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Volunteers in Public Schools (1990)

Chapter: 5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs

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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs." National Research Council. 1990. Volunteers in Public Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1458.
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5 Some Exemplary Volunteer Programs Supplementing the analysis of available data and the review of the research literature, committee members and staff made 13 site visits to "exemplary" volunteer programs. The main purpose of the visits, fulfill- ing a major study objective, was to provide committee members with first-hand exposure to a variety of volunteer programs, to talk with and question those involved in giving and receiving services, and to interact with policy makers and teachers. The visits also resulted in a detailed description of each program based on personal observation, as well as analysis of data and materials on the program. This chapter presents summaries of the committee's observations and findings from the site visits. Most visits involved teams of two or three members and staff for 1 or 2 days: 11/2 days at the site and 1/2 day for reviewing and consolidating notes and other information materials. During the visits, extensive inter- views were conducted with the volunteer coordinator or other person re- sponsible for the operation of the program at the city or district level. Interviews were also conducted when possible with the school superin- tendent and other top administrative or policy officials and at building sites with the principal, teachers, and the school volunteer coordinator. In many instances, interviews were also held with volunteers and students. Interview guides for each of these groups were prepared to help assure that some agreed-on core questions would be asked at all sites. These site visits and interviews could not confer instant expertise, but they did serve to give the committee and staff a feeling for what volunteers actually do, how the different levels of the school system view such programs, and how each of the programs is organized and operated. 44

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 45 Without exception, all of the site visit hosts were extremely coopera- tive, willingly answering all questions and helping the team see specific instances of exemplary use of volunteers. Although the case histories in this chapter are based on materials supplied at each site as well as notes from interviews and observations, the committee takes responsibility for the descriptions and observations. Selection of sites was based on programs suggested by state and local coordinators of volunteer services organizations, including the National School Volunteers Program (now the National Association of Partners in Education), the National Education Association, the National PTA, the National School Boards Association, and others. Recognizing the difficulty of selecting a few programs that are labeled as exemplary, the committee established the following criteria for a pro- gram to be selected: · have administrative- and policy-level support and show evidence of sound organization and management; · have written goals and objectives, clearly defined, based on school or district priorities and supported by a needs assessment process; have a written plan of action (i.e., procedures for administering pro- gram design); be largely student centered and involve human interaction; collect data and information (e.g., the number of volunteers used, number of students served) and conduct periodic evaluations of progress made toward goals and objectives; and · have been in operation for at least 2 years. In addition, an effort was made to select programs from different parts of the country and from small and medium-sized as well as large school districts. The committee also attempted to select programs representing a variety of organizational arrangements. The number of programs visited was limited by the time and funds available. Although the programs reviewed met the criteria established for "exemplary" programs, the committee was very much aware that there are dozens, probably hundreds, of others that are as good or possibly even better. The descriptions of the 13 programs in this chapter (pre- sented in alphabetical order) should be regarded, therefore, as illustrative of some of the many models that have been developed in different parts of this country, largely over the last two decades. The committee recognized the existence of unsuccessful programs. To deal with this issue, several such programs were identified, and persons were interviewed to provide some insight as to why the programs were unsuccessful. Furthermore, the committee also questioned persons inter

46 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS viewed during site visits about problems they encountered and how they resolved them. We asked questions about what inhibited successful op- eration such as what happens when administrators, teachers, or teacher organizations are disinterested or even hostile toward use of volunteers, questions on recruitment problems, adequate screenings, liability issues, commitment problems, and others-that the committee had identified as possible inhibiting or even negative factors. Our findings from the inter- views are addressed in the next chapter on factors in school volunteerism. ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN The visit was to the primarily Teaching-Learning Communities (T-LC) program, an intergenerational program housed in the Scarlett Middle School in Ann Arbor. The committee also visited briefly a T-LC program in one elementary school, Carpenter Elementary. In the T-LC program, senior citizens are recruited from the community to work with students. The program emphasizes development of relationships across generations, with the major goal of enhancing the self-esteem of both volunteers and students. The major focus is on working with youths who are at risk of dropping out. A component of the secondary school T-LC program in- volves college students from the University of Michigan who perform much the same functions as the senior volunteers. Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, is a medium-sized university town, with traditionally high expectations of its public schools. The-community recently approved a $30 million bond issue for education, although 70 percent of the population has no children in school. The district's 14,000 students attend 3 high schools, 5 middle schools, and 22 elementary schools. Overall, the T-LC program operates in 2 middle schools, 2 high schools, and 12 elementary schools in the district-just over one-half of all schools. An Ann Arbor elementary school art teacher developed the T-LC pro- gram almost 20 years ago and is now coordinator of the T-LC program in Ann Arbor secondary schools. Another coordinator has responsibility for the program in elementary schools. The T-LC program is strongly sup- ported by the Ann Arbor Education Association, an affiliate of the Na- tional Education Association, which was instrumental in obtaining fund- ing for the program in its early years. The NEA cites the program as a model teacher-created and -supported volunteer activity. The senior volunteers act in specific roles. As mentors, they may talk with students, usually at least once a week, by telephone or in person, helping with concerns about doing well in school or problems with friends or at home. As career guides, they visit schools to explain and discuss their careers. As tutors, they work with individual children on mastery and

