A Powerful Moment for Community Schools

 

Guest Blogger, Lisa Villarreal, Former Chair, Coalition for Community Schools

 From the moment we walked into the Los Angeles Convention Center for the Community Schools X Family Engagement 2022 Conference, I was filled with emotion. 3500 registered participants from every state in the union as well as several other countries. After 2+ years of pandemic lockdown and ugly politics, with public schools under the spotlight of national polarization, it was clear that the time for community schools strategy and phenomenon had absolutely come.

 The full service Community Schools movement in California and across America has truly arrived. But this is not a Community School of 1995, or even 2005, or I dare to say 2015. These are the community schools of the future, where Maslow's triangle of self-actualization is acknowledged as the original tepee of the Blackfoot tribe, where community is at the center. Where wraparound is a term of the past, and community is the operative term of today. Where community school collaboratives are building an infrastructure that will survive changes in principal leadership, superintendencies, policies and programs, because this is the future of how we are going to do schools.

 A community school that acknowledges and takes seriously the phrase "en loco parentis" because that is the legal charge for school boards and the schools they govern, -- to act in the best interest of children in place of the parents whom they are not with for six hours a day or more. An audacious charge, an audacious responsibility that the community does not take lightly, an idea whose time is simultaneously as old as the concept of public schools in America, and as new as the incredible federal and state funding that have arrived for the work. A practice that focuses Not on Deficits to be addressed with services for disadvantaged populations, but creates the necessary conditions for learning so that students can truly thrive and succeed far beyond their families’ wildest dreams. This is the Community Schools Revolution: Building Partnerships, Transforming Lives, Advancing Democracy!

Community Schools: A Finger Nail History.

 

At the community schools x family engement conference earlier in June I spoke briefly on a panel with former colleagues, Jose Munoz, Lisa Villarreal, and Reuben Jacobson about the history of the movement. My goal was to put today's work into context. I decided to share a very brief summary with a wider audience. Here we go.

In the early years of our democracy, Americans built schools where they gathered, danced, voted, and sometime gambled.  As our nation matured in the 19^th century, public schools became more formal institutions, with school boards and school superintendents leading the way, too often leaving the community behind.

Aspects of community schools emerged more extensively in the progressive era, with Jane Addams, bringing the settlement house into the school.  John Dewey built on Addams approach to create the concept of the as a social center where everyone would have the fullest opportunity for their development and is born of our entire democratic movement.

In the depression era, Elsie Clapp in rural West Virginia and Leonard Covello in East Harlem created schools with deep roots in the community focus on the school as a vehicle for community problem solving and preparing students for democratic citizenship. In neither case however were the partnerships in place that we now know are so essential to growing and sustaining community schools.

In the late 1940’s, Frank Manley and Charles Stewart Mott gained traction for the idea that schools are public institutions and should be open for public purposes and partnerships.  Their community schools thrust was adopted in a number of places. By the mid-1960’s however, that effort shifted away from the public school as the focal point for change through partnership and community engagement toward community and adult education programs. While many districts adopted community education programs, the catalytic role of the community school faded.

Also In the 1960’s Bill Milliken founded what is now Community In Schools (CIS) to bring the resources of the community into school. CIS now operates in many communities under the rubric of integrated student support, one of the pillars of community schools identified by the Learning Policy Institute research.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the seeds of the modern community schools movement were planted. The now Netter Center at the University of Pennsylvania helped organize the West Philadelphia Improvement Corporation that brought the assets of the university into local public schools and began the university assisted community schools effort. The Children's Aid Society closed a mental health center in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood and brought that program and multiple other assets into its first community school I.S. 218, now the Salome Urena Leadership Academy Around the same, New York City started Beacon schools an effort to bring community-based organizations into public schools to offer after school opportunities and reduce violence in the community. Researcher and advocate, Joy Dryfoos, wrote about Full Service Schools around the same time, further developing the idea.

All of those different efforts have become part of the broader community schools movement with hundreds of communities and thousands of schools building deep, intentional and sustaining partnerships to help their children thrive, strengthen their families and communities, and promote democratic citizenship. Following the leadership of local districts, parents and community partners, state and federal governments are stepping up their public advocacy investments in community schools.

