Hopeful Hearts for 2021

Dr. Russell Booker

We at SAM are looking forward with hopeful hearts as we close out what has been one of the most challenging years for our world, our nation, our community, our own families, and yours. While recently approved vaccines, social justice efforts, and a deeper sense of community bring hope to the world, we share our optimism for 2021 with you, our neighbors we serve, from what has happened within SAM during this past year:  We enjoyed a smooth leadership transition as our founding Executive Director, Dr. John C. Stockwell officially retired in August.  Dr. Russell W. Booker, recently retired School District 7 superintendent, assumed the role as our new Executive Director on September 1.  Both of these individuals were humbled to be recognized by our Governor as they each were awarded our state's highest civilian award- the Order of the Palmetto for their lifelong work supporting our community. 
In October, SAM received a significant investment to support specific Covid-19 recovery in our community. 

• Funds are being distributed to all seven Spartanburg school districts to support equitable recovery for our students and families.

• SAM was able to provide direct support to improve digital access for rural students in the County.

• The effort from SAM’s Wardlaw Institute to build recovery from Covid-related learning loss demonstrated positive results, earning a new investment from the Spartanburg County Foundation to expand the effort.

• SAM is providing Covid-recovery support for our LatinX students and families through PASOS and the Upstate Family Resource Center.

• Childcare stabilization funding is being directed from SAM to support early learning efforts and recovery during the pandemic.

• Organizations helping children and families recover from the pandemic will have new funding opportunities through SAM beginning in early 2021.

Without a doubt, Covid-19 has changed the way every person and organization functions. We are learning new ways to support our community while building the foundation needed to reach our ultimate goal: improved economic mobility anchored in academic achievement.

Early learning:
This year’s administration of the Early Development Instrument (EDI) will bring us new information in an effort to inform where resources can better support kindergarten readiness. and we can do this more effectively than ever before because parents throughout the county have shared their voice in the process through a parent survey. We look forward to the May 2021 release of this vital data.

Early Reading:

• As educators across the county were assessing the extent of Covid learning loss, SAM piloted an intensive tutoring program, free to families, and now expanding.

• We are thankful that such gains in reading were made in the Four Schools Project and have confidence that the stronger skills built before the pandemic, gave students greater skill resiliency as they returned to multiple forms of school this fall.

Health and Well-being Expansion:
SAM has hired Dr. Jennifer Parker to lead the non-profit’s emphasis on child and family initiatives with a focus on health and well-being, expanding the organization’s whole-child, two-generation approach to improving educational achievement.

High School and Beyond:

• The Out-of-School-Time Collaborative supported program providers across the County with essential training and delivered direct support for youth to attend high quality programs supporting their social and emotional development.

• SAM’s research and pilot programs helped more students launch their dreams of college enrollment into action – even in the midst of the pandemic. While nation-wide, college enrollments have declined, early indicators suggest that Spartanburg County’s Class of 2020’s college enrollment remained steady. We are working diligently to ensure the Class of 2021 does not lose ground.

• SAM’s efforts to improve FAFSA completion rates were successful, helping students obtain funding for college.

• SAM’s pilot mentorship program, “Start Smart,” connected students with community members trained to help them move from “planning to” enroll to actual registration in fall classes. SAM’s partner One Spartanburg provided funding to cover textbook costs for students completing the program.

Training Educators and Community Leaders:

• We joined educators and service organizations in shifting our operations to online formats. The John T. Wardlaw Institute for Continuous Improvement trained over 300 educators and community service providers in methods proven successful before the pandemic and essential as part of recovery efforts and offers ongoing, self-paced virtual training for educators and program providers – all free of charge for those living and working in Spartanburg County.

• The Wardlaw Institute has opened registration for its next Leadership Training Group.

• SAM created a Distance and Blended Learning resource hub for local educators at their request.

National Attention:
While we work to assess and draw resources around local needs, national (and even international) attention came to Spartanburg for the work already underway with SAM and its partners, using Continuous Improvement to build successful collective impact.

• The improvement in reading achievement in The Four Schools Project was the topic of a case study published by StriveTogether.

• The work was featured as a story in The 74 a non-profit, non-partisan news site covering education in America.

• The study was presented at the International Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) forum in December and in the British Medical Journal.

• This work in Spartanburg was highlighted in a Hechinger Report op-ed.

• It was featured again in a Politico Magazine article.

• Spartanburg was also highlighted in a feature posted to Equal Measure, a national platform advancing social change.

While national attention is not why we do what we do, it is important. Spartanburg becomes viewed as “a good bet” for investors wishing to support our community work with the goal that it becomes a model for investment in other communities.

A vital key to what is happening in Spartanburg is collaborative support that makes it happen.  From individuals working together to our City Council becoming a model for how racial divides can begin to heal; to organizations, schools, and faith communities uniting their resources to support families in crisis; and the grassroots investments that started this work years ago, we are now in place of sincere hopefulness for the future of our community. 

We thank you for your ongoing support of the long-term vision we share: that together, we can build equitable economic mobility, anchored in academic achievement, that builds strong futures for every individual.

In closing, we’d like to extend to you and your family our sincerest best wishes for a Happy New Year and a prosperous 2021. Please stay tuned for an exciting upcoming announcement that will further elevate our work while supporting our children, families, and communities.

Happy Birthday OST Collaborative!!

From last year’s balloons to this year’s virtual celebration, the OST Collaborative has much to celebrate!

