, and summer programming. Services not only address academic concerns, but must take into account the full physical, mental and emotional health of school children and their families.

Partnerships are developed with a range of private partners from universities (Orlando and Philadelphia), business/philanthropic organizations (Chicago and Cincinnati), or healthcare providers (NYC and Tulsa). In Orlando, University of Central Florida (UCF) signs a 20-year MOU with the lead agency partnership for the school. Check out Coalition for Community Schools, a terrific resource for all community school questions.

According to Lucas Weinsten at NYC’s National Center for Community Schools (NCCS), to achieve this dynamic model the key hurdles are establishing stable leadership, sustainable funding, and mutual respect through transparency and data sharing. That shouldn’t be a problem in Richmond, right?

The Cincinnati Model

To build the community schools recommended in the Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) 2002-2014 Facilities Master Plan, the next 2 years were spent gaining public buy-in through listening and answering questions in community forms, establishing guiding principles and MOUs for partners, and conducting an assessment of school sites.

In 2003, funding was secured with the passage of a local bond referendum with money allocated from the state to implement a decade-long plan.

To lead implementation, CPS subcontracted Darlene Kamine to lead their Community Learning Center Initiative. This involved four 2.5 year planning cycles for 10-12 schools at a time. Deliverables for each cycle included:

• Survey the existing assets and community
• Establish a school-level vision for partnerships with goals to guide programming
• Identify a school partner and develop a sustainable model for management

At the end of the cycle, CPS architects and contractors would contact Ms. Kamine to learn of the desired school vision to inform design and construction of facility improvements.

In 2014, this process completed and was received as a success! Ms. Kamine continued her work and founded the Community Learning Center Institute to further community school partnerships. Also, CPS is now in the process of making all their schools, community schools.

Evans Community School, a partnership between Children's Home Society of Florida, UCF, and Orange County Public Schools (UCF, 2012) 

RICHMOND’S BIG TAKEAWAY  

CPS took time to conduct a truly engaged planning process, which involved not just listening or presenting information, but educating and using input to influence outcomes.

This is social capacity building at its best. By developing local networks of engaged people, infrastructure dollars are furthered by private partnerships and maintained to a higher quality as a sense of ownership is developed for the people living in the community.

The School Board and City Council agreed upon a set of goals and committed to a long-term funding plan to gain community trust.

To develop trust, whether with a parent or large financial backer, expectation for deliverables is paramount. Knowing that improvements will be delivered on schedule will allow for businesses to factor cost into longer-term partnerships, and parents to understand tough decisions about school consolidation and resource allocation.

Allowing a private entity to facilitate the planning process and establish partnerships for community schools shielded this process from becoming too political.

The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) was an original funding source for the engagement and initial planning of community schools. CDF’s role allowed school coordinators to be viewed as neutral players, thus removed from local politics. During the decade-long facilities implementation, Ms. Kamine was sub-contracted, thus never directly a CPS employee.

What needs to happen in Richmond now (and the next 14 months)!

1. The School Board and City Council adopt a comprehensive plan for facilities improvement that is vetted by the community.

An engaged community input process needs to begin so that the facilities task force report can be transparently discussed. Be on the lookout for upcoming dates, as school administration should begin meetings in the near future. [Update on proposed community meeting scheduled for September 28th meeting]

2. The School Board and City Council pass a resolution defining and supporting a commitment to community schools.

Look, here is a great example of a resolution passed by Cincinnati.

3. The Richmond community works to secure funding to implement the adopted facilities reform plan.

Do all of the following:

Contact our state legislators. Look to other states such as Minnesota, Florida, Ohio, or New York that established state grants to fund community schools or school infrastructure.

Aggressively pursue private investment in school partnerships. Use RPS historic resources to leverage private dollars for investment as detailed in Goldman, Kasper, and Rozell’s Style Weekly editorial. Contact our corporate, philanthropic, university, and healthcare partners to work out community school partnership agreements. Enter into efficiency service agreements to pay for new mechanical equipment that could leverage $4 private for every $1 public spent.

Pass a local bond referendum, allocate money in the budget and capital improvement plan, or pass a real estate tax that is directly tied to funding school infrastructure with a sunset clause. These are my favorites, but all options need to be on the table.

4. Gather partnerships and begin a system-wide community schools assessment.

Start by reading this comprehensive action guide for building community schools developed by NCCS.