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 47 practice. As "grandpersons," they go to school, perhaps once a week, to help with creative projects in arts or humanities and their relationship to learning in the areas of basic skills. Because the intergenerational pro- gram is based on mutual learning and teaching by volunteers and stu- dents, the program is "constantly reinvented," with activities depending on the particular strengths and needs of individual students and volun- teers as well as the needs of teachers and administrators in the school. Currently, there are 95 volunteers between the ages of 55 and 94, 60 in elementary schools and 35 in middle schools and high schools; 40 percent are men, and approximately 30 percent are minorities. The program director explained that it is a fundamental tenet of T-LC that volunteers as well as students learn on the job, so she does little or no training of volunteers beyond a 2-hour orientation. Screening of volun- teers for the secondary school program is also minimal; the director says that the program is inclusive rather than exclusive and that she would rarely screen anyone out. However, paid school personnel work closely with volunteers so that liability issues are covered and the volunteer has support when needed. The principal of Scarlett Intermediate was supportive of the T-LC pro- gram. He indicated that in his building the coordinator has responsibility for the program, including record-keeping on volunteers and assignments. At the district level, the superintendent and assistant superintendent for community relationships expressed approval of the T-LC program. They also explained that Ann Arbor has volunteer facilitators or coordinators in other areas such as tutoring in the high schools and a Partners for Excel- lence Program with local businesses, separate from the T-LC program. The teachers' union supports volunteer programs, and teachers welcome the extra help, they said. For the program as a whole, evaluations have been conducted since 1975; generally, these are opinion forms that are filled out by students, teachers, principals, and volunteers, with responses scaled from 1 ("defi- nitely yes") to 5 ("definitely now. These evaluations are overwhelmingly positive about the program. In addition, the college students in the secon- dary schools, but not the senior volunteers, are evaluated by teachers. In 1987, data collection began on grades, test scores, and attendance. The committee found a great deal of commitment and caring among volunteers in the T-LC program, and teachers and volunteers were uni- formly positive about the program. BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Boston Partners in Education (BPIE), known as School Volunteers for Boston before 1988, is an independent, apolitical, multicultural organiza

48 VOLIINTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS tion with the mission of strengthening the education experience of the city's public school students. Serving a school system with a large popu- lation of students scoring much lower than the national medians for read- ing and math on national standardized educational tests, this volunteer service organization works with the school system in a broad array of activities. The 118 Boston public schools serve approximately 58,600 students: 48 percent are black, 18 percent Hispanic, 8 percent Asian, and 26 percent white. Analysis of Metropolitan Achievement Tests (MAT) scores showed that close to one-half of all Boston public school students need remedia- tion and probably have difficulty understanding their textbooks. As in other cities, most of these students are black and Hispanic; much of the effort of BPIE is directed to working with these youngsters. The initial operation in 1966 consisted of 28 volunteers in six Boston schools and has grown every year. By 1968 the number was 450; by 1975 it was over 2,000; by 1988 the Lumber was nearly 4,200 persons. The Boston school volunteer effort was established in 1966 with a Ford Foundation grant to the Public Education Association. Having pioneered a small but promising school volunteer program in New York City schools in 1956, the PEA proposed in 1964 to become a national organization, developing similar progress in the 20 largest cities, including Boston. The grant specified that funding was for the purpose of establishing a national office, including field workers who would identify individuals or agen- cies in cities willing to design and find funds for a program suited to the particular city. The Council for Public Schools, which already sponsored educational projects in Boston, expressed interest in initiating a school volunteer program with the help of the newly''formed National School Volunteer Program and worked out a plan with the Boston School De- partment. This agreement stipulated that if volunteers were to be permit- ted in the schools it would have to be under the auspices of a capable and responsible agency that would provide adequate training. Moreover, be- fore placement of any volunteer, a request would have to be made from a particular school. This practice became and still is the program's policy. From the beginning the decision was made to operate the school volun- teers unit in Boston as a nonprofit organization working with the schools. The organization had to raise funds for operating expenses from private foundations and business sources, and it involved the business commu- nity from the start. Early recruitment efforts enlisted organizations with a history of volunteer activity, including Junior League, Radcliff Alumnae Association, B'nai Brith, and others. The volunteers themselves were mainly middle-aged, well-educated, and concerned women. Their efforts were so well received by the formerly skeptical teachers that demands for more help increased each year. As the program expanded, we were told

