Increased family and community involvement are among the successes Bassick High School in Bridgeport has experienced since becoming part of the Connecticut CommPACT Community Schools Collaborative.

“The message to the masses is that ‘it takes a village’ for effective education reforms and improvements to occur,” says Bassick Interim Principal Kathryn Silver. “I cannot make the necessary changes alone. But when experts in the CommPACT initiative come together with parents, students, staff, administrators, and the community at large, we are able to move mountains.”

Based out of UConn’s Neag School of Education and directed by Michele Femc-Bagwell, assistant professor in residence in Neag’s Department of Educational Leadership, the seven-year-old CommPACT program matches communities, parents, administrators, children, and teachers with experts and best practices designed to improve education and opportunities for students and family members alike.

“It’s all about empowerment,” Femc-Bagwell says. “We impart to parents and staff the importance of owning their school’s challenges and solutions. We work with them to identify the best research-based models and frameworks to achieve their goals.”

From ‘The School’ to ‘Our School’
Among other achievements, the program’s comprehensive and coordinated efforts toward school turnaround have led to the creation of a Parent Resource Center at Bassick High, which provides parents, grandparents, students, and others in the community with computer training, resume help, English as a Second Language support, immigration assistance, life balance and parenting skills, and a wide variety of other services. More than 2,500 visits have been logged in the past two years.

Similar successes have been achieved at the three other schools currently working with CommPACT, which include John Barry Elementary School in Meriden, Robert J. O’Brien STEM Academy in East Hartford, and West Side Middle School in Waterbury.

One of the newer schools in the program, O’Brien STEM Academy recently used CommPACT’s resources and experience with successful outcomes to organize and facilitate a “visioning event” that involved more than 60 parents, teachers, administrators, and community members brainstorming how these groups can work together to advance students’ educational opportunities through family and community engagement over the next five years. A Family Resource Center with services similar to Bassick’s was also established, but expanded to include a food pantry supported by area partner Whole Foods.

“CommPACT has led to families making strong school connections and better understanding the intricacies of the educational process,” says East Hartford Superintendent of Schools Nathan D. Quesnel. “With the help of CommPACT, there’s been an important terminology shift and change at O’Brien. Parents used to visit ‘the school,’ but they now visit ‘our school.’ CommPACT is helping us make a difference in the lives of children by bringing families into the classrooms, hallways, and cafeterias.”

This idea of inclusiveness — of bringing family members into schools to learn, volunteer, share skills, and participate in student learning as engaged partners and role models — is exactly what CommPACT is all about.

At each of the schools, a family and community cadre comprising community members, parents, administrators, teachers, and often students works with school staff to coordinate and implement projects and activities, guided by the resources of CommPACT partners.

“One of the many strengths of CommPACT is that we focus on fundamental family needs that parents and school staff identify as being essential to their community. The result is truly engaged families, whom we help by using the expertise of the partnership to find the resources they need, whether it be assistance in selecting and implementing evidence-based practices in governance, instruction, decision making, community involvement, or behavior management,” says CommPACT Family and Community Engagement Specialist Jocelyn Ault.

“We also survey parents’ interests and skills in an effort to connect their identified human capital in meaningful and important ways to curricular, extracurricular, and fundraising activities. Building relationships of trust and valuing the talents that parents bring to a school is a critical component of our work that also promotes social capital and builds community,” says Femc-Bagwell.

In addition to the Neag School, CommPACT partners include the American Federation of Teachers of Connecticut, Connecticut Education Association, Connecticut Federation of School Administrators, and Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents.

Part of the Paradigm Shift
Parents and staff at West Side Middle School are currently working with CommPACT to improve communication internally with staff and externally with families. Also being supported by CommPACT is a Parent and Community Leadership Conference to take place May 1. Additional community partners working together to plan the event include: Naugatuck Valley Community College; the U.S. Department of Education-funded Waterbury GEAR UP program to improve college access and readiness; the City of Waterbury Department of Education/Title I; and Waterbury Bridge to Success partnership of local organizations, families and volunteers. The focus of the day will be to develop parents as leaders in improving students’ educational outcomes.

