Assessment, Evaluation, Tracking, Monitoring
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Item Cocreating Culturally Responsive Resources With Communities Using Design-Based Implementation Research: The Challenges of Online Research(SAGE Research Methods, 2022-03) Garcia, Silvia; Wolfe, Devin; Fox, Sarah; Gil, Cindy; King, Gloria; Colgan, SusanaThis case study highlights the methodological and practical implications of modifying an investigation with community partners to fit an online format. Research interactions took place between November 2020 and June 2021, under the social distancing restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Twelve Latinx parents/caregivers participated in co-designing culturally relevant college and career readiness resources for Latinx families. A research partnership of two school faculty and a community partner collaborating with university faculty, staff, and students led the study using design-based implementation research (DBIR) as the primary methodological approach. The means of communication and resource sharing with parents were Zoom videoconferencing, WhatsApp text messaging, social media, and phone calls. Parents also received printed materials sent through students attending school under a hybrid modality (face-to-face and online classes). The use of online environments posed challenges in getting participants fully engaged in the co-design process. Some parents lacked technological skills or access to adequate technology, leading to communication barriers in some cases. The implementation phase, a significant component of DBIR, could not be achieved online. This case is about the strategies put forward by the research team to overcome the restrictive research conditions, the adaptations made throughout the process to facilitate community engagement, and lessons learned. It is an invitation to think about the implications of the decisions made by the research team and reflect on creative solutions to address the challenges faced.Item Creating with Confidence. Design Thinking for Public Art. Evaluation Report(2017-07-30) Garcia, SilviaWarren Central High School in collaboration with Arts for Learning explored design thinking, a creative and collaborative process that is user-centered and solution-focused to engage students in the process of designing public art. The project engaged thirty 12th grade, art-major students, in a series of workshops presented by the Herron School of Art and Design, and Arts for Learning as they learned to be mindful of the audience, navigate real situations and revise their work to get to a truly original, personal, and professional product. Students also developed practices to involve residents of their community in a public art project to enhance neighborhood identity and foster a real spirit of place. The report presents the main results of the Evaluation of Creating with Confidence: Design Thinking for Public Art project that took place in the school in the school year 2016-2017.Item A Sustainability Plan for the Indianapolis Near-Westside Community Schools Project(Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center and IUPUI Office of Community Engagement, 2020-07)From its inception, the Full-Service Community Schools project with Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center and five Indianapolis Public Schools of the Near-Westside has focused on the development of an infrastructure framework to sustain the community schools engagement for students, their families, and neighbors beyond the five years of the U.S. Department of Education funding cycle. Key anchor partners with MRNC, Christamore House, Hawthorne Community Center, and IUPUI, have served—and plan to continue to serve—as leaders in the engagement, coordination, and continuation of this collaborative, comprehensive, collective work. Specific roles and expectations for the foreseeable future by each are outlined in this document.Item Community Schools as a Vehicle for Social Justice and Equity(University of Tennessee-Knoxville, IGI Global, 2020) Medina, Monica; Murtadha, Khaula; Grim, JimA deficit narrative of academic success in low-performing schools is articulated in cultural norms set by those who fail to understand how poverty and racial inequality manifests through daily interactions, beliefs, and biases. Work to address race and poverty are emotional, complicated, and challenging because the concepts are avoided, minimized, or disputed by a dominant narrative and privileged cultures that oppress students of color. This chapter is not about a study of race or poverty nor does it seek to forward understanding of how race and class intersect. Instead, it focuses on the ways a university has promoted social justice and equity in the development of community schools. This work encompasses: the influence of change through advocacy and policy, issues of school culture and climate, and shared leadership. It recognizes emerging perceptions impacting health, violence, and food security that cause socio/emotional issues not considered when critically addressing issues of race and poverty. Therefore, community schools are a vehicle for social justice and equity.Item A Decade of Lessons: Community Engagement Perspectives from a University-Assisted School Community(Center for Service and Learning, IUPUI, 2011) Grim, Jim; Medina, Monica; Officer, StarlaIn 2000, the Indianapolis Near-Westside welcomed the reopening of George Washington High School as George Washington Community School. The school had closed in 1995. This document draws on the decade of lessons and is designed to serve as a resource for groups harnessing the power of their own school communities.Item Best Practices Framework for Out-of-School-Time Program Parent & Family Engagement(At Your School, IUPUI, 2017-07) Grim, JimThis framework outlines five steps based on best practices and strategies to enhance parent and family engagement in out-of-school time programming observed at AYS program locations in MSD Decatur Township, Spring Semester 2017, as well as evidence-based activities recommendations from the Harvard Family Research Center, Harvard Graduate School of Education, National PTA and our own Indiana Afterschool Network. The framework also reflects two decades of engagement in out-of-school time programming with parent, family and school communities by the author. It is intended to inspire innovative and creative ideas for expanding parent and family engagement in diverse AYS program settings. While no two school communities may seem the same, solutions to further engage families in programming cannot be cookie-cutter either. Evidence-based, targeted strategies help to move efforts in a productive direction.Item Leading Community Schools Takes Finesse & Style(Partnership Press, Children's Aid Society, New York City, 2015-11) Grim, JimAdaptive leadership takes on particular importance when it comes to heading Community Schools. The sharing of leadership and decision-making with community partners can be a daunting undertaking – even for some seasoned principals – but is imperative among a multitude of competencies necessary to successfully lead a Community School. What the Coalition for Community Schools identified in Growing Community Schools, The Role of Cross-Boundary Leadership more than a decade ago continues to lie at the heart of authentic Community Schools: Cross-boundary leadership from multiple organizations collaborates to create a culture of support for continuous improvement in Community Schools, developing student physical, social, emotional, moral, and civic competencies in addition to academic abilities. A principal must be comfortable with shared leadership or the necessary fit most likely will not materialize and potential social