AfterZone STEM Scholars: A Collaborative Full Day, Hands on Exploratorium of STEM Learning
PASA’s goal is to create a dynamic learning environment for the lowest performing youth in a City with the third highest child poverty rate in America using inquiry-based methods to solve real world, STEM-related problems in a way that connects with academic skills and curriculum. To do this PASA’s AfterZone—a system of quality afterschool providers working with Providence’s middle schools to provide expanded learning—has built a teaching environment where formal and informal STEM educators collaborate to create hands-on teaching and learning experiences that bring the field into the classroom. By getting 1/3 of the middle school youth excited about STEM programming, we have increased school attendance, improved math grades and built a vibrant public private afterschool system.
About You
About You
First Name
Hillary
Last Name
Salmons
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Providence After School Alliance (PASA)
Organization Website
Organization Phone
401-490-9599
Organization Address
17 Gordon Ave
Organization Country
United States, RI, Providence County
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States, RI, Providence County
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
AfterZone STEM Scholars: A Collaborative Full Day, Hands on Exploratorium of STEM Learning
What change do you want to bring to the world?
PASA’s goal is to create a dynamic learning environment for the lowest performing youth in a City with the third highest child poverty rate in America using inquiry-based methods to solve real world, STEM-related problems in a way that connects with academic skills and curriculum. To do this PASA’s AfterZone—a system of quality afterschool providers working with Providence’s middle schools to provide expanded learning—has built a teaching environment where formal and informal STEM educators collaborate to create hands-on teaching and learning experiences that bring the field into the classroom. By getting 1/3 of the middle school youth excited about STEM programming, we have increased school attendance, improved math grades and built a vibrant public private afterschool system.
What are the primary activities of your project?
PASA built a unique network of 70+ community partners, school principals and teachers and city leaders who design and invest in operating a collaborative expanded learning afterschool system for middle school youth called the AfterZone. Consisting of arts, environmental education, museums and youth organizations 1/3 of its programming focuses on STEM learning. This consortium offers a virtual Exploratorium of STEM program options that appeal specifically to the city’s middle school youth, and that align with the school system’s core curriculum using hands-on learning in the field, embedded with math and science skills. From this system, PASA has built an AfterZone Summer Scholars Program that focuses on STEM and was co-designed and co-funded by the school and afterschool partners, to target 250 youth failing math and science. Combined, the AfterZone and AfterZone Summer Scholars programs create a year-round environment in which 600 students work to explore and study STEM challenges and provide tangible solutions and projects for and in their communities, taking math and science out of the abstract and connecting it to their lived experience.
PASA wants to push this model even further by designing an AfterZone STEM Scholars expanded learning plan with the lowest performing turnaround middle school included in the State’s Race to the Top plan. STEM afterschool providers from the summer will be incorporated into an expanded learning day, building upon the summer STEM model that draws upon both teachers and informal educators from the community. These teams will co-teach STEM hands-on learning classes as an elective enrichment option, entitled AfterZone STEM Scholars, for a cohort of 50 additional youth for an additional 2 hours a day.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
Unlike most STEM models, PASA’s AfterZone STEM Scholars program pairs formal and informal STEM educators to co-design and teach together. These thinkers use inquiry and project-based learning to deliver the district’s new math and science curriculum. Other expanded learning models, like those designed by the Center for Time and Learning and TASC, have community partners working side-by-side teachers in an aligned way, whereas PASA is moving toward integration of expertise.
PASA has built an ideal system for inquiry-based learning across sectors and disciplines through a system of full year/full day plug-and-play programs that foster collaboration and partnership. This middle school expanded learning system is ripe for deepening STEM programming and testing project and inquiry-based approaches, creating a learning environment for youth AND adults where people want to work together to improve practice, building on one another’s passions and ideas.