“With the help of CommPACT, our school has been transformed,” says West Side Middle School CommPACT parent liaison Griselle Myers. “We’re excited for even more opportunities to make the positive changes needed to affect the most important people we serve: our students.”

“Closing the achievement gap requires not just getting kids excited about learning, but whole families and communities. Especially in our urban areas, there are many parents who grew up without a lot of educational support and who, because of that, limited their dreams,” she says. “If through our Family Resource Centers we can help them achieve some of their goals — finish high school, save money, get a better job — they, in turn, will better understand how to help their children set and achieve their own goals and dreams. Every parent and community member also has a skill or gift that they can share.”

Buying into the idea that it takes entire communities, working together, to effectively educate students requires a complete paradigm shift. CommPACT values the importance of all stakeholders working collaboratively to achieve this goal.

by: Cindy Wolfe Boynton

The Neag School of Education’s Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA) hosted “A Conversation with Representative Andy Fleischmann” this past November at the Storrs campus. As the chairman of the Education Committee of the Connecticut State Assembly, State Rep. Fleischmann (West Hartford) spoke about the future of education in Connecticut schools and how education policy research could better inform policy making in Hartford and beyond.

Hosted by CEPA, this was the first time Fleischmann was invited to the Neag School of Education since he assumed office in 1995. As a major advocate for children and education, Fleischmann has worked on the state and national levels to help ensure that children are receiving the highest quality of education through research and policy implementation.

“One of the things that I would love to come out of this dialogue would be ideas, research, facts, and concepts about what Connecticut can do to make sure it has the most effective teachers, most effective principals, and the most effective superintendents,” Fleischmann said at the event.

“Neag is really trying to jump-start into being the center of policy analysis, and we want to move it into a new realm of influence,” says Morgaen Donaldson, Neag associate professor of educational leadership and the director of CEPA, which works with educational leaders and policymakers on issues related to the development, implementation, and consequences of education policies. “Fleischmann is one of the most influential policymakers in the state. To us, inviting him was a clear choice,” she says.

Ensuring Academic Excellence

Faculty from Neag and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, as well as local citizens, current undergraduate and graduate UConn students, and even area high school students visiting the University filled the seats.

Fleischmann spoke at length about developments following the midterm elections and how they will impact schools. He said that it is important for educational researchers to conduct relevant research to support policy changes and new initiatives. Given the recent federal level and statewide elections, he also questioned how policymakers will implement the new actions based on the educational research available.

Fleischmann said that, since 1995, Connecticut has put excessive amounts of money into school readiness programs across the state without conducting any longitudinal studies to gauge the effectiveness of these programs. He said that there should be more communication and more partnering to achieve that success.

“Ideally, we should get new people in the room and have the right type of data collected for longitudinal study designs. This way, we won’t continue to wonder, ‘Gee, how did it go?’ but rather, we will be proactive about these studies,” Fleischmann said.

Given the strong connection between education and politics, Fleischmann emphasized that research from schools such as UConn is essential to policymaking in Hartford. If teachers wanted to see something changed in the classroom, it would first have to begin with some kind of research to show why changes need to be made, he said.

“The No. 1 factor for a student excelling is the quality of the teacher; the second is the school leader. Wouldn’t it be neat for us to figure how to implement the best policies to ensure academic excellence?” Fleischmann said.

CEPA plans on having other key figures come to the Neag School for further discussion on education research and policymaking. In the upcoming semester, Donaldson says she hopes to invite other state representatives as well as members of the Connecticut Education Association, Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, and similar groups.

“I hope that by bringing in researchers to talk to us about their research on policy creation and implementation, it will foster a community of like-minded individuals who can make a change,” Donaldson says.

Connecticut is 12,500 miles from South Africa. But shooting hoops with fifth-graders at the Clark Elementary & Middle School gym in Hartford recently, Sikhulu Zondo was suddenly aware that playing with the American students had erased the age and cultural barriers between them.

“I’m so glad to be here,” says the Cape Town middle school teacher. Sweeping her arm in a gesture encompassing all the players – which included 10 UConn students – she added: “When I get back home, I’m going to start a program like Husky Sport.”