Work through the RPS Office of Community-School Engagement to amass a list of partners. My initial assessment includes the following:

• District-wide networks = Micah Initiative, Communities in Schools, Richmond Education Foundation, Boys and Girls Club, United Way, Altria, VCU, Sun Trust, Federal Reserve, YMCA, Virginia Lottery, Groundwork RVA, etc.
• Neighborhood-based networks: CHAT, Peter Paul Development Center, Northside Outreach Center, YNPN, neighborhood or merchant associations, faith-based institutions, etc.

Use local planning resources (e.g. VCU’s School of Urban and Regional Planning, UR’s Bonner Center, or Storefront for Community Design) to help guide the community engagement process to conduct an inclusive system-wide assessment.

Storefront for Community Design, a gathering place for community engagement and planning (Self, 2013) 

But really, how can we fund this with Richmond’s vast needs?

When I started dating my wife, nothing would stop me from doing whatever I could to see her. Money, time, energy was not a question.

We need to apply this same ethic to our children’s safety and prosperity by examining where we FIRST spend our money (e.g. FY16 General Fund $700 million and CIP $200 million). Fix our schools, then work out the rest.

A community that stands idly by while children suffer, is not only complacent, but is a part of the problem. As MLK stated, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

If we claim to love Richmond’s children, then what is stopping us?

Change and Relationship (Part 1)

Change and the power of relationship:

By understanding how individuals change, we can design our programs and systems to create locally-driven, lasting solutions.

In solving societal problems (e.g. cyclical poverty, homelessness, school-to-prison pipeline, etc.) we need to recognize the simple fact that it is a process of individual change. Furthermore, this change is not something easily gained, but is many times a life-altering, path-changing, last 15-minutes of ____ [insert name of popular romantic comedy] realization.

From my personal experience and study of service systems and programs, I believe individual change occurs through three distinct relationships, our connection to God/oneself, others, and society.

Connection: A relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else.

Once we understand this process (explained in part 1), we should work backwards to design systems and services to foster healthy relationships, thus increasing engagement, adoption, and lasting change (part 2, the thrilling conclusion).

Part 1: How people change

Why are relationships so important?

True, lasting change only occurs from a relationship. Think to yourself, when is the last time I made a major change and what spurred me to do so? I bet that almost every story involves a relationship or connection with something other than yourself.

“But, Garet we live in America where only two things matter...you and bootstraps!” - early 20th century caricature

While I do agree that personal ambition will keep you moving, you need perspective to make sure you are on the right path.

I’ve heard it explained that there are three types of knowledge: what we know about ourselves, what we know about others, and how others perceive our actions. The latter piece, perspective, can only be obtained through a relationship with another.

A problem with our current service providers (public or private) is that programs are developed and services applied without a clear understanding or emphasis on fostering healthy relationships.

Part of this problem can be attributed to massive underfunding which spreads resources and limits time with individual clients. Another factor is in how large organizations develop into horizontally aligned bureaucracies with specialists working in their own silos. A prime example is in our healthcare system, where a major push is to reestablish the role of a single primary doctor, as opposed to the sea of medical specialists. 

Finally, all too often, whether we are talking about the entire system or individual, we look for quick-fix, external solutions to fix internal long-term challenges. Have a problem, take a pill. 

To help end this negative cycle, we need to refocus well intended service providers to what they are intending to do, help individual change. To do this, they should evaluate their services in how it helps to foster one’s connection to God/oneself, others, and society.

Relationship #1. Connection to God/oneself

One of the most simple and impactful philosophies I’ve discovered is Be-Do-Have. By defining who you are (Be), you will inform your actions (Do), and end up with the things you value most (Have).

This is opposite to our modern view of achievement where we define ourselves by the things we have. In this backward system, we end up doing things to obtaining items, that we hope will define who we are.

I’ll admit I have been caught up in doing. In my passion to help others I would get caught up in over committing my time. In the past I used to rationalize that it was acceptable because my actions were well intentioned and not for personal gain.

Eventually I hit rock bottom. My lowest point came after about 4 years of constantly doing. I found myself feeling lost and without a true purpose. What pulled me out was reconnecting with others others in the church I had been attending, Area 10 Faith Community. In attending a men’s small group on leadership, I was turned on to this concept of Be-Do-Have. Immediately I realized that although my actions were not misguided, they were misinformed. 

Chris Barras, Senior Pastor at Area 10 Faith Community 

Over the next few months I worked on digging deeper into questions of personal belief. At the end of this process, I was better able to define my core values and beliefs by an anchored relationship with Jesus.