PASA supports the development of community designed STEM curriculum as well as the implementation of proven curricula. As such, PASA has taken a district and citywide approach to developing a STEM delivery system, transforming summer remediation into a summer STEM adventure by building a virtual Exploratorium of programs using our city’s wealth of small grassroots organizations with STEM programs, creating a collective of learners and practitioners. In so doing we have helped broker their systemic connection to the schools which lack staff or capacity to build partnerships with what was once a patchwork quilt providers.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
Like many post-industrial cities in New England, Providence has experienced severe economic setbacks, compounded by its history of political corruption, which has resulted in a significant displaced worker population. With the 3rd highest child poverty rate in the country for a city of its size, a median household income of just over $30,000 per year, rapidly growing immigrant and refugee populations and a school system where 84% of children are eligible for free or reduced lunch, the 23,344 children and youth enrolled in the public schools of Providence, RI are in great need of services and supports. To address this, PASA collaborated with more than 100 leaders from afterschool organizations, city departments and teams of youth and parents to create a plan for a citywide system to address the fact that the city’s youth had few quality afterschool opportunities. The result was a unique system of neighbourhood-based afterschool programs, anchored by 2-3 schools and consisting of multiple off-campus, community-based facilities. PASA has combined its systems building approach with a community organizing approach; rather than engaging with a single community, PASA truly believes that the key to creating a learning environment that works for kids and works for teachers is to draw on the talents, strengths and insights that exist across a diversity of Providence communities, resulting in a collaborative grass tops and grass roots approach to afterschool.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
PASA has been a joint public private partnership from the start. Mayor David Cicilline and Executive Director Hillary Salmons established PASA in 2004 as a systems building intermediary to orchestrate the creation of a high quality afterschool system for middle school youth. Providence is a city rich in community organizations and the AfterZone middle school model was shaped and implemented by a network of over 70 non-profit afterschool providers, middle school principals and faculty, police officers and parks department programs from the zoo to the Natural History Museum. From environmental, to higher education, to arts organizations, the AfterZone has a wealth of providers that incorporate informal STEM education; additionally, middle school youth crave hands-on learning opportunities, making it only natural for PASA to develop the AfterZone STEM Scholars program. Hillary Salmons has been successful in hiring staff and empowering community leaders to work together, share expertise and open themselves to being measured and working alongside school faculty. Providence’s new Mayor Angel Taveras’ life experience inform his educational priorities of supporting quality teachers, afterschool and summer learning, which he sees as essential to building a full day and year of relevant and rigorous hands-on learning. While Hillary Salmons and Mayor Taveras are co-leaders in this public private collaborative, the true founders are the informal and formal teachers—all of whom have continued to inquire how to best engage youth in learning.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Key to PASA’s successful model is a dedication to research, data tracking, and quality monitoring. PASA uses the YouthServices.net participation tool for day-to-day management and participant tracking, monitoring providers, looking at participation trends and assessing the system’s progress in meeting key benchmarks.
Additionally, the Rhode Island Program Quality Assessment tool PASA uses has continued to be successful state-wide and throughout the AfterZone. In the AfterZone, the RIPQA is used throughout the year with providers. During the past year, 34 programs were observed and each provider was offered up to 5-hours of technical assistance from a quality advisor to receive guidance around quality improvement action steps. In addition, PASA is piloting a new STEM-specific RIPQA for the Weikart Center at the Forum for Youth Investment which developed the tool.
Finally, the results of the just published three-year outcomes study by the evaluation firm Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) show that after one year, AfterZone participants attending two or more days per week were reported to demonstrate improved social skills, more positive attitudes about community resources and better ability to control their emotions; they also thought more about their future and felt a stronger connection to school.
Additionally, the study’s data reveal that participation in the AfterZone, when compared to non-participants, appears to reduce absences by 25%. Early progress was also seen in math grades, something that PASA needs to track closely with the school department in future years.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
101-1,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
101- 1,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
Using the collaborative AfterZone Summer Scholars model, PASA is integrating STEM programming as part of a middle school turnaround strategy that will serve 50 youth during a hands-on expanded learning day. The hope is to expand the model to serve up to 150 youth in one school and potentially replicate program components in additional middle schools. PASA is currently developing an expanded learning guide to include STEM design as part of a replication strategy that can be shared with other cities.
Additionally, in the coming years PASA will focus on increasing participation numbers throughout the AfterZone, as per the PPV research report that links increased participation with greater positive impact and student success.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Partnerships with schools are always a challenge as they work on racing to the top, transforming schools, adopting the Common Core and teaching to the test, especially when adjusting to a new superintendent and coping with teacher contract and finance pressures. PASA has built relationships and builds joint practice at the faculty, principal and district levels—concentrating on bringing practitioners together. The New School Superintendent Sue Lusi believes in PASA’s inquiry-based approach and her academic team is leading the effort to fund PASA’s summer, and now turnaround, partnership with federal SIG funds.