Husky Sport is a campus-community partnership that provides groups of UConn students as mentors who between them spend 40 hours a week engaged in sports with Clark School students. At the same time, they build friendships that, in time, allow them to also talk about nutrition, healthy lifestyles, and life skills, as well as provide tutoring and other academic support.

Zondo says her students at the Ark Ministries Christian School for homeless children where she works mostly live at the school, so after school they need something like Husky Sport.

Cultural Exchange

Through a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs SportsUnited Division, UConn, partnering with the University of Western Cape in Cape Town, hosted a 12-day Sports for Cultural Change program in October for 10 South African educators, including Zondo, who manage community or school youth sports programs that use sport as a tool for positive social change.

Developed by UConn’s Global Training and Development Institute, the two-way exchange provided the African participants – chosen by the University of Western Cape through a merit-based, competitive process – the chance to interact with Americans and experience American society, culture, and values firsthand.

As the program is reciprocal, in March 2015, 10 Americans who also work in sports-based youth development organizations, such as schools, the YMCA, and youth sports leagues, will travel to South Africa to learn more about managing and organizing youth sport in the Western Cape region. During their visit to South Africa, the American participants will also help their South African counterparts launch sport-based youth development projects in the Western Cape region that replicate some of the U.S.-based programming. UConn will support these mini-projects with funding from the grant intended to leverage resources toward sustainable capacity-building and community development.

Roy Pietro, director of the Global Training and Development Institute and architect of the program, says the focus is on “using youth sports to promote academic success, psychosocial development, tolerance, cross-cultural exchange, and conflict resolution.”

Pietro originally developed and piloted the program in Hong Kong in 2012, when Chinese and American colleagues shared their experiences administering sports programs in their respective countries. The success of that exchange led to the creation of this year’s program with South Africa.

The U.S. State Department partners with universities that have a capacity to manage programs successfully because they want the exchanges to continue, Pietro says. “The friendships and broadening of mutual understanding achieved through our pilot in Hong Kong illustrated sport’s ability to increase dialogue and cultural understanding between people worldwide.”

‘Stronger than sitting in a classroom’

A favorite feature of the program pairs the visiting participants with peers from the host country for a three-day job shadow, to help them learn about one another’s experiences and share innovative ideas and best practices in managing and organizing youth sport. Time spent watching their peers at work – as Zondo did at Hartford’s Clark School – allows visitors to observe new methods and applications that might be adapted for their communities or schools back home.

The Global Training and Development Institute worked with UConn’s Husky Sport program to include job shadowing for the South Africans.

Person-to-person exchanges play a huge role in making the program a great learning experience, says Jennifer Bruening, professor and head of the Department of Educational Leadership in UConn’s Neag School of Education. “It’s so much stronger than sitting in a classroom. It’s so much more meaningful and inspirational.”

Zondo’s American shadow partner was Justin Evanovich ’04 (CLAS), ’06 MA, ’11 Ph.D., assistant clinical professor of educational leadership and managing director of Husky Sport, who was a walk-on UConn undergrad on the men’s basketball team and also earned his Ph.D. from UConn. He says the time spent with Zondo validated his zeal for using sports as a tool for positive change.

“It’s very cool to see that we’re on the same page with some of the concepts and approaches that we’re taking,” he says. “It’s like we’re using a board with X’s and O’s, asking whether this works for your team, or how would this work at your school.”

What Can Come From Sport

Using sport as a tool is at the heart of the Husky Sport model and guides how the UConn student mentors approach their engagement with Clark School students, their curriculum planning, and lesson delivery, he says.

“Having been involved in sport my entire life,” he says, “and how it took me to different places, helped me learn and interact with different people, be in mutual relationships, develop communication skills, a respect for sacrifice, and a work ethic – all that came from sport.”

Evanovich says that understanding a community is foundational when trying to implement new programs and establish credibility with students so they will trust adults – such as the UConn Husky Sport mentors.

“But you can’t teach lessons to someone you don’t know,” he adds, noting that Husky Sport purposefully partners with the community in an eight-block radius around Clark School, going to the same location, working with the same kids and their families, and working with the same teachers day in and day out. “We think this makes a difference in the relationships we build. … Sport is a way to begin that process.”