The lights were on and people gathered in person just a year ago to celebrate the launch of the Out-of-School-Time Collaborative with a “Lights on Afterschool” event highlighting the impact so many local programs and organizations have on the lives of Spartanburg’s youth. While much has changed since releasing its blueprint for collaboration in October of 2019, the action to build support for youth-serving providers and expanding access for youth has provided more than just the Birthday Party theme for last week’s virtual meeting of Collaborative partners. 

In the last year, OST Partnership Agreement and membership standards were developed and adopted, multiple trainings held, and partner organizations banded together to weather the coronavirus storm: pivoting programs to virtual platforms and responding with innovative new ways to keep youth engaged. 

In the last year, partners joined in training to:

“What has been most helpful about the OST Collaborative is the consistency and genuine support around planning, executing, and goal-setting by the entire community partnership in the collaborative. No one person has the most input.”

• Include Social-Emotional competencies and learning into their programs

• increase Youth Engagement

• address and advance Equity in their programs and interactions with youth

• better identify endangered youth

• understand and respond to Adverse Childhood Experiences ACE’s

• build common language, empathy, and compassion into their programs and practices,

In the process they were guided by the following field experts: America’s Promise Alliance; Karen Pittman, The Forum for Youth Investment; Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality; Dr.Susan Thomas; Dr. Jennifer Parker, USC Upstate Child Protection Training Center,  Ron Fairchild, Smarter Learning Group; Scott Neely and Davelyn Hill, Speaking Down Barriers; Polly Edwards-Padgett, CONNECT and the Mary Black Foundation, and funded in part through  America’s Promise Alliance’s How Learning Happens grant. 

Of the official OST Partners, those actively engaged in building capacity to meet quality standards of the collaborative:

•  62% are “in-process” with developing safety and emergency procedures.

•  62% are “in-process” for developing program measurement tools.

•  46% of program administrators have The Fundamentals of Youth-Serving  Providers certificate Program from the Child Protection Training Center at USC  Upstate.

In addition, OST Partners:

• participated in two Covid-debriefing sessions, sharing successes and building solutions to the challenges faced by program providers and youth.

• attended (and served as presenters) at the 3-day Adolescent Health Conference sponsored by the Mary Black Foundation and CONNECT.

• distributed over $18,000 in scholarships to support youth participation in quality summer programs

• created a web presence, resource repository, and private FB group to facilitate resource sharing among OST providers,

• and produced 9 videos capturing student voice, expert perspectives, and program-provider guidance to support ongoing Collaborative action planning

More than 65 community organization and program leaders attended one or more OST Collaborative events since the group’s launch a year ago.

“We can all be proud of what' we’ve done, learned and accomplished and how we are poised to do even more moving forward,” said Ron Fairchild, the Smarter Learning Group consultant who has provided essential support for the Collaborative’s creation and action planning since its inception.

Taking only a brief pause to have Collaborative partners celebrate by opening the party boxes mailed to them in advance, donning their party hats, and blowing their noisemakers, last week’s participants moved right into a next-steps planning session. Discussion focused on what partners had shared during and immediately following their 2-day fall training session.

“We’re continuing to build training and engagement opportunities to respond directly to what the OST partners are asking for,” said Savannah Ray, co-leader of the OST Collaborative. Ray serves as Director of Educational Engagement and Partnerships for the Spartanburg Academic Movement.

“We already have dates for training around youth mental health, cultural competency, and ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) on the calendar for the first half of 2021, said Meghan Smith, Collaborative co-leader who works as Director of College and Career Readiness for the Spartanburg Academic Movement.

“We’ve done a great job of helping our community know what ACEs are, but how we’re ready to take this to the next step, bringing that knowledge to the practice of building safe spaces and engage through traumas that youth manage in their lives so that we’re helping them build upon their resiliency as a positive,” summarized Polly Edwards-Padgett, project director with the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare Foundation.

Bringing in young people to share their lived-experiences building lives beyond their ACEs was discussed as a topic for future meetings. Gia Quinones, a local mental health counselor and member of Alianza Spartanburg suggested training to support bilingual and immigrant youth. Identifying ways to support teen parents and reducing stress for online learners were other new topics introduced.

While adding those into the future planning, a check-in on progress toward standards set last year was shared.

“Being able to have “real” conversations around what has worked, what is working, and what we are planning to do with both success and failures going forward to bring change in the Spartanburg County community has been so helpful. ”

Fairchild encouraged all to share samples and templates they’ve used for things like emergency procedures and safety plans. using the collaborative mindset to build the capacity of each organization builds the strength of all.

“It’s about working smarter, not harder,” said Tanna Thompson of the Uplift Outreach Center.

Embedding greater youth voice and engagement was another focus. The Plan Spartanburg “On the Table” initiative, asking citizens to provide discussion group-based feedback for citywide planning, quickly gained interest. Before the meeting closed, multiple partners volunteered for leadership roles to facilitate in-person and online sessions for youth.

“The youth I work with are starting to feel left-behind right now. They’re tired of virtual meetings and want to make sure they have a say in what is happening,” shared Antiwan Tate, founder of My Brothers Keeper Alliance of South Carolina.

“The support provided to one another and hearing others talk about ways they’ve pivoted whether it be due to COVID-19 or just in general when one method is worn and something else is needed has been helpful to me and my organization. ”

— Collaborative Partner

Three events, one in-person and two online have already been scheduled, in addition to one that had already been planned by the United Way of the Piedmont. Ensuring that youth are having a direct voice in the direction of community planning was clearly prioritized for immediate action.

“Getting our youth-serving providers to step up so quickly to respond to the needs and opportunities before us is what this group is all about. No one could do this all themselves, but together, we make a greater impact,” said Smith.

Despite needing to be in an online format, the virtual OST Collaborative’s October meeting was a true celebration of the group’s action throughout the last year.