People ask why the community school vision and strategy did not have wider salience and uptick in earlier years. There are several reasons. First there was insufficient emphasis on partnerships as the essential heartbeat of community schools. There was also no political strategy to mobilize a broad array of stakeholders to influence policy and promote the idea. And finally the work was too often not sufficiently closely connected to the core teaching and learning mission around public schools.

The modern community schools movement has sought to address these and other challenges. In the next blog I will discuss how and what we must continue to do.

In the meantime to learn more…

Community Schools in Action: Lessons from a Decade of Practice, Edited by Joy G. Dryfoos, Jane Quinn, and Carol Barking,

Dewey's Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform. Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, and John Puckett.

Full-Service Schools: A Revolution in Health and Social Services for Children, Youth, and Families, Joy Dryfoos.

Leonard Covello and the Making of Benjamin Franklin High School: Education as if Citizenship Mattered by John L Puckett and Michael C Johanek.

The Enduring Appeal of Community Schools: Education Has Always Been a Community Endeavor, Lee Benson, Ira Harkavy, Michael Johanek, and John Puckett.

The School as Social Center, John Dewey.

Community School Coordinators: A Unique Group of People

 This week, the Coalition for Community Schools celebrates the work of community school coordinators. I remember well when Jen Masutani who managed the Coordinators Network first proposed the idea that we should celebrate the work of these unique individuals (sometimes called directors or managers).

 Everyone got on board quickly and so did our Coalition partners. We all knew that it took a special kind of individual to bridge the gap between school, students, families, and community. It's worth taking a quick look at the work that these individuals do to understand the unique skill set it takes to make that happen.

 Community schools coordinators reach out to students and families listen to their needs and concerns and create opportunities for them to take part in the life of the school. They make sure that students and their families get the support they need in tough times -- food housing assistance, counseling, hotspots and more..

 Coordinators bring the voice of the community to school staff helping them to understands the challenges the community faces. They serve on school leadership teams ensuring that community concerns are not at the bottom of the list of school issues but near the top, knowing that how schools address these issues will impact student success.

 Community school coordinators reach out to partners in the community encouraging them to bring their resources and expertise, and their people, to the school. They are uniquely able to create a supportive environment for partners so their work is productive and their volunteers are recognized and supported.

 They often will lead site leadership teams where students, parents community partners and educators come together to plan for the work of community school, and to ensure accountability. Coordinators are the glue in those teams preparing for and facilitating meetings and following up on to build the culture of the community school.

 Coordinators are part social worker, youth developer, community organizer, community planner and so much more. Just who does this kind of work? 

To my knowledge we do not have detailed information, but what we do know is that they come from many different backgrounds and disciplines. Many are social workers with a bent toward community organizing who want to build bridges as well as work directly with students and families. Some are teachers who have a stronger inclination toward community and wanting more flexible role have Others are community activists or parents with a natural ability to bring people together and create community. Most work for community partners while school districts employ others.  Regardless of their backgrounds, they all share a deep commitment to the success of students and their families and the importance of building community around our schools.

 What needs to happen in the future in order to make the role of a community school coordinator a permanent and thriving part of our schools? There are three ways to think about this. First of course we need school boards and superintendents, United Ways, local governments, CBOs and higher education institutions to work to create more Community school strategy. That will create even more jobs for community school coordinators and bring recognition of the role of more leaders and policymakers. And we need more investment in the preparation and ongoing professional development for these individuals.

 Second, we need to enhance the professional preparation of Coordinators, encouraging more people to see the work as a career opportunity. There are few higher education programs designed to prepare people for this kind of work. The University of Chicago School of Social Services Administration has such a program and SUNY Binghamton has an online certification program, but much more must be done.

 And finally we need more inter-professional development courses for people preparing to be teachers, principals, nurses, counselors, community planners so they can learn to work together in schools and communities. I believe this will lead more people to see the possibilities in the work that community school coordinators do.

 It’s an exciting time to be involved in the community schools arena. Evaluations show great results, policymakers are paying attention and President Biden is asking for more funding.

 Community school coordinators have been in the vanguard of making that happen. Let’s say thank you and wish them.