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS ~9 it continued to attract middle-income-level women, suburban housewives with former roots in the city, and then men and women with social con- cerns willing to donate their time. Appeals to the business community re- sulted in cooperation from a number of corporations, which allowed employees a few hours a week for volunteer work. Another major source tapped was the large college population in the greater Boston area. By 1972 the organization sought independence from the Council for Public Schools and became the School Volunteers for Boston. In 1988 pursuing a broader mandate, the organization, still operating as a non- profit organization with a board of directors, changed its name to Boston Partners in Education. Although placement of volunteers in schools re- mains the major emphasis, BPIE has expanded its goals and activities. Now included are social intervention services, such as a family support network that provides training and information services for families, as well as linkage of families with schools and other community service providers. BPIE also uses staff experts to provide management, consult- ing, and training services to educators, businesses, and community or- ganizations. Nova one of the largest of the big-city volunteer organizations in the nation, BPIE operates with a budget of over $800,000 and a staff of 25 full- and part-time professionals and 10 consultants. About 25 percent of the funds come from the Boston Public Schools under a contract that includes state funds to aid in the desegregation process; about 60 percent of the funds are from foundations and businesses; and 15 percent come from individual contribution or fee-for-service activities. One of the most active BPIE programs, in which large numbers of volunteers are involved, comes under the heading of enrichment. More than 1,100 people in the 1987-1988 school year enhanced the curriculum with music, art, peace and justice issues, blaclc history, colonial history, law-related education, alcohol and drug awareness, multicultural studies, and science. Intergenerational programs were another large activity: more than 1,100 volunteers participated in interview, oral history, advocacy, and other programs both in schools and in senior citizen centers, nursing homes, and other facilities for older adults. Tutoring of reading, math, English as a second language, writing, and computer use was another extensive area of activity. About 642 persons gave weekly tutoring assistance under the direction of teachers in regular and special education classes. Mentoring activities from 347 business vol- unteers helped students achieve better grades, improve attendance, and plan for higher education. Another 25 persons served as listener/mentors supporting potentially at-risk students through one-on~ne sessions. Read- ing aloud was a supporting activity for 256 volunteers working with ele- mentary school children. Another 230 volunteers gave presentations on

50 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS their careers, trying to motivate students to stay in school and to set career goals. Volunteers also helped as classroom assistants, supporting individual teachers, and helped school libraries set up creative learning centers. Still others participated as office interns, advisory group mem- bers, clerical and field-trip assistants, and helpers in the arts, sciences, social studies, and foreign languages. A small number of university stu- dents "adopted" elementary school pupils and shared after-school activi ties. Working with each school to determine the needs of individual teach- ers, BPIE serves as a centralized volunteer recruitment, screening, and placement agency to help meet those needs. Recruitment efforts involve media cooperation, extensive contacts with organizations and businesses, as well as helping each school to involve parents and others in the school community. BPIE also screens new volunteers for the schools, including review of applications, reference checks with police for possible criminal records for all volunteers who may be working in an unsupervised situ- ation with children, assurance that required tuberculin tests are on file, and matching the skills and desires of the volunteers with the stated needs of teachers in each school. Orientation of volunteers, including adminis- trative procedures and what is expected, is conducted each week and as needed. Specialized training for activities such as tutoring for English as a second language and mentoring is provided for the volunteers and the teachers. BPE also works with the schools to provide recognition for volunteers. Attempts to experiment with more comprehensive education planning that includes the use of volunteers is under way. In 1988, 39 schools interested in cooperating were selected to participate in this planning ef- fort. Teams from BPIE met with school administrators and teachers to develop plans and procedures for tapping community (including busi- ness) resources. This process will be extended to other groups of inter- ested schools in 1989. The planning process, especially the training pro- vided, is considered essential to providing well-coordinated education programs and to the effective use of volunteers in schools. The independent nonprofit form of BPIE allows the organization con- siderable freedom to develop linkages with parent, church, religious, and social welfare organizations and other groups concerned with children and youth. Collaboration efforts have resulted in after-school and sum- mer programs and allowed experimentation with providing services such as after-school study halls in church buildings, using business and com- munity volunteers to tutor, help, or simply listen to young people. The independent form of organization also allows considerable freedom in fund raising from foundations and the business community to develop models and experiment with innovative approaches to using volunteers and other services to enhance the education of students in Boston's schools.