Zondo says the emphasis on building trust through relationships was the most outstanding thing she learned.

“In our country, we don’t get to that stage of talking about relationships,” she says. “We are going to embrace this because … I think our children will benefit.”

Sitting in the exact gym where he sat as an elementary school student, Metacomet Elementary School Principal Desi Nesmith was brought to tears when he learned that he had received the Milken Educator Award–nicknamed ”the Oscars of Teaching.”

“I wasn’t sure if it was real,” Nesmith said of receiving the prestigious honor. The Milken Educator Award is the premiere teaching accolade that recognizes the “unsung heroes” of education, providing them with a $25,000 award. Nesmith says that he is giving “serious consideration” on what to do with the award money.

Nesmith was told that Commissioner of the State Department of Education Stefan Pryor was visiting to congratulate Metacomet Elementary School on their reading and writing scores. Before Nesmith was named principal four years ago, the Bloomfield elementary school had a wide achievement gap of 19 percent and struggled in reading, writing, and math scores. Just last year, Metacomet reported that these scores exceeded the state average by 8.1 percent. Nesmith is credited for eliminating the achievement gap and bringing up the academic scores.

“It’s fantastic when a home-grown hero-educator receives the recognition they deserve,” Pryor told theHartford Courant. “He’s the superb kind of leader we need to foster in Connecticut … he sets a precedent for his peers and we are so proud.”

Nesmith was “absolutely overwhelmed and humbled” to receive this award and was the only educator in Connecticut this year to do so. His roots are here in Connecticut, graduating from the Neag School of Education and working around the state. Previously, Nesmith presided over the turnaround of SAND Elementary School, which went from being the sixth lowest performance school to being recognized in 2010 as one of the top ten improved schools.

This isn’t the first time Nesmith has been highlighted for his accomplishments. After earning his BS in 2001 and an MA in 2002 through the Neag School of Education’s IB/M program, he went onto complete the UCAPP administrator preparation program in 2009. In 2009, he received the inaugural “Outstanding Young Professional Award” from the Neag School of Education Alumni Society.

“Neag prepared me for my position by equipping me with the tools necessary to be a change agent for kids,” Nesmith said. “The relationships that are established are life long relationships with professors and Dean Schwab that last far beyond the end of the semester. Neag faculty stay with you as a support system for all your endeavors.”

To receive this prestigious award at Metacomet, where his love of learning began, is something Nesmith will always cherish.

“I remember my older brothers walking me across the street to school every day before they’d run off to the middle school – we lived right across the street,” Nesmith told the Hartford Courant. “Being able to be a principal here is what it means to me to come full circle – this award, this is just so much more.”

Nesmith is added to the list of 92 Connecticut educators to be recognized as Milken Educator Award recipients since the award’s inception. The Milken Family Foundation has honored early to mid-career educators around the country with unrestricted $25,000 awards since 1987.

“I see this award as a culmination of the hard work of many people including the Metacomet students, teachers and families,” Nesmith said. “To receive this award and to represent both Metacomet and Bloomfield Public Schools with this honor is the most humbling thing that could happen to me as an administrator.”

UConn’s Neag School of Education is launching an online graduate certificate in School Law, beginning in the spring of 2015. The 12-credit program is designed to help educators, administrators, policy makers and parents gain the expertise needed to cut through confusing “legalese” and better understand the legal dimensions of K-12 education. Participants will gain the knowledge needed to make decisions that are both legally and educationally sound, as well as to ensure that classroom, school and district educational practices comply with state and federal regulations.

How to interpret and apply special education laws, and effectively advocate for students with disabilities, will also be covered, said Assistant Professor Allison Lombardi, Ph.D., who will teach program classes with lead instructor Professor Preston Green, J.D., Ed.D. Lessening educators’ and administrators’ fear of litigation will also be addressed.

“Surveys suggest that educators often avoid taking actions that they believe are educationally sound to avoid litigation,” Green said. “Noted educational law professor Sarah Redfield also observes that educators often make wrong educational decisions to avoid litigation, when a ‘right’ one would also be legally justifiable.”