PASA has received two grants through CBASS this year that have helped us to forge a partnership with Rhode Island College (RIC). A Noyce grant and an AmeriCorps national direct grant in partnership with TASC and Boston Beyond have allowed us to improve our STEM capacity and tap into RIC’s faculty expertise. RIC’s School of Education has been an important partner in helping us to recruit teachers-in-training to serve as part time AmeriCorps instructors, helping to keep staff costs low, and instruction quality high. The AmeriCorps members were all trained in the 4-H Wonderwise science curriculum and delivered this content to students during Club AfterZone daily in 3 schools. Finally, PASA’s capacity building funding from the Wallace Foundation affords us the opportunity to invest in STEM quality improvements over the next two years and to build a consortium of quality practionners.
Tell us about your partnerships
PASA partners with a wide array of groups including its STEM community partners: Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living, Audubon Society of Rhode Island, Center for Dynamic Learning, Community Boating Center, DownCity Design, Museum of Natural History, Providence ¡CityArts! for Youth, Rhode Island Veterinary Medical Association, Roger Williams Park Zoo, Save the Bay, and Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council.
Additionally, we have begun working with RIC’s STEM department to craft a National Science Foundation grant that would allow PASA and RIC to jointly expand the AfterZone STEM Scholars model to increase student participation in PASA's informal science education programs and to replicate effective program models in 3-4 additional high needs communities.
PASA’s relationship with PPSD is stronger than it has ever been. The recently named Interim Superintendent, Sue Lusi, has a good past working relationship with the Exeucitve Director and will be a strong advocate for PASA's work. The District has funded PASA to co-lead and design a summer program and offered to invest in building the joint STEM expanded learning pilot and support additional AfterZone programming in the turnaround middle school.
The strong partnership PASA had with the Mayor’s office continues under the leadership of Mayor Angel Taveras. PASA was the only community organization mentioned during his inaugural speech in January, and in January he assumed the role of Chair of the PASA Board. The Mayor’s education vision includes a focus on afterschool and summer learning.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
More than $1 million
Explain your selections
Individual donations include Board donors as well as an annual fundraising event called My PASA Su Casa, in which families visiting for college graduation weekend pay for the use of a home that was donated by residents who will be away for the weekend. In addition, PASA began an annual City Institute, wherein cities interested in replicating PASA's model hire PASA for training assistance.
PASA receives support from the Wallace Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott, Noyce (through TASC/CBASS), WT Grant, RI Foundation, Jessie B. Cox, and the Jessie B. Cox Family Fund.
We receive corporate support from Bank of America and MetLife.
We are a recipient of Federal funds from the 21st Century Learning Centers administered by the State Department of Education and AmeriCorps administered by TASC and the Collaborative to Build After School Systems (CBASS).
PASA is included in a City Line Item for 10% of the budget. Additionally, the Providence School Department invests federal funds in PASA’s youth transportation strategy, the summer program and potentially the turnaround strategy.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
PASA is conducting ongoing capacity building of STEM learning Community consisting of community providers, teachers and teachers-in-training—using Wallace funds and a hoped for NSF grant submitted by RI College STEM Center. We would like to work more with faculty from the STEM Center to further refine our approach to informal STEM learning.
As mentioned previously, we are using the Roger Williams pilot model of practice for the STEM expanded learning model to assess and measure what works and to identify core practices that could be expanded and replicated. Assessment of the AfterZone STEM Scholars programs will be greatly enhanced with the new STEM Program Assessment that is being validated by the Weikart Center. As the assessment identifies areas that need improvement, we will provide professional development opportunities to ensure a successful STEM expanded learning model.
Partnerships and Accountability
Please tell us more about how your partnership was formed and how it functions. What specific role does each partner play? What unique resources does each partner bring to the initiative?
On July 1, 2004, Mayor David N. Cicilline launched the Providence After School Alliance, a public private venture to develop a citywide system to substantially increase high quality, affordable, out-of-school enrichment opportunities for Providence’s children and youth.
As an intermediary organization, PASA serves as a vehicle for collective action, advocacy and integrated planning. PASA grew out of a nine-month strategic planning process led by Rhode Island Kids Count and funded by The Wallace Foundation. The plan outlined a set of key investments that would lead to higher quality after-school programs and better outcomes for Providence youth.
More than 100 leaders from afterschool organizations and city departments joined teams of youth and parents to create the plan, which was also informed by research from Community Matters and market research, and for the past year, PASA has also been facilitating a STEM Learning Community, funded by a recent grant from the Noyce Foundation. The Community began last fall by bringing together teachers and providers to create a shared definition of inquiry-based learning. The group has evolved into a collective that is beginning to develop plans for shared evaluation, fundraising, and capacity building strategies.