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 51 BPIE has strong support from the superintendent of schools: charged with a mandate to promote collaboration among the schools, the commu- nity, and business, BPIE is a welcome partner in carrying out this man- date. The goals of BPIE are consistent with those of the school board, and the close working relationships and additional resources that BPIE pro- vides are appreciated. The superintendent told the committee that having the BPIE as a collaborator but outside the school system has allowed continuity despite frequent changes in school superintendents and has allowed the program more flexibility and long-term consistency. Evaluation of BPIE activities, like those of other volunteer efforts, is the weakest part of the program. The organization does do a self-assessment on a regular basis, reviewing its progress toward goals, but this is basi- cally a process review. Teachers and volunteers are required to fill out forms reporting their perceptions of accomplishments, and these are used to pinpoint trouble spots and otherwise manage the program. However, little evaluation of outcomes is attempted. The executive director of the organization told us that some experimental attempts at measuring out- comes will be tried this year, but she pointed to high cost as a major factor inhibiting formal evaluation studies. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Chicago public schools have 400,000 students, a staff of 40,000, and an annual operating budget approaching $2 billion. Total enrollment in the city's 495 elementary schools and 65 high schools has declined by 15 percent since 1978. Approximately two-thirds of the city's students are black; 14 percent are white; and the remainder are Hispanic, Asian, and Native American. Hispanic enrollment has increased by 27 percent since 1978. Slightly more than half of the system's teachers are black. Under a 1984 consent decree, Chicago has been allowed to use magnet schools as a means of desegregation. Many schools, particularly in the city's concentrated public housing areas, remain all black, and others are largely Hispanic. Our visits included an elementary foreign languages magnet school in which the student population is one-third black, one- third white, and one-third Hispanic, and a neighborhood elementary school in the city's largest housing project, where all of the students are black and most are eligible for federally subsidized free school lunches and breakfasts. The organized school volunteer program in Chicago dates back to 1982, when the Chicago Community Trust was asked by the superintendent to support the schools at a time of resource cuts. A pilot program called the Chicago Education Corps was developed and was instituted in three sub- districts in 1983, with 300 volunteers in the first semester. In the 198~1985 school year, the volunteer program became citywide and was given the

~2 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS status of a bureau in the school system. In 1987-198S, the Bureau of Volunteer Programs counted close to 12,000 volunteers in its programs, more than 95 percent of them in the largest program, the Schoolhouse Volunteers. Principals are asked to send the Bureau of Volunteer Programs a com- pleted and signed application for each volunteer. The bureau aggregates these reports, and prior to an annual citywide recognition ceremony the principal is asked to verify and update a computer printout of all volun- teers in the school. Because volunteer programs are administered by one division of the Chicago school system, while Adopt-a-School and the ca- reer education program are administered by other divisions, it is hard to compare the numbers reported by the bureau with figures from school systems in which all programs involving volunteers are administered by one office. The committee spent one day in discussion with the director of the Bureau of Volunteer Programs and her assistant at Chicago public schools headquarters. They showed a video describing the Schoolhouse Volun- teers program, explained their strategies for recruiting volunteers, and provided samples of materials that are provided to schools, including a manual for volunteers and a manual for building teams that coordinate the work of volunteers. We also met two assistant superintendents and the associate superintendent for human resources. All expressed support for the district's volunteer program. As the Chicago program is structured, the director and her two-person staff are responsible for recruiting volunteers citywide, using public ser- vice announcements on radio and television, usually contributed by local broadcasters, and posters and flyers prepared by the district's graphics department. At the end of the school year, the Bureau of Volunteer Pro grams sponsors a districtwide gala to recognize and honor volunteers who have worked during the year. Day-by-day management of volunteers in school buildings is the re- sponsibility of building teams, usually consisting of the principal or an assistant principal, a teacher (often a resource teacher), and a parent or community volunteer. Any one of the three may serve as the building coordinator. The school recruits its own volunteers, and the building team is expected to train the volunteers, provide orientation to teachers on effective use of volunteers, and keep records of the hours that volun- teers work. Given the size of the Chicago school district and the limited staff of the Bureau of Volunteer Programs, the bureau relies on written materials, including application forms and training manuals, to provide guidance to school teams. On-site technical assistance is available on request. The Bureau of Volunteer Programs oversees five programs in addition to School