“One of the things we want to show educators is that, in many cases, they have a great deal of legal latitude in making educational decisions—more than they are aware of. We’re excited about this program, and the fact that it’s online, because it will provide students with timely training that they can access in a flexible manner,” he continued. “Educational administrators, teachers, psychologists, counselors and policymakers can all benefit from enrolling.”

The curriculum consists of four three-credit online courses offered during the fall, spring and summer semesters. Courses offered this spring 2015 semester, include Legal Issues in School Employment andLegal Issues in Student and Parent Rights.

Legal Issues in School Employment will examine matters related to employment in K-12 education, such as tenure, employment discrimination, due process and collective bargaining. Modules will include certification and licensure, tenure, employees’ speech rights, privacy, due process, employment discrimination and collective bargaining.

Legal Issues in Student and Parent Rights will examine topics as diverse as search and seizure, student discipline, speech and religion, and homeless children. Modules include an introduction to educational law, religion, expression and association, search and seizure, school attendance (including rights of homeless children), instructional program, due process, tort liability, defamation and student records.

“Every day, school leaders and teachers face challenges related to understanding and adhering to state and federal education laws and regulations,” said Neag Associate Professor-in-Residence and Online Program Director Jae-Eun Joo, Ed.D. “This unique and important online learning opportunity will provide educators with both conceptual and procedural knowledge of school law that will help them make both legally and educationally sound decisions. Acceptable user policies for social media and cyber-bullying in the contexts of K-12 education will be among the many current and cutting-edge topics covered, which we believe will be very exciting.”

Students able to take more than one class a semester can complete the certificate in less than a year. Students can also take individual courses at a slower pace. For more information or to apply, visithttps://school-law.education.uconn.edu/ or contact Donna Campbell at 860-486-0184 or ecampus@uconn.edu.

Ethnographer and former professional women’s soccer player Caitlin Davis Fisher recently spoke to UConn’s Neag School of Education Sport Management students about the ability of athletics to promote gender equality.

The former Harvard University soccer captain is the founder and director of the non-profit Guerreiras Project dedicated to educating and empowering women. Named after the Portuguese word for “warriors,” the initiative consists of female soccer players, women’s rights activists, academics and artists who believe soccer can be used to help start the conversations needed to reduce gender discrimination. Currently, its focus is on Brazil, a nation enthralled with soccer though, as Fisher noted, not necessarily with women’s soccer.

Guerreiras Project team members—who currently hail from Brazil, the United States and England— travel throughout Brazil, sharing stories, showcasing game photographs and playing soccer in local communities. Their visits open dialogues on gender stereotypes, as well as provide kids and adults the opportunity to meet strong women confident in their abilities.

“Our project empowers female players to become community ambassadors of the sport and visible role models for kids,” said Fisher. A Massachusetts native, she became a professional soccer player for Brazil’s famous Santos F.C.’s women’s team after graduating from Harvard in 2004.

“I was shocked to learn female players were fed food different from what the men’s team ate, wore men’s jerseys as much as seven years old, had to walk almost an hour to practice, and were forced to wash their uniforms by hand in outdoor sinks,” said Fisher.

Fisher said she was appalled by the treatment, as well as that the Brazilian women on the team thought it was OK. Banned from professional soccer until 1979, the women were just happy to play. Fisher, however, couldn’t ignore their continued struggles, of which not being fully accepted into a “man’s sport” was really just a small part. Lack of financial resources, cultural stereotypes perpetuated by Brazilian media, lack of family support and other challenges continued the view that women were the weaker and less important gender— and inspired Fisher to seek solutions for change.

Through the Guerreiras Project, all involved benefit: “The female players [on the team] build confidence, voice and self-esteem,” Fischer said, “and the youths and adults we visit are encouraged to challenge their own gender biases and to ask questions about what women are capable of doing and becoming.”

The idea for the initiative came shortly after Fisher earned a master’s degree in Gender, Development and Globalization from the London School of Economics and then traveled  back to Brazil to reconnect with former Santos teammates. Coupled with ethnographic work she performed on the relationship between body, gender, soccer and economic development, the visit became the cradle for the Guerreiras Project.