In the coming year, the STEM Learning Community will be helping to inform and implement PASA’s AfterZone STEM Scholars expanded learning model at Roger Williams middle school and will be utilized to begin a peer coaching strategy to support professional development.
Nine of the twelve STEM partners applied to work in the summer program with middle school faculty. Together, formal and informal educators are building intentional curricula that incorporate content, skills and hands-on project, research and field-based practices. The best program models and partnerships developed this summer will be incorporated into the AfterZone STEM Scholars expanded learning schedule being developed by the Roger Williams Middle School team.
How are you building in accountability for students' successful STEM learning outcomes? Please provide a summary and examples.
The David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality, a division of the Forum for Youth Investment, is working to develop and validate a new observational assessment for STEM-focused out-of-school time programming. They are currently in the process of testing the draft assessment tool in PASA’s AfterZone Summer Scholars program which was STEM-focused. This STEM PQA will consist of both observational and interview forms and will be designed to utilize the existing training, technical assistance and information technology infrastructure which support the Weikart Center’s evidence-based Youth Program Quality Intervention (YPQI) model. PASA’s 70 community providers, as well as the 21st Century Learning Centers who run afterschool programming throughout the state, already use the Weikart Center’s PQA. Given that we are seeing improvement in the quality of afterschool overall, it seemed logical to build upon the accepted use of a helpful tool that supports the theory that student outcomes are most likely when there is a quality teacher in the classroom or leading the afterschool program. Upon validation, this tool will be used to assess programming throughout the year in both the AfterZone STEM Scholars and the AfterZone Summer Scholars programs.
In addition, PASA has contracted for an evaluation of the AfterZone Summer Scholars Program which is being led by a teaching faculty member from RI College and supported by an advisory committee that includes the Annenberg Institute, National Summer Learning Association, PPV, the Providence School Department’s Office of Research and Planning and the Weikart Center. The core components of that evaluation include the following:
- Facilitate collaborative planning with PASA staff and the AfterZone Summer Scholars Program evaluation advisory board
- Administer pre- and post-surveys to all participating AfterZone Summer Scholars Program students
- Analyze program quality data collected by the Weikart Center
- Identify a comparison group of PPSD students who are similar to AfterZone Summer Scholars Program participants on a number of key variables
- Administer a survey to the teachers of AfterZone Summer Scholars Program participants and comparison students
- Analyze changes in state test performance(NECAP)of AfterZone Summer Scholars Program participants and similar, non-participating students
- Present findings to PASA in the form of ongoing formative feedback, supplementary, and preliminary and final reports
PASA is also working with the School District to form data teams in each of the Providence middle schools where school attendance, grades, behaviour and state test data will be examined and tracked to examine how students participating in the AfterZone, the AfterZone STEM Scholars and the AfterZone Summer Scholars programs progress in terms of attendance, grades, behaviour and state assessments. Since PASA is being invited to expand its STEM AfterZone programming in one turnaround school, we will be looking closely at these student achievement variables in addition to the PQA rankings of program quality. PASA has a formal data sharing agreement with the district enabling it to coordinate a shared data and accountability plan between the AfterZone educators and the formal educators in the schools.
Needs
Investment, Innovation/Ideas.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add needs that may not be listed.
With the recent development of PASA's expanded learning turnaround partnership with Roger Williams middle school and the possibility of moving forward with the district in developing a systemic investment in a summer model that could benefit all Providence middle school youth, PASA is in greater demand than ever before. Support from the Carnegie Corporation and Opportunity Equation and Ashoka Changemakers would provide a financial boon to PASA, helping to further our commitment to maintaining a diverse and rich culture of AfterZone STEM Scholars providers. Additionally, PASA's culture of collaboration and innovation would greatly benefit from the wealth of community partnership-driven leading edge thinking that both Carnegie Corporation and Ashoka Changemakers are known for.
Offers
Human Resources/Talent, Marketing/Media, Research/Information, Collaboration/Networking, Innovation/Ideas.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add offers that may not be listed.
PASA brings considerable resources that could be of benefit to other initiatives. Our dedication to research, quality and systems building has created a network of strong partnerships including RI College STEM Center and Education Department, the Providence School Department, the Mayor's Office, the Forum for Youth Investment at the Weikart Center, and CBASS. Beyond our strong network of partners, PASA also brings with it a unique, research-driven practice model that has garnered national attention and respect.
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