Bronx Middle School Collaborative/Safe Schools, Successful Students Bronx Elementary School Collaborative

Bronx Middle School Collaborative/Safe Schools, Successful Students
This initiative is a joint effort with the following organizations:

The United Way of New York City
New York City Department of Education, Region 1
New York City Office of Health and Mental Hygiene
New York State Office of Mental Health
American Institutes for Research
Visiting Nurse Service of New York City
Columbia University School of Social Work

The Safe Schools, Successful Students initiative began in late 2004. It targets the following Bronx middle schools:

These specific Region 1 schools were targeted for a number of reasons. They are among the most crowded, high-risk, and under-resourced. Some 81% of students in the Region are eligible for free lunch. The general suspension rate is higher as are referrals to and enrollment in restrictive special education classes. Standardized test scores are poor, with an average of 25% scoring only Level 1 proficiency in English Language Arts and 40% at Level 1 in Math. A significant number (25%) of students are enrolled in English Language Learner courses. As each school’s environment and resources are different, implementation is customized to meet the specific needs of each school. Turnaround’s Education Coach has begun consulting at all five schools.

The Safe Schools, Successful Students initiative utilizes a triage and consultation team (the Friends School Team) whose staff is comprised of social workers, a child psychiatrist, and parent engagement specialists. Friends School Team Director, Dr. Andrew Bell, is a child psychologist with many years experience working with school children in the Bronx. Friends Team staff operate in the following way:

• Friends School Team social workers attend the weekly Student Intervention Team (SIT) meetings held at the schools and conduct evaluations of students referred to them by the SIT, making certain that services are offered efficiently and effectively
• Friends School Team child psychiatrists provide medication evaluation at the Friends School Team offices
• Friends School Team staff provide phone consultation to the schools to determine level of risk during times of crisis, reducing inappropriate referrals to hospital emergency rooms and assuring that children needing further assessment or additional services will not be overlooked
• Friends School Team staff includes Student Support Specialists who are assigned to each school and work with staff to identify students in need of academic and behavioral support

The American Institutes for Research designed and is conducting an evaluation of Safe Schools, Successful Students initiative. The aim of the evaluation strategy for the project is to demonstrate, among other things:

• The efficacy of inter-systemic planning, integration, and collaboration in addressing the impact of student behavioral disorders across systems;
• The relationship between serving this high-need population of students and improving overall school climate, time on academic task, and academic performance;
• That a dual focus on academic and student support practices is more effective than either practice alone;
• That a positive school-wide culture will enhance individual outcomes for students, as well as providing benefits for the entire school community;
• That students who would have emerged in crisis or that required an outpatient mental health intervention can instead receive psychosocial, sub-clinical interventions at school;
• That preventive interventions will ultimately result in savings in multiple areas (i.e., hospitals, the juvenile justice system, etc.); and
• That the project is cost-effective, replicable, scalable, and sustainable.
  

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Bronx Elementary School Collaborative

Turnaround for Children believes that meeting the academic, social, and emotional needs of children often requires a change of school mission and vision, a reassessment of school wide values, and a reorganization of systems that work with students with diverse needs and learning styles. Research on comprehensive school support models documents that prevention and intervention activities that begin at an early age equip children for learning and being involved members of a learning community. For these reasons, Turnaround is building on the Safe Schools, Successful Students initiative through the establishment of an elementary school collaborative, which will include several elementary schools whose student populations feed into the middle schools.

Taking advantage of the elementary to middle school feeder pattern will allow us to evaluate the efficacy of the Turnaround Model when interventions begin at an early age and continue over an extended period of time. Such an evaluation may demonstrate, for instance, that children who receive supports as early as pre-K (and throughout their elementary years) have a much greater likelihood of entering middle school prepared for academic work and protected against the many risk factors that make children of that age so vulnerable.

Turnaround has received funding to begin the Bronx Elementary School Collaborative from its funding partners, Robin Hood Foundation and Andor Capital Management Foundation. The design of the program is underway with implementation due to begin in the 2005/2006 school year.

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