Marty Blank

Founding Director, Coailtion for Community Schools

Higher Ed and Community Schools: Wagner College and Port Richmond High School Lead the Way

As I rode the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan, I wondered what I would learn about how a higher education institution and a public high school that becomes a community schools can work together in ways that are transformative for both organizations and the people they serve.

.

I knew Richard Guarasci the president of Wagner College and Tim Gannon former principal of Port Richmond High School (PRHS), and now a New York City Department of Education’s Supervisory Support Principal from meetings of the Anchor Institutions Task Force. We started in Guarasci’s office, where Kevin Bott, Director of Wagner’s Center for Leadership and Community Engagement, joined us. Tim and I then visited Port Richmond High School and Markham Intermediate School 51.  These schools along with PS. 21 and other local elementary schools are now part of the Port Richmond Partnership and the Wagner College Educational Pipeline.

Port Richmond is a lower income neighborhood of largely single-family dwellings, which is 26.7% White, 21% Black, 45.7% Hispanic, and 3.7% other; a significant portion of the Hispanic population consists of undocumented Mexicans. The immediate vicinity of the school has seen the largest increase in section 8 housing in New York City, bringing even more low incomes student to the school

Here’s some of what learned.

Richard Guarasci brought a long history of work in civic engagement and democratic learning to Wagner College. He wanted Wagner to model these principles. The

 Wagner Civic Action Plan 2018 captures the college’s partnership with The Plan illustrates how far the college has come not only in education, but in building partnerships to address arts and culture, economic development, immigration and health and wellness

Guarasci’s relationship with Tim Gannon, a native of Staten Island, was pivotal to Wagner’s education work. Guarasci shared his vision with Gannon and the two men immediately knew that they were kindred spirts. Guarasci’s vision for partnering Wagner College with the Port Richmond community was exactly aligned to Gannon’s vision of what his school’s local community needed.

Gannon knew that his students had little or no exposure to college. He knew that Wagner, the college on the hill 2 short miles away, could help. He accepted Guarasci’s challenge to find a way to overcome the obstacles inherent in coupling higher education with K-12 bureaucracy.

Port Richmond Partnership Leadership Academy: A College Readiness and Civic Engagement Program

Gannon and Guarasci started by organizing The Port Richmond Partnership Leadership Academy (PRPLA) in 2013. PRPLA brings a dozen Port Richmond High students for whom college was a distant dream, to Wagner each year. Beginning the summer after sophomore year, they participate in enriching high school and college classes, complete a community advocacy project and explore college opportunities after each year of high school and just before they head to college. Wagner funds the program.  Nearly 100% of the students are in college or have graduated.

The civic engagement and community advocacy aspect of the program has had particular impact.  Students began by doing a community assets map of Port Richmond. They took parents, family and friends around to show them the assets they identified – art venues, gardens, social services, immigration and other resources. Students have become involved with indoor and outdoor murals community gardens, cleanup projects and in the Staten Island Borough President’s office. 

For Gannon, “the civic piece gave them a sense of independence.” For Kevin Bott, the civic experience “helps students go from seeing themselves as recipients of service to having an idea that they can make a difference that they can advocate for themselves and others. “This kind of agency is just what students need.

Beyond PRPLA, every single PRHS student now visits Wagner annually; and civic action and community advocacy is an aspect of the curriculum for large numbers of students at PRHS. Wagner College students, interacting with high school students regularly have helped the teenagers build what Gannon calls “college self-esteem”- the belief in one’s self that they can succeed in college.

K-12 Principals in Port Richmond know one another, so when Nick Mele, the principal at Markham Intermediate School 51, heard about PRPLA he wanted a similar opportunity for his students. Now 20 Markham Leadership Academy students spend two weeks each summer on the Wagner campus pursuing academic enrichment, college readiness and community advocacy work.  These same 20 students also attend weekly Leadership/Civic Engagement seminars at their school throughout the school-year.

Wagner also supports a full-time college readiness counselor at PRHS. Spurred by this investment, Mele funds a similar position at Markham through a state middle school improvement grant; and in an act of leadership, he shares some of those dollars to support the same role at nearby elementary school PS 21.   College readiness is now embedded in PRHS, Markham and PS 21 and other feeder elementary school constitute the Wagner College Educational Pipeline.