Fisher’s visit to UConn came at the invitation of Sports Management Associate Professor Laura Burton. The two met via Skype over the summer, when Burton interviewed Fisher for a textbook chapter that UConn Sports Management faculty were writing.

While on the Storrs campus, Fisher spent time with Sport Management students, staff from UConn’s Husky Sport youth development program, and students in the Women’s Center Violence against Women Prevention Program.

“We are always interested in having our students think critically about the many issues that are part of sports, including homophobia and age, gender and racial discrimination,” Burton said. “The Guerreiras Project shows how much gender discrimination can be infused within just one sport, and the effort required for girls and women to push against constraints if they want to force needed change.”

Hoping that greater awareness about the Guerreiras Project will lead to greater change, Fisher plans to bring the initiative to the United States and study, among other things, “how it might impact girls and women in the U.S. differently than those in Brazil.”

Toward that end, Burton has an idea: “We would love for Caitlin to meet with the UConn women’s soccer team.”

Schools in Jordan and throughout the Middle East will soon be led by administrators as confident and knowledgeable as those who have graduated from the Neag School of Education’s highly rated University of Connecticut Administrator Preparation Program (UCAPP).

As part of a recently announced partnership with the Queen Rania Teacher Academy (QRTA) in Jordan, Neag Educational Leadership faculty will help develop a program and training materials for QRTA staff to use to teach administrators from local and international schools. Led by UCAPP Director Diane D. Ullman, the effort will focus on putting “UCAPP’s best content and concepts into Arabic and a Middle Eastern context.”

“One of the primary commonalities I see in education throughout the world is that successful schools have successful principals,” said Dr. Ullman. “Good principals encourage teachers and unleash their full potential. They create a community where teachers learn from one another.”

In addition to developing the curriculum, Neag faculty will train QRTA staff how to best present the materials. This process will begin in July 2014 when Neag faculty will begin teaching the curriculum to private schools in the region. In the near future the QRTA staff will be prepared to bring the curriculum to the public schools in Jordan

Recognized as one of the top educational leadership programs in the U.S., UCAPP provides courses in educational policy, curriculum leadership and program evaluation for school improvement, supervision and evaluation among other areas.

The Neag School- QRTA collaboration was announced in September, when Ullman presented a “School Leaders Promoting Excellence in Teaching” workshop to 100 school administrators from Jordan and several other Middle Eastern countries.

“Dr. Ullman shows the undeniable connection between good leadership and good teaching, and that coaching goes hand in hand with successful classroom instruction,” said Muna Fityani, communications officer for QRTA. The school was founded in 2009 with the help of Jordan’s Queen Rania to provide training and networking opportunities, professional development, and information about the latest educational research and policies to Middle Eastern school leaders.

As part of her visit to Jordan, Ullman outlined UCAPP courses and introduced several new and proven leadership techniques, including the need for teachers to be observed by principals and receive construction feedback on classroom performance. She also stressed the essentialness of schools establishing an environment of trust.  The latter, Ullman said, is a concept that’s rarely been explored by educational leaders in the region.

“Principals need to know how teaching and learning occur, as well as have the ability to inspire and lead,” Ullman said. “It’s a much broader role than many people think, but we’re fortunate at the Neag School to have outstanding instructors that are among the best practitioners anywhere. It’s exciting to know they’ll now be sharing their knowledge and passion for educational leadership to help principals, and other school leaders, from around the world. Through this partnership, the Neag School becomes an even stronger global presence.”

Talks of a collaboration began in 2011, when Ullman—a commissioner for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges—met QRTA Academic Program Advisor Mary Tadros on a trip to evaluate an international school in Germany.

“After we work with Dr. Ullman to create a wholesome leadership program that we can develop to suit local needs, we hope to roll out the program to countries throughout the region,” Tadros said.

Added an equally thrilled Ullman: “This partnership will provide an opportunity for Neag faculty to broaden their international perspective on issues, strategies and practices. And who knows where it may lead. This work could be a doorway into an even more robust cross-cultural educational leadership exchange between our two organizations.”