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 53 house Volunteers: Homework Hotline, Saturday Scholars' Intergenera- tional Tutoring, Treasure Hunters, and Lawmakers for Students. Schoolhouse Volunteers is the basic and largest Chicago volunteer pro- gram, in which individuals work in schools as audiovisual aides, library assistants, bilingual aides, classroom assistants, tutors, administrative staff helpers, and community fund raisers. Parents make up almost 80 percent of the Schoolhouse Volunteers program. Others are senior citizens, college students, or anyone with a desire to share expertise and time by helping young people. The bureau reported 11,263 volunteers active in this pro- gram in schools during the 1987-1988 school year. Schoolhouse Volun- teers are generally recruited by the school in which they will work, through messages sent home to parents, for example. The Bureau of Volunteer Programs does not maintain a bank of potential volunteers, but refers callers to schools in their neighborhoods. Homework Hotline, a partnership between the Chicago Public Schools and the Sun-Times newspaper, is staffed by volunteers from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Mondays through Thursdays. Working from offices in the Sun- Times building, volunteers answer students' telephone questions about homework on all subjects; the majority of calls concern language arts and mathematics. Volunteers include working and retired teachers, other professionals with academic expertise, and volunteers from businesses in the downtown area who come in after work before going home for the evening. In-service training is provided for all volunteers, and they are familiarized with the systemwide learning objectives of the Chicago pub- lic schools. Approximately 80 volunteers staffed the Homework Hotline in 1987-1988. Since the program began, volunteers have fielded more than 25,000 questions. Saturday Scholars is a program in which sailors from the Great Lakes Naval Base volunteer as tutors for students in grades 4 - who are identi- fied by their teachers as needing help. Sailors are transported by the school system to selected schools for five consecutive 2-hour Saturday morning sessions, followed by a sixth Saturday at the naval base that features an awards ceremony, a tour of the base, and lunch. Teaching materials and tutoring formats are supplied by the volunteer program, and the sailors receive orientation and training. The Service School Command at the Great Lakes Naval Base provides registration forms for sailors interested in volunteering. Three Saturday Scholars sessions are scheduled during each school year, and registration is limited to 100 stu- dents per school. Approximately 1,500 tutors and 1,500 students have been involved in the program. Intergenerational Tutoring is a collaboration between the Chicago public schools and the Sibyls Department of Aging. Tutoring sessions in which retirees work with students in grades 4~ are held on Saturdays from

54 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 10 a.m. to noon throughout the school year at a facility for the elderly. The Bureau of Volunteer Programs provides in-service training for the volunteers, and students are pretested to determine placement for reading and math tutoring and homework assistance. The program involves ap- proximately 20 tutors and 60 students. Treasure Hunters is a partnership between Chicago public schools and the Chicago Public Library, intended to enhance reading comprehension and vocabulary for students in grades 4-6 during the summer. Students are recruited from elementary schools near two libraries and tested in vocabulary and comprehension prior to the beginning of the program. Tutoring sessions are then designed to meet their individual needs. Addi- tionally, time is set aside for recreational reading. All students are re- quired to have library cards and are encouraged to participate in other library programs. Volunteers are asked to contribute 3 hours per week; tutoring sessions are held in selected public libraries, and, whenever pos- sible, students are tutored one to one. Approximately 115 volunteers and students are involved at two library sites. Lawmakers for Students is a series of lectures for 8th grade students. The Bureau of Volunteer Programs has asked each of the 50 Chicago aldermen to volunteer as a lecturer in an elementary school in his or her ward for 5 weeks, on the topics: "Why I Chose to Be an Alderman," "The Structure of the City Council," "Committees I Serve on and What They Do," ''My Hopes and Dreams for the City of Chicago," and a fifth topic requested by the students. This series is an extra activity for students; students who participate are expected to complete all regular class assignments. The legislators are believed to serve as role models for the students. As a form of program evaluation, the Bureau of Volunteer Programs requests that each principal complete a form at the end of the school year indicating the kind of services that volunteers performed in the school, what was best about the program, and whether volunteers helped to make the school better. Volunteers are asked to complete a similar form, with the added question: '~What would you like to change about the pro- gram?" The bureau's director also indicated that she has accumulated quantita- tive data in the form of pre- and pastiest results, largely from the Satur- day Scholars tutoring programs, that could be analyzed to determine aca- demic gains made by students as the result of volunteer interventions. She said the Bureau of Volunteer Programs lacks the resources to have the data organized and interpreted. The Chicago public schools are scheduled to be drastically restructured. A recent state law abolished the old Board of Education and regional offices, and each school will be governed by a board made up of parents