Combating Chronic Absence

Getting kids to consider college was only one of PRHS’ challenges. Reducing a chronic absence rate of 37% was high on the list as well.  Gannon, working with the Wagner College Readiness Counselor and other school staff, created a hub that would provide mentoring support for every chronically absent student in the ninth grade in 2015.  The now 60 Mentors at PRHS include personnel from the PRHS lead community schools partner, the New York Center for Interpersonal Development, Bonner Fellows from Wagner, social work interns from other in institutions of higher education and Wagner college students, doing work study or volunteering. 

The focus of the mentoring program is to establish strong connections between the school and the student, as well as their families. Every ninth grader has a mentor with personal check-ins as part of freshmen morning entry each day.  The program is moving in the right direction with chronic absence now reduced from 37% to 32%. The way in which PRHS has aligned all these resources toward a high priority issue for the school offers an important lesson for other education leaders. 

The success of the 9^th grade hub has led to the creation of a similar hub for chronically absent grade students. Gannon, and now principal Andrew Greenfield, would prefer chronic absence hubs for each individual grade but space and resources do not allow this at the present time.

Not surprisingly, with so many mentors, many school staff, -- teachers, guidance counselors, assistant principals -- did not know who was working with which students and what they were doing. Principal Andrew Greenfield convened mentors and school staff to address the issue. The names of mentors are now listed on each student’s program card, and a process is in place for ongoing communication. “We are continuing to work to keep everyone on the same page about how this critical mentoring program is working and how we can make it better” said Greenfield. 

Teacher Preparation: The Wagner-PRHS Partnership

When Wagner decided to start a Master’s program in secondary level teaching in 2016, the partnership with PRHS offered a natural place to host the teachers.  The program operates entirely at PRHS. Wagner Education students serve as teaching assistants during the school day and take classes after school for their Masters – a different kind of teacher residency program. From the beginning Gannon and Guarasci knew this was a win-win situation. Good for Wagner to prepare students in real classroom settings; even better for PRHS because graduate students would assist teachers, and PRHS would have a leg up to recruit strong graduates to teach at the school. A significant number have.

Becoming a Community School

Becoming a part of the citywide community schools initiative in 2015 has further strengthened the PRHS’ work on behalf of its students, family and community. The initiative provides funding for PRHS to select a CBO as a lead partner that would hire a Community School Director, offer mental health and after school services, expand learning for an addition hour each day, and mobilize other partners who would align their work with that of school.

The connection with PRPLA emerged early when Gannon participated in a meeting of other soon to community school principals. Asset Mapping was an early topic. According to Gannon, “Other principals had little idea what an asset map was. I said, well I have one, and our PRPLA students did it as part of their summer program. And everyone wanted to see it, so of course I shared it.”

The New York Center for Interpersonal Development (NYCID), which was already serving PRHS, was chosen as the Lead Partner. Initially a peer mediation and after school organization, the Center is now a major Staten Island CBO. It has more than 20 people in the building. NYCID provides badly needed mental health services, after school programs and other support for students and their families.  Adult education classes including GED for bilingual parents, and job focused classes in culinary and medical billing address a particularly significant need on Staten Island, are beginning to make an impact on supporting families to connect with the school on a deeper level.

NYCID Community School Director, Michael Candela, suggests “as a CBO we can get stuff done without having to navigate what honestly can be a challenging school system bureaucracy. For example, when there was a need for a food pantry, the principal agreed, and we just did it.” Greenfield agrees. This rationale for having lead partners in many community schools is echoed across the country.

Now a member of the school leadership team, the Community School Director leads a biweekly meeting of all partners in the school, creating a venue for partners and school staff to get on the same page. Among the issues being addressed: which students are we not reaching in our after-school programs?  How can we better meet the needs of the 30% of students with IEPs? What do our parents need from us?

The issues of communication with school staff on the mentoring program and reaching all students will be familiar to community school leaders. Having the community school director on the school leadership team and convening partners should help address these issues and others on a continuing basis.

