LAUSD VISTA SUPERVISOR TRAINING

Friday, August 24, 2012Presented by Nadia Funn

Parent Community Services Branch

AmeriCorps VISTA Background

• VISTA = Volunteers in Service to America

• AmeriCorps VISTA is the national service program designed specifically to fight poverty. Authorized in 1964 and founded as Volunteers in Service to America in 1965

• President John F. Kennedy came up with the idea for VISTA

• 185,000 VISTAs have served since 1965

• Played a key role in establishing many of the best-known anti-poverty programs, including Head Start, Upward Bound, and the credit union system

AmeriCorps VISTA Background (cont)

• 6,500 VISTAs in service to fight poverty with passion at more than 1,200 projects across the country.

• VISTA members commit to serve full-time for a year at a nonprofit organization or local government agency, working to fight illiteracy, improve health services, create businesses, strengthen community groups, and much more.

LAUSD VISTA Community Partnership

• 2011 LAUSD engaged the Corporation for National and Community Service about bringing a VISTA program to LAUSD

•Applied for a grant 3-5 year program that sought to address the district’s unmet needs in 3 focus areas:

• Parent engagement • School attendance• Resource Generation

•1st Cohort of 20 began their service exactly one year ago today

•LAUSD= largest education focused VISTA program in the United States

2012-13 Pilot Cohort Highlights

• Over 39,000 hours served

• 500 volunteers who served over 1,000 hours• $200,000 generated in monetary/in-kind donations

• 21,840 parents engaged

• 35,94 community members and organizations engaged

Goals for 2012-2013

See Handout

The VISTA Milestones:What we expect to achieve this year

PARENT ENGAGEMENT

•Promote the creation of at least 20 new Parent & Family Centersdistrict wide

•Recruit at least 1,000 parents to participate in district-wide learning opportunities

•Develop tools and provide training/technical assistance for the implementation of new school volunteer programs to at least 30 schools

•Increase the parent participation rates of school advisory committees, school site councils and parent trainings by 10% in 10 schools

•Support the creation/sustainability of Family Action Teams in 20 schools

The VISTA Milestones:What we expect to achieve this year

ATTENDANCE IMPROVEMENT

•Conduct assessments of Attendance Improvement Plans at all School-based and AIP VISTA schools to identify opportunities and challenges for implementation, expansion and sustainability

•Improve Attendance at 10 VISTA schools not participating in the Attendance Improvement Program by 1%

•Create a stakeholder network composed of parents, community members, organizations, teachers, staff, businesses and others to help improve attendance at 70% of VISTA schools

The VISTA Milestones:What we expect to achieve this year

RESOURCE GENERATION

• Personalized menu of services for each school site based on the needs assessment for 100% of their campuses

• Increased # of supplemental services (new and/or previously cut due to budget constraints) and resources at 80% of school-based VISTA campuses.

Reaching our MilestonesHow in the world are VISTAs going to do

this? • VISTA Assignment Description

• A framework for developing VISTA projects and tasks

• A living document

•Understanding capacity building vs. direct Service

Measuring our progress

• Reporting documents • Gathering baseline data

• Developing a needs assessment

Break Time10 MINK

The VISTA Partnership

VISTA Project Team

VISTAs Schools/Departments

Who are these VISTAs, anyway?2012-2013 Profile

• 25 VISTAs & 3 VISTA Leaders • out of a pool of over 100 applicants

•Bilingual capacity

•Most college degrees, some with master’s degrees

•19 female/6 male

•Varied work experience: none to 15+ years

•Receive a living stipend: less than $600 every other week (105% poverty level)

Skills and AssetsWhat do they come to the table with?

•Commit to serving a one-year term • 5 days a week; minimum 35 hours

Passionate and initiative

•Training in key focus areas •General overview/understanding of LAUSD

•Mobile offices

• VISTA Assignment Description

Sponsoring Units • 16 school campuses

• 4 ESC Parent & Community Engagement Teams

• Early Education

• Public School Choice

• Parent Community Services Branch

• Attendance Improvement Team

Why participate? what’s in it for us?

More resources for your schools (in-kind donations/donated programming/grants/monetary)

• High value, low cost resource

• Measurable improvements in focus areas

•Greater access to central initiatives, resources, tools and trainings • Parent & Family Center grants • Pilot programs • Trainings: parent access/volunteer program

training/advisory councils/Family Action Teams/ Regional Summits

Participant ObligationsAgreement to Participate

• Cost-share

• Bi-weekly meetings to guide work and measure VAD progress

• Participate in site visits and surveys

• Create a dedicated space for your VISTA • Help get your VISTA established at your school • Support VISTA in obtaining baseline data

• Participate in one pilot project (fall/spring)

Ready, Set, GoThe First Week

•Establish regular work hours and dress code

•Introduce VISTA to campus stakeholders (see handout)

•Assist VISTAs in obtaining baseline data

•Let them know where the bathroom is located!

What the heck does PCSB do? • Recruit, interview, select VISTAs

• Seek out good matches for VISTA service throughout the District

• Support supervisor/VISTA relationships

• Ensure all projects are capacity building in nature

• File all reports- quarterly & annual reports

• Manage Compliance Monitoring visits

• Promote AmeriCorps and VISTA

• Provide ongoing professional development

• Serve as a resource center for supervisors

PCSB VISTA Project Team

• Jaime Aquino—Program Director, Office of Instruction

• Maria Casillas—Program Manager, PCSB

• Nadia Funn—Project Coordinator

• Jonathan De Belen– VISTA Budget Coordinator

• Samuel Bloch—VISTA leader

• Angela Shen—VISTA leader

• Jasmine Rosa—VISTA leader

Additional Resources

•Payment Instructions •Calendar Overview

•VISTA resume

Questions?THANK YOU!