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 55 and community representatives. How the change to school-based man- agement will affect the district's volunteer program is unknown. The committee visited two elementary schools in Chicago. In both schools, the principal was an active and enthusiastic guide to the volun- teer program and clearly was in direct contact with volunteers. A morning at LaSalle Academy, a language arts magnet school in Chicago's historic Old Town Triangle district on the mid-north side, be- gan with students arriving by bus and car from around the city; Chicago provides transportation to all students who want to attend magnet schools. LaSalle Academy offers instruction in four languages French, German, Italian, and Spanish in addition to the regular curriculum. The multilin- gual approach is clearly apparent in student work posted in the halls. Parents were very visible in the building, performing volunteer activities ranging from leading Junior Great Books sessions to counting lunch money in the school cafeteria. Parent volunteers were assisting with a hands-on science curriculum, and others were working with 1st graders who have reading problems. LaSalle has a not-for-profit corporation that provides financial support for the school through fund raising and donations. Members of the PTA are automatically members of Friends of LaSalle, and businesses are encouraged to participate through the Adopt-a-School Program sponsored by the Board of Education. At the time of our visit, the PIA was seeking board approval to install $10,000 worth of new play- ground equipment donated by the PTA. The situation was different at Terrell Elementary, located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the United States, in a high-rise public housing project on Chicago's south side. Here, all of the students live in public housing. On the day of our visit, however, six parents, one of them a father, were aiding groups of students in the same hands-on science proj- ect we had viewed at LaSalle. According to school staff, the volunteering has twofold benefits, since the program requires training for the volun- teers in the experiments the students do. One volunteer father was aided in this manner to receive his general equivalency diploma (GED), which is equal to a high school diploma. On the day of our visit, a volunteer mother was sorting donated clothing in a storeroom and the principal introduced a paid clerical aide who had started as a parent volunteer. Parents served as monitors on a trip to the Chicago planetarium, in which kindergartners saw "Santa Claus come down from the sky." Developing parent support in a community such as the Robert Taylor Homes has to be counted as a major accomplishment for the school and the Chicago volunteer program. According to the Bureau of Volunteer Programs director, Chicago is making a special effort to recruit volunteers from historically hard-to-reach populations such as welfare mothers.

56 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS '~Volunteering is seen as something rich white ladies do," she said. ''But we point out that there is a tradition of volunteering in the black commu- nity, where families often look out for their neighbors' children." Adopl-A-School and Partnerships. In Chicago, the Bureau of Volunteer Programs operates separately from other district programs. It is located in the Office of Human Resources, the Adopt-A-School program is located in the Office of the Assistant to the General Superintendent, and the Bu- reau of Community Resources is located in the Department of Vocational and Technological Education. The strategy of the Adopt-A-School program is to pair schools with businesses or other organizations in order to address specific student needs. The school-business partnership draws on its combined resources to de- velop a program uniquely fitted to the needs of students. Although all Adopt-A-School programs work toward the same general goal of enhanc- ing the quality of education, especially in the basic skills, the programs that each partnership develops are as varied as the needs of the student participants. Any organization that wishes to improve the quality of education through the sharing of its knowledge, experience, and resources may participate in the Adopt-A-School program. In the 1987-1988 school year, a total of 188 organizations sponsored 407 programs In 233 Chicago public schools. The 6-year-old program has matched at least one adopter with each high school. Individual programs have involved as many as 3,300 students and as few as 10. The adopters provide ~ range of services and support to schools from off-campus visits to places of interest to donations of equipment and supplies. The Bureau of Community Resources began in 1976 as a career educa- tion program and remains entirely career oriented. It operates in 126 elementary schools and 10 high schools and currently involves 520 busi- nesses. At the elementary level, business people come into schools to discuss careers with students in grades 6~, in a structured program that covers 16 "career clusters." At the high school level, businesses and pro- fessional organizations sponsor career centers (in law or health, for ex- ample), providing money, equipment, human resources, and sometimes jobs for students. An umbrella organization for the program, the Chicago Careers for Youth Foundation, was corecipient with the Chicago Board of Education in 1988 of a presidential citation for excellence in private sector initiatives. CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA Contra Costa County in California is located east of San Francisco and Oakland. It has a land area of more than 700 square miles and a popula- tion of about 735,000, with more than 116,000 public school students in