Moving Forward: Encouraging Results

Multiple measures indicate that PRHS is moving forward.  The graduation rate was 71.6% in 2018, over 70% for the first time in several years after a low of 55%.  Credit accumulation for 9^th graders who attain 10+ credits in their first year increased from 75% in 2014 to 86.4% in 2017.  Daily attendance rates for ninth graders also increased significantly from 80% in 2014 to 89.7 in 2017.  School leaders credit these significant increases to strong mentoring and other support services.  

While access to mental health services at the PRHS School Clinic is addressing student needs, the number of students being referred for mental health services continues to grow each year, just one of many ongoing challenges that PRHS still faces.  Moreover, students enter PRHS far below Staten Island averages academically, and the increase in Section 8 housing suggests the school will have even more disadvantaged students. The graduation rate of English Language Learners is still too low at about 60% and that also requires a more comprehensive plan which is in development.

There is clearly a good way to go improve results for the young people at PRHS.  Additional services are needed for 10^th-12^th grade students who continue to face major obstacles and the engagement of students in the academic program must deepen. PRHS, Wagner and other partners are developing a plan to grapple with these challenges.

City Hall Interest

The new deputy mayor Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson is exploring ways to deepen the Wagner Educational Pipeline, and to expand efforts to link higher education institutions with public schools across the city. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all the elementary and middle schools that are envisioned as part of the Wagner pipeline could be funded as community schools?  And even better, what if public and private higher education institutions would tie their resources more strategically to the work of their nearby public schools? Then what are often called University-Assisted Community Schools would thrive across the city.

Leadership Transitions

Research suggests that strategies like the Wagner Educational Pipeline can falter during leadership transitions…a common issue in the partnerships.  Guarasci and Gannon are deeply aware of this challenge having already experienced one pitfall.

That pitfall occurred at PRHS when the principal following Gannon was not fully cooperative with the Wagner partnership; that person lasted but a year and the new principal a long-time assistant principal at PRHS and mentee of Gannon’s, Andrew Greenfield, has put the relationships back on track.  Gannon is still present as a supporting principal with the NYC Department of Education.

Adding to the transition challenge, Guarasci is stepping down as Wagner’s President at the end of this academic year. During his tenure civic engagement has become part of the life blood of Wagner, and the Wagner Center for Leadership and Community Engagement, embodies that thrust. I expect the board will hire a president who will continue that thrust. Guarasci intends to encourage other higher education institutions to pursue such partnerships as he moves on from his post.

Advancing Higher Education and Community Schools Partnerships

So how do we make these kinds of partnerships happen more common and in a sustainable way? Richard Guarasci suggests “start by always saying yes.” Guarasci has done that with every request Gannon has presented to him.  He was not sure at the moment of exactly how he would make good in response to Gannon’s request for Wagner to open up college opportunities for PRHS students, but he found a way. Gannon added “He ALWAYS finds a way to say YES!”

Gannon went further, “Our work with Wagner is so closely aligned to the Community School model and the impact can be so incredible when the College President is in sync with the K-12 principals.  The benefits to the college community as well as the Port Richmond community continue to inform and astound us. The faculty of both schools are now partnering on their own and the partnership is expanding and deepening. This is just the start!”

Speaking to his higher education peers, Guarasci concludes a recent article, Anchoring Democracy: The Civic Imperative for Higher Education: “Through strategic community partnerships, our work to advance civic engagement and equity can become common practice in fulfilling higher education’s historic role as an anchor within a just democracy.”

Understanding Our History: A Civil Rights Journey

Understanding America: A Civil Rights Journey

Helen and I, along with our friends Louise and Matt Myers, spent four days in Birmingham and Montgomery Alabama. We were motivated by a desire to visit the new National Peace and Justice Memorial (Lynching Museum), but we did much more. We want to share some stories from our deeply moving and deeply disturbing experience. We hope that you will be encouraged to go.

Thursday: Birmingham. 

As we walked through the Kelly Ingram Park, I could picture the water hoses, vicious dogs and police clubs that attacked African-American young people.  We remembered how important the Children’s March was to the movement in Birmingham.   A sculpture of two young people bears the inscription, “We ain’t afraid of your jail”. 

 At the 16th St. Baptist Church, we stood in the spot where the bomb was planted by the KKK that took the lives of four beautiful young girls. We learned that one girl’s sister is still alive and that all the perpetrators of this heinous crime were not brought to justice until nearly 40 years later. 

