CIS of Charlotte -Youth giving focus of statewide network

Youth giving focus of statewide network

Philanthropy Journal
Todd Cohen | August 20, 2008

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Communities in Schools of Charlotte-Mecklenburg received $400 to support Walk in My Shoes, a mentoring project created by students at Phillip O’Berry Academy High School to help lower-classmen learn from upper-classmen about navigating the school and its social networks.
And Youth Homes Inc. received $2,500 for Right Start Parent for Life, a program to provide parenting training for pregnant teens in foster care.

Each grant was made by a separate team of high school students who are part of the North Carolina Youth Giving Network, a statewide initiative that this fall will grow to local funds in 16 communities that aim to help young people learn to be philanthropists by teaching them to make grants to programs that serve young people.

“We’re creating a movement of youth giving in North Carolina,” says Eric Rowles, president and CEO of Leading To Change, a Charlotte firm that provides consulting and training to communities involved in the local funds.

The youth-giving network grew out of the Discovery Alliance, a statewide effort funded by the Michigan-based W.K. Kellogg Foundation that focused on identifying and promoting diverse giving in the state.

Based on a conference on youth giving the Discovery Alliance sponsored in 2005 for 12 community foundations from throughout the state, four of those foundations set up youth funds in Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Davie County.

With seed funding from the Discovery Alliance and from each of the four community foundations, the initial four youth-giving funds also received support from NCGIves, a fund the Kellogg Foundation created at the Raleigh-based North Carolina Community Foundation to foster giving by young people, women and communities of color.

Designed to engage young people in community organizing and social-justice work and help them create a legacy for themselves, the youth-giving program in each community is organized by a site coordinator and housed either at the local community foundation or at a local agency that serves youth.

After being recruited by schools, agencies, religious congregations or other groups that work with youth, 20 to 30 participants are selected for a local team each spring through a competitive process that aims for diversity based on race, class and gender, and tries to ensure a broad representation of local high schools.

Then, from the start of the school year through May, each team meets once a month for two to three hours, receiving grantmaking lessons from 15 trainers coordinated by Leading To Change.
Topics include assessing community needs; developing requests for proposals and reviewing grant proposals; selecting grants by consensus; visiting and interviewing grant applicants; providing follow-up support for grant recipients; making community presentations about youth philanthropy; and working with the media to promote the work of the local youth-giving programs.
Ranging from $500 to $5,000, grants in the first three years of the program have totaled just over $110,000.

Communities in Schools of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, for example, provides $3,000 for the youth-giving fund it sponsors, while Foundation for the Carolinas in Charlotte provides $10,000 for its youth-giving fund.

The network sponsors a statewide conference each fall for participating students, who also communicate electronically with one another, and sponsors a roundtable each June for the students’ advisers.

Monthly evaluations their advisers conduct each month find big increases in the students’ awareness of issues facing young people in their communities, while journals they write show they are recognizing their potential and power as givers, as well as the importance of social justice, Rowles says.

The youth-giving effort, he says, is “changing how young people are seen as expert resources in each of these communities.”

CIS of Cape Fear -At Mosley, a fresh start for both students and school

By Tyra M. Vaughn,
Staff Writer – Star News

Published: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 10:30 p.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 10:30 p.m.

Dressed in all black Tuesday night, Oates decided to lay to rest the “Can’t brothers” by placing the words “I Can’t” and “You Can’t” into a box and burying them during the school’s orientation.

“We’re dropping these words from our vocabulary and replacing them with the ‘Try Sisters,’ ‘I’ll Try’ and ‘You’ll Try,’ ” Oates said. “Students who drop out often believe ‘I can’t’ or they’ve been told that ‘you can’t,’ so I wanted to have a funeral to give these students a fresh perspective on school.”

The informal ceremony not only represented a fresh start for the nearly 50 students attending Tuesday night’s orientation, but it also symbolized a new beginning for the school that has been plagued with changes for the past two decades.

Mosley, formerly known as Lakeside School, was New Hanover County’s alternative school for more than 20 years and has been restructured several times over the years to meet student needs. The focus of the school has shifted from catering to high school students with discipline problems to helping students not promoted to the ninth grade transition into high school to dropout recovery.

The school is now undergoing another change by becoming New Hanover County Schools’ first performance learning high school. It’s a transition that teachers, administrators and school officials plan to make permanent.

“We have all intentions of making this school work,” said Rick Holliday, assistant superintendent for support services with New Hanover County Schools. “We’re committed to this as part of our high school reform initiative.”

Isaac Bear Early College based at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Wilmington Early College at Cape Fear Community College also are schools based on the reform initiative, Holliday said.

“Mosley just takes us to the next level,” he said.

Non-traditional learning

The performance learning center uses non-traditional learning approaches to offer students who have already dropped out of school or are at risk for doing so greater access to personal support services in a small business model.

Each classroom is equipped with computers and students learn and are tested on course material from a computer program called NovaNet. Students also are given projects and role-playing exercises to assess their knowledge on the subjects, Oates said.

The number of teachers and students in each classroom also are reduced. At Mosley there are seven teachers or learning facilitators and 100 students enrolled at the school.

Students are taught in small classes where they are able to complete courses at their own pace. Students are enrolled in four classes a semester. Once they complete the course material they can sign up for another course, even if it’s in the same semester, Oates said.

Teachers at the school are responsible for supervising classes and helping students with concepts they don’t understand, Oates said.

“It eliminates the one-size-fits-all approach of learning in the traditional classroom,” Oates said. “The performance learning center allows students to learn at their own pace because the cookie-cutter approach doesn’t work for all students.”

A business environment

In addition to changes in instruction, the school day also is structured differently. Classes begin at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m., and students are paired with mentors in their chosen field to shadow during the year. Mosley students will complete an internship during their senior years, Oates said.

“Our focus here is not only on academics, but we want to prep students for post-secondary education or their chosen career path,” Oates said. “Our goal is for the students to come in, take their classes and move on.”

Students must apply and interview to be a part of the school, Oates said. He said they also are required to wear uniforms, which consist of white, navy blue or black polo shirts and khaki, navy blue or black pants, to go along with the school’s business environment.

The performance learning center is a national model put together by Communities in Schools, an organization that focuses on student dropout prevention. The first performance learning center was started in Georgia about years ago. According to the Georgia Communities in Schools Web site, there are now 29 sites in the state. The model has been duplicated in North Carolina, Virginia, Washington and Pennsylvania. Mosley is North Carolina’s fifth performance learning school, Oates said.

Learning a new way

Mosley’s staff, which includes the principal, teachers, counselors and administrative assistant, participated in training at performance learning centers in Georgia and North Carolina to prepare for the school year, said Louise Hicks, executive director of Communities in Schools of Cape Fear.

Hicks said New Hanover schools officials studied several schools before deciding to implement performance learning at Mosley.

Regina Watson, who taught at Mosley when it was Lakeside, said she’s excited the school system decided to make these changes.

“The school system is moving in the right direction by giving these students an alternate learning setting,” said Watson, who’s been teaching at the school for 10 years. “They have the traditional schools and the early college high schools. This is the missing piece of the puzzle.”

Sophomore Crystal Tart will be attending Mosley this year after attending New Hanover High School and Lakeside School. She said this the first time she’s been excited about starting school.

“I really think the teachers are going to care if I do well here and that will make a lot of difference in my grades,” Tart said. “My outlook on school has already changed.”

Tyra Vaughn: 343-2070

tyra.vaughn@starnewsonline.com