Pathway to Excellence Year Two
Based on our work in Year One, we determined that there was a need to continue to provide specific support to programs that serve high percentages of English Language Learners. For Year Two, SOWA contracted again with the Center for Afterschool Education at Foundations, Inc. (the Center) to be the content experts. SOWA recruited 53 program staff from 36 afterschool programs serving 1818 children and youth and three PTE coaches from Washington and Oregon to participate at Bridge. There were 36 learning community (LC) participants and 17 conference-only participants (CO) at the 2008 Bridge conference. A Center trainer shared insights around continuing with the same content area: “Building from the experience of working with the Year One Cohort, the Center collaborated with SOWA to revise and implement SOWA’s coaching model to maximize the impact of face-to-face training on afterschool practice at the site level”.
The Center offered two sessions at Bridge: "It’s More Than Just Talk" (MTJT) and "English Language Learning, Afterschool Style". Participants were encouraged to sit and work together at tables specifically designated for the age groups they served. A PTE Year One coach co-presented with the Center’s trainers, which proved a beneficial model, as the Center noted, “she offered tangible examples of how the sites she coached in Year One put the content of MTJT into practice”. SOWA brought six Year One participants, two from each region, to Bridge to share best practices and family engagement strategies from their PTE experience with the Year Two participants.
In Year Two, the PTE geographic regions were in North and South King County, Washington, and in the greater Portland, Oregon, area. We required LCs to meet four times, including one meeting in each region prior to Bridge. This provided an opportunity to meet one another and the coach and to talk about the evaluation process. An unexpected outcome from Year One was the desire from two of the LCs to continue to meet in Year 2 even though they were no longer enrolled in the PTE Project. Participants valued the networking, sharing of resources, and the support provided by coaches. After their year ended, several Year One participants collaborated on projects that mutually supported each other’s programs.
At Bridge, a Year Two participant met a Year One panel presenter who served youth in the same public housing community. One program served East African youth and the other served Vietnamese youth; the two staff shared their observations that the two groups of youth rarely interacted with each other in the community. Staff from both programs worked in collaboration to organize a joint field trip to the Seattle Aquarium. This event created positive opportunities for both organizations to learn from each other and help the youth connect through a fun and educational activity. Bringing these two culturally based programs together would not have happened without the connection made through PTE.
This year, several of our programs were part of the Refugee School Impact Grant (RSIG) Project, which is also administered by SOWA. We also included more programs serving older youth. The coaches worked closely with staff using the Center’s MTJT and the Global Graffiti Wall curriculums to make the adjustments needed to provide age-appropriate programming for the children and youth they serve. One provider reported, “We are using more literacy games from MTJT and also put up a Graffiti Wall activity every day. A big change for us is more staff awareness of the language learning process so that we can try to better assess and meet our specific needs.”
We saw an increase in the on-line discussion board postings this year. The Center summarized the topics posted by the LC participants and these included: learning activities, both from MTJT and from other sources, dealing with racial tensions, youth voice and choice, training tutors and culturally relevant programming. Based on feedback from the coaches, the mid-year coaches’ meeting facilitated by the Center was designed to address building cultural competency within program sites, helping site staff design culturally relevant activities, and meeting the needs of older youth.