Shortly after, at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute we found ourselves watching a video of life there from 1871 to 1921. As the curtain went up we walked into history but we could not walk out until we walked through. (For some, this will recall the experience at the Holocaust Museum). We walked through slavery, reconstruction, re-enslavement, (a far less well-known phenomenon), Jim Crow, mass incarceration, voter suppression, renewed racism and more.

We have read a lot of history and asked a lot of questions. That is part of why we took this trip in the first place. But actually hearing audio and video stories from a diverse group of Birmingham citizens made us realize even more how deeply racist the attitudes of most people were and how courageous African Americans were, and still are, in the face of deep hatred and violence.

The librarian who manages the museum’s wide array of oral histories told us that some teachers who bring their students to the Institute often just sit on the sidelines rather than actively engaging with their students. Sad to hear that such an important educational resource is not being fully utilized.

Our day ended at coffee with Peggy Sparks, a member of the original board of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Marty’s colleague in the community schools movement; Peggy’s friend Leon Evans joined us. Peggy, a member of the original board of the Institute, explained how the Institute’s planners visited numerous museums during the planning phase; including the Holocaust Museum where they have an ongoing relationship   Leon told us how his mother refused to call her teachers Ma’am. He dislikes the term minority too, because it implies a significant power differential. 

Friday: Montgomery

Montgomery is a riverfront city of nearly 200,000 where history is literally all around you.  We started at the Freedom Riders Museum where we saw the courage of the more than 400 riders, black and white; liberal and conservative; Catholic, Protestant, and Jew.  In addition to again witnessing the brutal acts against the riders, we were reminded of the brilliant organizing work of Diane Nash of the Nashville Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who ensured a continuing flow of riders into the jails of Jackson, Mississippi tying up the criminal justice system and ensuring continuing public attention to the Rider’s mission. Many riders spent time in the Penitentiary at Parchman Farm, a notoriously violent and abusive prison, where some were placed in the maximum security unit on death row, while others were subject to solitary confinement.

After hearing the story of the Freedom Riders, it was time to visit the National Peace and Justice Memorial. We had read about the memorial, its development and opening, but being there was a deep emotional experience that cannot be forgotten. As we walked into the Memorial we faced memorials organized by state and county to the 4,000 people lynched between 1877 and 1950.  The county Memorials, imprinted with the names of the lynching victims and the years of their murders, appear like hanging coffins.

Walking forward, we saw a family who had driven from Atlanta – grandmother, mother and two daughters, huddled around one memorial. They had come to remember their two uncles who were among five people lynched in 1898 in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. They told us their story. I thanked them for sharing. They thanked me for hearing their story.

Moving through the Memorial we felt the individual county memorials gradually rise above us, giving us the sense of people being hung. And we saw the some of the obscene reasons why … Elbert Williams was lynched in Brownsville Tennessee in 1940 for working to register black votes as part of the local NAACP; after a white man attempted o assault Jack Brownlee’s daughter in Oxford Alabama in 1894, Mr. Brownlee was lynched for having the man arrested.  The words of Ida B. Wells rang in our ears, “Our country’s national crime is lynching.”

The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is also part of the Memorial. Located a block from one of the most prominent slave auction spaces in America, the Legacy is  also steps away from an Alabama dock and rail station where tens of thousands of black people were trafficked during the 19th century.  In a different way than the Birmingham Institute, it chronicles in painful detail what we saw in Birmingham -- our history of slavery, re-enslavement, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration.  It is stomach-turning.

Saturday: Montgomery

We began the day at the Parsonage of the Dexter Baptist church where Dr. King and his family lived. An elderly volunteer, who was a member of Ms. King’s women’s group, brought the parsonage to life as she described the black middle-class neighborhood that existed in the 50’s. We saw the dining room where King and his allies planned the Montgomery bus boycott and watched African American members of our tour touch the table. We stood in the kitchen listening to an audio of Dr. King mulling over whether to leave the movement on the night of the bombing of his home. We touched the stove where he made coffee and felt the tension he must have experienced that day, and many days thereafter. 