Honestly, I would not have thought I could have written and believed that sentence a few years ago. I’ll write more about this journey in another article, but regardless of what you believe, I would challenge you to ask questions and look into your beliefs. It is really that important.

Relationship #2. Connection to others

Once you establish who you are, next, try to connect with one other person.

The importance of connecting with others is paramount to personal development in that only another person can hold you accountable. Programs like Alcoholics Anonymous have tapped into this by connecting each individual with a sponsor to walk with them on their journey to recovery.

In my time serving people in poverty or experiencing homelessness, I’ve seen that a lack of connection with others is a major impediment. Many of these people come from broken families and loneliness. They've just got out of jail or need medical help, and they are all alone.

Carolann Pacer-Ramsey, former director of Hilltop Promises, showed me that at the start of a relationship, especially where you are providing services to another, you must must humble yourself, listen, and do for the other person first. In the book, Toxic Charities, Robert Lupton describes this as meeting another’s crisis need. By meeting this initial need, you place yourself in the position of servant and acknowledge that much can be learned by each person, thus implying that a relationship, not just a handout is to be gained. 

Hilltop Promises on Broad Street 

By focusing on one relationship at a time, we can start to develop deep, lasting relationships that will break barriers of misperception.

Relationship #3. Connection to society

Through self-definition one can begin to develop healthy relationships with others, and the interconnected network of these relationships becomes a society. But, figuring out one’s position can be a daunting task.

A major hurdle to connecting into society is the misperception caused by labeling of the “other.” By labeling people as homeless, disabled, felons, or immigrants, we relegate the fact that these are people first.

To combat this we should intentionally seek out relationships (see step #2) with the “others” of society. As a follower of Jesus, this is a pretty easy sell because of the “what you do for the least of my brothers and sisters” thing. But what I’ve experienced in serving, is that after you develop relationships with people (Jerry, Steve, Sarah, etc.), the preconceived notions from their societal labels (e.g. sexual offender, felon, mentally disabled, etc.) are seen in a totally different light.

The next pitfall of our system is is the misunderstanding that a relationship requires sacrifice...from each person.

Going back to Robert Lupton’s book Toxic Charities, a crisis need is that initial emergency response to stabilize a situation. This is opposed to a chronic need, which is an on-going, ingrained, action that requires a longer-term solution.

The problem of our current system, although well intentioned, is that we apply crisis responses to chronic needs. Mr. Lupton explains this as, “A crisis requires emergency intervention; A chronic problem requires development. Address a crisis need with a crisis intervention, and lives are saved. Address a chronic need with a crisis intervention, and people are harmed.”

This can be seen in services that offer only one-way handouts. Although the free clothing closets or sandwiches in the park have their place, they are too often used as an excuse to “give a little and say its all we can do.”

We need to replicate relationship-driven services like those happening at the Peter Paul Development Center (PPDC). I’ve had the pleasure of hearing director Damon Jiggetts speak and visited the center this past summer. In all of their programming they carefully apply services to ensure that chronic issues are being met with chronic, not crisis, solutions.

Damon Jiggets, Director of PPDC

Finally, for those looking to reconnect into society a safe environment for learning new skills is paramount to recovery. 

At Hilltop Promises, after developing a relationship with individuals coming for service, Carolann offered counseling and workplace training skills. This allowed individuals going through recovery to train in a safe environment. This understanding of safety can only be gained after an initial relationship is established.

The problem is that workforce development programs are rarely tied to other counseling or relational-based services. Many times people are left on their own after they got a job or completed the class. This idea that a job solves all almost never lasts without other supports (e.g. relationships #1 and #2) in place.

In part 2 I’ll delve into best practices and thoughts on how we can better design our services and systems to compliment this individual learning process. Let me know your thoughts and experiences with serving others. How has this changed you? What happens when it goes right, and more importantly what have you learned from when it goes wrong?

Continue reading for Part 2, the thrilling conclusion. 

A Garet in Richmond (AGiRVA)

Welcome to my blog about the city that I live in and love, Richmond, Virginia.

I am passionate about eradicating concentrated pockets of poverty in our city. From working in the region and serving in Richmond these past 7 years as a teacher, planner, and advocate, I believe the tools of faith, neighborhood planning, and education reform will transform this city.

This page is a repository of my thoughts, but will also hopefully provide links to other great resources on the web or in print.

That's it for post #1. Hope you join in on the conversation.