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 57 193 schools in 18 districts. Almost one-third of the county's students are from minority groups. The volunteer program in the county is unique, serving only children in the county's detention programs. It relates to the county's Office of Education, which provides an educational program for young people who are wards of the court or have encountered problems in the traditional school setting. These programs range from temporary care for youths awaiting a court appearance or court-ordered placement to maximum security institutional programs for young people who need close supervi- sion. The county also operates an open residential institution for neglected and dependent children. Day care and community school classes are held throughout the county for students unable to function in regular school settings. These day care classes, purposely kept small, are held in church buildings or other facilities rented by the county. There is also a mini- mum security residential facility for delinquent boys located in a rural part of the county. Responding to the need for someone to listen, to care, and to help youngsters in these detention programs, the Contra Costa County Court Schools PTA was formed in 1983. Its purpose is to provide volunteers to supplement and extend the services provided by the county to students in detention facilities or otherwise under the jurisdiction of the courts. The organization also provides advocacy for the students and support for the teachers in court schools. This program was organized by a small group of persons in cooperation with the county director of detention schools. The organizers all had considerable experience in the direction of PTA activities at both local and state levels. The program is unique not only because of the population it attempts to serve, but also because it was organized and is operated by PTA volunteers. Unlike most PTA activi- ties, volunteers in this effort are, with few exceptions, not parents of the students they have volunteered to serve. Activities of this PTA volunteer program include recruiting and plac- ing volunteers and assisting with their orientation and training. Funds raised from a variety of sources are used for transporting volunteers to remote sites; paying for GED testing and certificates for youths who qual- ify; organizing dinners and other recognition efforts to honor volunteers and teachers; and paying for books, tapes, and other special materials needed but not provided for in the county budget. The volunteer organi- zation takes responsibility for coordinating volunteer activities at each site. Recruitment activities include preparing and placing articles in newspapers and appearing before senior citizen associations and other groups to solicit volunteer help. The PTA volunteer organization also re- views applications of volunteers, provides initial screening and some of the orientation required, and places volunteers with teachers who have

~8 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS been previously contacted by the county education office and asked to express their needs. The program is not large; approximately 50 volunteers were involved in 1988, serving approximately 600 youths (under 18) in 15 locations. Training is handled on an individual basis by the teachers who use the volunteers. Because the volunteers are dealing with students who have been removed from the regular school system, orientation is also pro- vided by corrections personnel. This orientation includes prescriptions for dealing with youths in detention programs: for example, volunteers are instructed that no telephone numbers or addresses can be exchanged; contact is on a first-name basis only; and volunteers cannot do favors for the youths. Rigid rules of what can and cannot be brought into the insti- tution and what the volunteer can and cannot do are prescribed. What the volunteers actually do, we were told, is largely traditional. -They tutor the students in reading, math, and other topics for which assis- tance is needed. Many of the youths have missed so much school time that they are several grades behind in reading and even further behind in writing and math skills. Volunteers also help prepare students to take GED exams and provide instruction in art, crafts, music, physical educa- tion, and other specialty areas for which skills of volunteers can be matched to the needs expressed by teachers. Volunteers also help some students compete in state writing and art contests and provide clerical or class room support. In one unlocked facility housing 74 youths, tutoring by 14 volunteers included practical tasks requested by the students: such as how to pre- pare a resume and apply for a job, how to fill out forms to apply for apprenticeship training, or how to prepare for job interviews. Only those youths being held for 9 months or more receive volunteer help. In this institution, volunteers and students were carefully paired so that contact was on a one-to-one basis and always with the same person. Contact with a caring adult willing to talk about future jobs, career possibilities, and other subjects of interest and concern to the youth frequently resulted in a bonding that was as helpful as specific tutoring. Although prescribed in the "Volunteer Program Guide," little formal evaluation of this program has been conducted. Volunteer coordinators and the volunteer organizers do get informal feedback from teachers and from volunteers themselves. We were told that more formal evaluations are planned, but, to date, information is largely anecdotal and by word of mouth. One administrator of an unlocked facility we visited told us that the kids in his institution are street smart. If they did not feel that they were benefiting from contact with volunteers, they would have run them out of the place. He felt that despite lack of formal evaluations, much good is being accomplished, and he would like more volunteer help if it were available.

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 59 Inadequate funding, despite the significant efforts of volunteers at fund raising, was a major factor inhibiting greater use of volunteers. For ex- ample, the minimum security facility described above is located in an isolated part of the county. Available funds limited transportation to one large van with a capacity of 15, transporting volunteers from a seniors' center once a week. Additional funds for transportation would allow more volunteer help more often to work with the young inmates in this facility. The need to depend on volunteers to organize and operate the entire program is another major limiting factor. Describing the volunteer organ- izers as dedicated, energetic, and knowledgeable persons, extremely gen- erous with their time, the director of the detention program expressed the view that someone in a full-time paid position to organize and coordinate the volunteer effort could, with support from the existing volunteer group, considerably expand the program. The small day programs using a room in closed school buildings or church facilities, for example, could benefit greatly from volunteer help. These are located in poorer areas and usu- ally run by a teacher with some help from an aide. To find volunteers willing to work under these less-than-favorable conditions would require considerable effort. Future plans call for recruiting volunteers from local businesses, seniors who live in the area of the day program, or other members of local communities who might be willing to help. With a full- time paid coordinator working with the volunteer organization, such ideas might be implemented. Praising the PIA volunteer program for its highly useful contributions, the county superintendent of education said that without the efforts of these high-powered service-oriented volunteers, more formal efforts would be needed, for which funding would be difficult to obtain. He expressed his support for the volunteer effort and said he had good feedback from the administrators and teachers who used volunteers. He noted that in the first few years there had been some teacher resistance (particularly high school teachers) to using volunteers in their classrooms but that this is disappearing as the advantages become known. As training of volunteers improves and volunteers themselves, seeing the results of their efforts, become more committed and more dependable, more teachers are wel- coming their help. CORSICANA, TEXAS Corsicana, Texas, is a town of 26,000 between Dallas and Houston; like its neighbors, Corsicana has economic problems as the result of declines in the oil industry. The Corsicana Independent School District enrolls 4,800 students in one high school, two middle schools, and six elementary schools. Almost two-thirds of the enrollment are black children; about