We walked outside to the Parsonage’s Memorial Garden. As we did Helen checked her phone to learn that 11 people were killed in the tragic anti-Semitic slaughter in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Devastated, but deeply engaged in our immediate experience with historical trauma, we moved on to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

In 1879 Trustees of the Dexter Church paid $270 for a lot at the corner of what is now Dexter Avenue and Decatur Street, just a stone’s throw from the Alabama state capitol.  Not everyone was pleased, of course, but the deal went through.

Our visit was marked by the music of a children’s choir rehearsing for the Sunday morning service. In keeping with a visitor tradition, Helen stood with Matt at the podium that Dr. King used in the church when he spoke at the end of the Selma to Montgomery march and repeated the words he spoke, “how long, not long“ to describe how soon true freedom would come to African Americans.

Leaving the church a docent gave us a five-minute history of African American life in America quickly moving from slavery to re-enslavement, to Jim Crow, to lynchings, to the civil rights movement, mass incarceration and today’s struggle to ensure that black lives matter. It was another sharp and personal reminder of our nation’s history and connected our present is to our past.

After a quick lunch at Chris’s Hotdogs we walked up the street to the Alabama State Capital. The docent, a former Air Force colonel who marched from Selma to Montgomery, regaled us with stories of a Capitol that is now virtually a museum with only 21 people, including the Governor, working there. We saw the room where the southern states declared the confederacy; we saw murals in the rotunda that gave nary a hint of the relationship of Alabama to its black citizens. And we looked at the statue of Jefferson Davis still standing in front of the Capitol.

That evening Sophia Bracey Harris, a colleague of Helen’s in the early childhood community, brought the civil rights struggle home in a personal way. Sophia along with her older sister, were among the students who integrated Wetumpka High School in 1968. Soon after they started school her home was firebombed by 3 Molotov cocktails, and burned to the ground. Luckily all of her family escaped. Sophia went on to found FOCAL a network of community-based child care centers in rural Alabama and the Black Women's Leadership and Economic Development Project to help support black women's self-sufficiency and provide leadership training.

Sunday: Montgomery to Selma (and back)

It’s amazing how moving it can be just to stand in a historic place.  As we stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge we looked for the spot where Alabama law enforcement officers had charged the marchers clubbing John Lewis and so many others; we watched the peaceful Alabama River go by. We chatted with African-American families from California and Texas doing the same.

 As we walked through town we visited with two white church members acting as security guards in front of their church and told them about our journey. They were welcoming. One said forthrightly, “Oh yes, my grandfather was among the deputies on the bridge on a horse with a club that day, and I’m sure he wore a sheet on other occasions. [sic]” Imagine.

And finally at the Brown AME Church where the Selma to Montgomery march began, we heard the pastor asking “can you hear me? We wondered when all Americans will be ready to truly hear and absorb our own history. It was an echo of the lovely words I heard at the Memorial, “Thank you for hearing me.”

We stopped briefly at the Montgomery riverfront a beautiful place as most riverfronts are. But as the historic plaques told us, it was also the place where many slaves came to Montgomery and from where bales of cotton, the product of slave labor, were shipped for sale.

Our last stop was lunch at Martha’s Place,. Sophia Bracey Harris brought us there.  Martha Hawkins the owner was involved with the Black Women’s Leadership and Economic Development Project. Fighting depression, she raised four successful sons while on welfare. She founded and continues to run an extraordinary successful restaurant.  Her book, Finding Martha's Place: My Journey Through Sin, Salvation, and Lots of Soul Food is an inspiration. We were delighted to end our journey with a delicious soul food meal. 

Students Talk about the Opioid Crisis

What do young people who learn in school about why there is an opioid crisis in their community have to say about their experience?  I had the chance to find out in a recent visit to South Webster High School in the Bloom-Vernon School District in Appalachian Ohio.

I developed a relationship with the school through the Appalachian Higher Education Network and recently posted several blogs  describing the problem-based  approach the two high school teachers – Judy Ellsesser and Cyndy Hykes - are taking as well as identify the follow-up actions of students.  

