What Gives Life to Schools?
THE STORY
NEW YORK CITY INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL 218
by Julie Evans for Youth Helping Youth, Inc. 2003

This story comes from a visit to New York Intermediate School 218 and interviews with NYC school 218 onsite technical advisor and Jane Quinn from The Children’s Aid Society (2000/2001 interviews with Evans.)

“When a whole system contributes around what’s best, they can generate a positive core of mutually agreed upon guiding principles that include past experiences, current conditions and dreams of what would make their best even better. People tend to commit to topics, competencies and principles they helped develop.” - Jane Watkins and Bernard Mohr

New York Intermediate School 218 is one of the first public school’s in the United States innovated and supported by a community coalition that includes a unique partnership with the Children’s Aid Foundation (CAS). Together, local residents (youth, adults, and families), multiple community organizations, business partners and the NYC school board operate a full-service community school that was designed using a strength-based organizational framework organizing around positive youth development principles as defined by the collective partnerships and stakeholders. The partnership provides continuous educational and community services available during the traditional school day, weekends and “out of school” activities from 2:00 - 10:00 PM. The results of NYC School 218 and other community schools are showing increased academic gains, improved school attendance, parent participation and reduced school suspensions, neighborhood crime and violence.

NYC 218 is a story that shares the essence of what gives life to schools, education and youth development. NYC 218 exemplifies the appreciative philosophy, use of strength-based organizational design, and meaning of inclusive discovery, dream, innovation, delivery and the on-going process of participatory evaluation and continuous learning.

In spring of the 2000 (10 years after the start-up of CAS 218), I had the honor of touring the school as part of a learning tour grant provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Upon arrival, I was greeted by the NYC 218’s onsite technical advisor, Richard, who kindly gave me a four-hour tour of the school. The role of the onsite technical advisor is to make “it” (what ever is valued, needed and gives life) happen. The onsite technical advisor is provided by the Children’s Aid Foundation (supported by a trust fund gifted to NYC 218) to oversee activities that which falls outside the normal provisions provided by the NYC school district.

Richard informs me, “There are certain prescriptive elements that if in place can help in making an initiative like this sustainable. It takes more than raising money, building recipients, retaining staff, staff development and training. We have found that the sense of strong partnership is the strongest sustainability factor. We don’t want to be perceived as someone who uses the building from 2-10 PM. We want to become part of the school.”

While visiting School 218, I witnessed the value added by Richard’s visibility, which includes an in school “office” (more like a living room) housed inside the school library. As he escorted me to his office, the librarian engaged Richard in conversation. She was talking with him about the evening tutoring program she recently started that now serves over 100 students weekly. Richard shared how she loves using her teaching abilities to work directly with the students and didn’t particularly enjoy shelving books and catalog work, which took most of her afternoon time. A parent was trained and hired to take over her afternoon responsibilities and the librarian returns in the evening to run the tutoring program, an idea she had offered up during a whole system meeting (something School 218 does annually with all of its stakeholders).

While in his office, Richard took a call from a member of the school’s community coalition. As he glanced out his window that overlooks the school basket courts, I could overhear him talking, “No problem. I see the kids playing ball on concrete right now, shouldn’t be an insurance problem for after school games. Let me look into it and I’ll get back to you. We’ll make it work.” He hung up the phone, turning his chair away from his desk and towards the coffee table I was seated around. “This is what I’m talking about. A big part of my job is making things work for everybody. It’s not something that happens if your office is located offsite. A sustainability factor that works for our schools is incorporating fulltime presence, commitment and partnership. Children’s Aid’s Society is not a guest (or just a funder) in this school.”

There are many ways to create a supportive work environment. This is only one small example of the strength-based appreciative design process at work within NYC school 218.
Another small example is how the drama/dance teacher, students and parents wished she could coach students in a manner that would enable students to get accepted into the New York Dance Academy. School 218 flexed her schedule so she only worked four school days and held a Saturday dance clinic. During my visit, she approached Richard in the hallway to inform him that she needed money for costumes this weekend and that the school district invoice system will take four weeks to process the purchase order. Richard suggested she come by after school to borrow his credit card to make the purchase!

Crandall & Wallace (1995; in Wheeler 2000) explain how high-performance systems push the boundaries of the bureaucratic approach, innovating workplace designs that break through and dissolve these boundaries. Such places have increased efficiency and effectiveness (not to mention higher morale). They use full-time employees for core competencies, part-time employees to add competencies as needed and specialists are used on an ad hoc basis. NYC school 218 has a full time doctor and dentist to staff their school health center, which is, used full time by students and parents, with the ophthalmologist visiting once a week.

Located just off the front entrance of the school is the parenting center housed within a large living room style setting. The center offers community education classes during school hours designed by staff and parents at the annual student-parent retreat held at a nearby mountain resort sponsored by CAS. The crafts program, designed for parents wanting extra income, facilitates production of crafts to sell at the local art fairs. The program has high attendance and results in parent-school involvement, as well as families using the many social services available on site.

The teachers have an in-school coffee shop with tables and table clothes, fresh flowers and a menu that offers espresso coffees, croissant sandwiches and other teacher only breakfast and lunch delights. After school, high school students transform the cafe into a snack shop and bookstore, servicing the Boys and Girls Club, the alternative high school and adult education programs. They order and sell supplies and materials used by the after-school programs. The café/book store, run by the high school business class, grosses $30,000 a year that goes to support after school programming.

Security is handled by a police officer that greets visitors and checks ID’s. He sits behind a non-offensive entry desk in a circular foyer. The first floor of the building is designated for partnership offices, the parenting center, café, health center and school administration. Students wear uniforms and attend classes on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building. Classes include the basics and a host of electives created by the youth council. Youth Council is a class that all students participate in as they rotate through the class over the course of the year. If the students decide they want a change in electives or class structure they form a design team with facility and co-create the desired classes to fit within curriculum guidelines and competencies. A favorite class is bike shop, where students learn bicycle mechanics repairing donated bikes. When they pass class requirements they get to take the bike home. As a visitor, it was a delight to see both students and staff joyfully committed to learning.

While the above is just a snapshot from a day’s visit, it was the cab driver that gave me a lift back to the airport that said it all. As I stepped into his cab I shared, “What a school!” The driver replied, “That’s not just a school. My daughter and son graduated from here. That school is an amazing place where people really care about kids and their families.”

What brings life energy to the field of youth development?

What I discovered gives life to youth and community development had a lot more to do with how field sectors came together with local residents around a core context (school, healthcare, job-training, out-of-school time). Using an appreciative self-organizing process local actors and stakeholders discover common themes, guiding principles and competencies they belief are necessary to develop, implement and sustain desired outcomes.

CAS & NYC 218 used the process to:
• Engage parents and community residents
• Take time to listen to people (continue listening)
• Implement their ideas

References:

Crandall, N.F. & Wallace, M.J., Jr. “Moving toward the virtual workplace.” In H Risher & C. Fay (Eds), The performance imperative: Strategies for Enhancing workforce effectiveness.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1995.

Dryfoos, J.; “Evaluation of Community Schools: An Early Look”, Washington, DC: Coalition for Community Schools. 2000.

Watkins JM and Mohr BJ; “Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination”; San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 2001.

Wheeler, W.; “Emerging Organizational Theory and the Youth Development Organization”; Applied Developmental Science, (4) 1. 2000.

Julie Caldwell, MS is a national consultant and member of the Positive Change Corp who specializes in engaging youth & adults to co-construct school and youth communities.
775.753.8572 • julie@splashlife.com • www.emergingfutures.net

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