Southwest Partnership
Education and Workforce Development Committee
Tuesday, February 2nd
6:30 PM
Franklin Square Elementary Middle School
1400 W Lexington St
Present
Jane Buccheri
Kirk Crawley
Edith Gilliard
Bill Joyner
Lisa Rawlings
Lou Packett
Jordan Packett
Barbara Scott
Yusef Shabaaz
Kenya Smith
Autumn Speller
Area Out of School Time Programs
When the Southwest Partnership Education and Workforce Development Committee met in December, they decided that one of their goals for 2016 would be to ensure that every child living in the Southwest Partnership area would have access to quality and enriching out of school time programming.
Lisa and Elizabeth have been doing follow up since that meeting, including attending the Maryland Out of School Time (MOST) Network and meeting with Ellie Mitchell, their Executive Director. Elizabeth passed out a spread sheet of the out of school trim programs in the area, based on the information that MOST has available. There are a number of known programs that weren’t on the list, including the James McHenry Rec Center, the Martin Luther King Jr Rec Center, St Lukes, Head Start, the SAFE Center, the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club, the Mission (Christian Community Center), and Paul’s Place.
The Committee is currently focusing on summer programs, rather than after school, due to the immediacy of funding requests for summer programs. Members of the Committee volunteered to reach out to the programs that are not on the MOST list to find more about their programs, how many students they serve, what they offer, and whether they have summer programs.
The Y in Central Maryland has an after school program at Franklin Square, but for their summer programs they are looking for sites that have air conditioning. The Southwest Partnership will help the Y find a site in the area with air.
When meeting with the programs not on the MOST map, Committee members will direct them to the map and/or bring them the form that they need to fill out to be included. Elizabeth will also send the form with the minutes. This will help maintain accurate records of out of school time programs in the area.
Funding for Summer Programs
The Family League, the Annie E Casey Foundation, and six other funders have established a common application process for funding for summer programming. The deadline is in two weeks. The Southwest Partnership would like to apply for funding to provide supplemental academic enrichment activities to programs in the area that are currently serving students but do not have the capacity to provide academic enrichment. This will help to decrease the learning loss that students experience over the summer. The Maryland Out of School Time Network has provided a list of high quality STEM and literacy enrichment providers that they have worked with in the past.
To do this, the Committee will need to find out how many existing programs in the area would want to participate, the number of students that they serve and their schedule as well as how much it would cost for each provider to provide enrichment activities and whether they would want to participate.
A concern was raised over whether help existing summer programs at Franklin Square, especially Dr Crawley’s critical literacy and STEM enrichment program. Because many of the programs at Franklin Square already have academic enrichment this program wouldn’t benefit those programs, but the Southwest Partnership can help support the programs at Franklin Square however they need.
A question was asked about whether Dr Crawley was interested in expanding his program so that it could serve more students across the area. Dr Crawley reports that the program has been expanding since its inception and that the lack of air conditioning at Franklin Square is not a factor in its size as the students participate in so many off site activities. Supplemental funding is always an issue, and the SWP can support the program in finding sources of funding if we know what exactly is needed.
The Southwest Partnership doesn’t have the capacity to create new programs, but can connect existing programs to available resources and find funding to support them.
The Committee agreed to move forward with the program. As soon as Committee members connect with area summer programs they will let Elizabeth know and we can establishing relationships and gauging their needs and potential interests.
Southwest Partnership/UMB YouthWorks Program
The University of Maryland Baltimore and the Southwest Partnership are partnering on a Youth Works program serving 14-21 young people from the area this summer. The goal is provide intensive support and skill development opportunities for the participating young people, connections with the association leadership in their neighborhoods, and the participating neighborhood associations with a concrete product. The Southwest Partnership Education and Workforce Development Committee will also be developing a badging system for community organizing which will allow the students to measurably demonstrate the skills that they have learned. Potential projects include youth organizing and developing a website for the neighborhood association.
New Meeting Date
Lisa has class until 7:30 on Tuesday nights this semester. The Committee decided to select a new meeting day and will now meet on the first Thursday of the month at 7pm. The next meeting will be March 3rd at a location TBD.