South Webster High is in the southeast corner of Ohio -- in the middle of Appalachia -- about 20 miles north of Portsmouth. Its students are all white and 55.7% disadvantaged. Portsmouth and surrounding Scioto County remain an epicenter of the opioid crisis.  Members of the class studying opioids started by reading  Sam Quinones book, Dreamland, and also spoke with local officials dealing with the problem.

I have organized the reflections of junior and senior high school students into categories,  occasionally edited for clarity. Inevitably in blogs like this everyone’s words cannot be included; my apologies to students whose words are not here.  All of your views are important.

Most students knew little about the opioid crisis before the class (Knowing and Knowledge Changes Perception and Perspective)

I never knew much about the opioid problem because my family was never affected by it. Now I know that even though my family does not do drugs, we are still affected because we are a part of this community.

Coming from a sheltered life where everyone wears rose colored glasses learning about this crisis was extremely enlightening and has inspired me to try and do something small in my own community.

Learning about this crisis  has been enlightening because I never knew much about the epidemic. But now I have learned it was affecting not only  the user, but everyone else in the community too, and that has inspired me to want to help the community.”

“This unit has changed many perspectives including my own and has inspired many in our community to strive to make a change. I feel that this is more powerful than any drug awareness or prevention activity ever attempted in this community and that is something to be proud of.

Some Students Had Direct Experience with Opioids; Their Peers Did Not Know This

(You Cannot Make Assumptions about Problems and their Impact)

I realize that not everyone was aware of the problem in our community. Since some of my family is involved in drugs I’ve known of this problem since 2011 so this class gave me a perspective from those people who  hadn’t known it was a problem.

Coming from a big family, but only knowing a small portion of them due to drugs, this showed me more in depth how my parents have kept me out of the bad things going on. Now, this opioid unit has shown me just how much I was being blinded from It. That made me want to make a change in this world that much more and that is what I plan to continue doing.”

I have always been aware of the problem in my family but I never could’ve imagined it being as big of an issue as it actually is.

Students Learned about the Value of Community (Working Together is the Key)

I learned the importance of community and coming together. We need to work against the drug epidemic as a whole, not as individuals.

It was powerful and it helped all of us learn how the crisis affects us and what we can do to try to make a difference in the community.

We can come together as a community and work together. I feel like it has made us all closer and want to work together as a team to make the community great.

The teachers have shown us how much they care about students in our community and about our education. This unit has touched hearts and opened the eyes of many students including me. I am a part of the Big Buddies Program because I believe it is important to reach out and build relationships in our community starting with the young generations.

Students Begin to See Themselves as Change Agents (Young People Can Make a Difference)

We cannot control the problem, but we can make a positive change. We are the change; we can change the world.

We have all grown tremendously in almost every way possible…I have learned so much and it has inspired me to be a person of change for our community.

Even though we are in high school, we can make a change in our community.

We Can’t Turn Our Backs (Remain Compassionate while Taking Action)

I have learned not be as dismissive of those suffering from addiction. People from all walks of life can fall into the throes of addiction. It is not just weak willed people unable to resist being tempted by the drugs they take. It is people ranging from what would be considered the dregs of society to those who stand as shining pillars in communities. Nobody's safe and nobody is spared just because they have status or wealth.

We can’t just turn our backs on people. People who suffer from addiction need a strong support system, and we can’t just leave them to die. Everybody matters; it’s everyone or no one.

People who are addicted aren't the only ones to blame. [Opioids are] not only affecting the person that is addicted; addiction affects everyone in their environment. Everyone’s life is important and we cannot just mark out the people that are addicted or just give up on them.  We have to make a difference to change the future generations, give people another choice to do something good.

Summary  Reflections (Make Connections with the Disconnected in your Community)

You are not alone, and no matter how bad it gets there is always hope. Talking about your personal connection to this issue can be scary but you can possibly change someone’s life.

This unit challenged my peers to open their hearts and their minds to the addiction crisis. Our educators have called us to be the change we want to see. We have taken on the responsibility to speak life and love to the pain present in our community. If we help heal the wounded before addiction takes route then we change not only the lives of the addicted but those affected by the addicted. It starts with community to end addiction and it’ll be this village that kills Goliath.

I trust these students will go on to study other community problems.  They have lots to learn and lots of wisdom to share.