return on investment may be no more than lost opportunity. Given the landscape, America’s public school communities can little afford wasted opportunities for children and their families.Item George Washington Community High School, A Community-University Partnerships Success Story(Netter Center for Community Partnerships, University of Pennsylvania, 2010-05) Grim, Jim; Officer, StarlaA meandering White River separates the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus from the neighborhoods of Stringtown, Hawthorne and Haughville that make up the community of WESCO (Westside Cooperative Organization). Al-though the river that separates the two represents a historical as well as geographic boundary, the city bridges that join the university campus with its west side neighbors are both symbolic as well as utilitarian. Rich connections that have developed between IUPUI and the Near Westside have taken years to develop and are best illustrated at the nearby George Washington Community School (GWCS). The very existence of this school is a community/university partnership achievement, a significant one according to Robert Bringle, Director of the IUPUI Center for Service and Learning and professor of psychology. “When we started working with the WESCO community and they said they wanted to reopen their closed high school, we thought it was a rather remote possibility,” Bringle explained. “Never underestimate the power of determined, united people. Four years later it had students in classrooms.” "e building was once home to George Washing-ton High School. "e high school had nearly 70 years of rich tradition that included multiple athletic milestones (half a dozen alumni ABA and NBA players among them) and had closed in 1995. "e closure, designed to reduce costs for the financially challenged urban school district, devastated the Near Westside. However, its reputation on the athletic field had not matched with high academic achievement (e.g., 40% graduation rate) and this helped tip the scales in favor of closure. Logical financial reasons for closure did not matter to the community it most affected. Five neighborhood schools had already been closed, and the closure of the final two meant no schools were left in the three neighborhoods. No public schools remaining in WESCO galvanized a grassroots movement, under the leadership of neighborhood leader Danny Fugate, to form the Westside Education Task Force, which was focused on getting schools back into the neighborhoods.Item The Power of Community School Councils in Urban Schools(Peabody Journal of Education, 2020-01-30) Medina, Monica; Grim, Jim; Cosby, Gayle; Brodnax, RitaDemand for school reform, particularly urban schools labeled as “failing,” requires a community engagement strategy centered on intermingled social problems: poverty, racial isolation and discrimination, cultural clashes, socio-economic inequalities, and funding disparities. While school administrators are challenged to turn schools around with limited time and resources quickly, their efforts are not a silver bullet. Engaging community requires committed partnerships that support schools to advance quality learning. Community school councils, an organizing strategy, focus on addressing potential threats and enhancing strengths for student success. This case study describes the participatory action structure of community school councils in an urban public high school, a middle school, and three elementary schools. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Bryk’s five essential elements of school improvement and their interplay that predicts school improvement or stagnation in the long term (Bryk et al., 2010) and more recent findings that community schools demonstrate an evidence-based strategy for equitable school improvement. This study is relevant to school communities with comparable demographics interested in a comprehensive strategy that expands the traditional educational mission to address social/emotional and health needs of children and families by engaging the broader community to support student learning, strengthening families and school communities.Item Perspectives from the Midwest: University-Assisted Community Schools Engagement(Netter Center for Community Partnerships, University of Pennsylvania, 2020-09) Grim, Jim; Medina, Monica A.; Oglesby, Nicole Y.Connecting the dots and engaging in community partnerships is nothing new to Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). For decades, IUPUI has played an integral role in supporting urban schools and revitalizing urban communities through authentic collaboration that notably represents university-community engagement on multiple fronts and levels of commitment. A promise to equity education in public schools is evident in authentic approaches to collaboration with community partners that embrace shared leadership supported by community based action research and inquiry-supported practices to strengthen school communities. Through forging powerful community partnerships, IUPUI supports programs and services in community schools, advancing an advocacy and policy agenda that sustains the spirit of community schools throughout the state (Medina, Murtadha, & Grim, 2020). IUPUI has provided school communities professional development and technical assistance focused on the development of community schools through partnerships facilitation and community council development. The university has a history of preparing students to work among K-12 school/university partnerships to address issues in school climate and socialization as impacted by differences in culture and leadership through interdisciplinary understanding (Murtadha-Watts, Belcher, Iverson, & Medina, 1999). This vibrant example of scholars working alongside practitioners in assessing program standards, questioning vexing contradictions, and addressing the pestilence of bias in low-income school communities is what makes this work unique and a model for other urban districts (Medina, Murtadha, & Grim, 2020). A university-assisted community school, by definition, features an anchor university partner that provides a significant and intentional role in implementing the strategy in collaboration with school community stakeholders. Founded on John Dewey’s theory that the neighborhood school functions as the core neighborhood institution, this approach provides comprehensive services, engaging community institutions and groups to solve the immense and complex challenges schools and community confront in a rapidly changing world (Harkavy, Hartley, Hodges & Weeks, 2013). Two decades ago, renowned scholar Joy Dryfoos, citing the work of Penn and the Netter Center, concluded that the work of university faculty and students, along with principals and teachers, can transform the public school into a community center and neighborhood hub. For example, in university-assisted community schools, college student-led youth art projects become attractive murals that decorate hallways, and students and staff perform theatrical events that trace the local history of the community (Dryfoos, 2000). IUPUI’s response to the urgent call for academic achievement gains has centered on community-engaged initiatives and a steadfast commitment to equity education in public schools. Through the university-assisted community school model, the aim has been to foster new and authentic approaches to collaboration with community partners, embracing shared leadership sustained by community-based action research and inquiry-supported practices that strengthen school communities. This article describes the history of university-assisted programs, brief descriptions of example programs and services, and a research strategy that highlights IUPUI’s commitments