60 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS one-third are white. Hispanic students account for less than 0.2 percent of the school population, although many fall into the at-risk category. Two years ago a group of Corsicana school teachers asked the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education (NFIE), a foundation of the National Education Association, to fund an early intervention project for children at risk of dropping out of Corsicana schools. With $5,000 in the first year, and a renewal grant of $10,000 a year later, the teachers launched Project Rescue, a program in which teachers them- selves "adopted" children and the community was asked to support simi- lar activities. Students to be adopted were referred by teachers. The program identified poor self-esteem, sometimes arising from cultural differ- ences, as a major problem for the students and decided to try a mix of personal attention, outings, meetings with parents, and identification of needed social and medical services as a way of improving students' per- ceptions of themselves and their likelihood of succeeding in school. During the first year, teachers made one-on-one commitments to 60 students, but found that when trips or excursions were planned, they were often dealing with brothers, sisters, and friends who wanted to go along. Parent apathy, originally targeted as a major problem, was found to be primarily a matter of language barrier or lack of knowledge; most parents were responsive and eager to help their children. Now led by a 3rd grade teacher, the program has no staff and rela- tively no organization, but volunteers keep meticulous budget records and spend much time publicizing their project at community meetings and in the media. Since all activities take place outside of school, no space in the school system has been required; the Corsicana school district has donated supplies and secretarial staff. Looking to the end of its NFIE funding next year, the project is putting contributions from the community into a fund to support continued op- erations and is seeking grant assistance from several sources. NFIE funds have been spent primarily to buy private tutoring for youngsters and released time for teachers; postage, stationery, and printing; production of an explanatory video; and travel expenses of key people. Funds are also allocated to meet the physical, medical, cultural, counseling, and educa- tional needs of students. Among the ways teachers make contact with their "adopters" during the school day are inquiries about report cards or special notice of birth- days. For some children, a restaurant meal with a friend is the first time the child has ever eaten out. On a trip to the Texas State Fair in Dallas, teachers found that many children had never been to Dallas, 50 miles away. The committee found Corsicana's Project Rescue to be warm, caring,

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 61 and inspiring a quintessential "feel good" program. Although no evalu- ations have been conducted, it is hard to believe that the close personal contacts between teachers (and principals) and students is riot helpful. As the program has become visible through media coverage, a number of community members have come forward as volunteer mentors, and many businesses have offered in-kind support. "Finally," one business- man said, "we are hearing something good about our schools." DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA The Dade County Public School District in Florida, which includes the city of Miami, has experienced explosive growth during the past 5 years. During the Mariel boatlift in 1980, 15,000 Cuban children a month entered the school system, and, currently, more than 400 students a month arrive from Nicaragua and other Central American countries. Fifty percent of the district's 260,000 students are Hispanic. A $980 million bond issue approved by voters in 1988 is part of a $1.5 billion school construction and renovation plan under which the district will build 49 new schools, adding to 289 regular schools and 8 alternate schools now in the system. With more than 23,000 full-time and 9,000 part-time employees, the school district is the largest employer in the Miami area. A school volunteer program began in Dade County in the 1970s. Major growth occurred during the 1980s, when the number of volunteers grew to 15,000, including 1,000 business partnerships. There are now volunteer programs in 272 of the county's 289 schools. Dade Partners, a partnership program initiated in 1978, pairs businesses and community organizations with schools in a variety of volunteer activities, and a Corporate Volun- teer Program asks employers to give employees 2 hours a week of re- leased time to volunteer in schools. Several years ago Florida became the first state in the country to enact legislation supporting school volunteerism. School districts receive an annual allocation from the state for volunteer activities; in Dade County, this allocation is approximately $80 per school and helps to pay for a district staff of nine professionals and four clerical employees who are re- sponsible for assisting schools with their volunteer programs. The super- intendent of schools in Dade County is very committed to the volunteer program, and volunteer coordinators report directly to a director of com- munity participation. The principal of each school in the district is asked to select a staff member and a community volunteer to head the school's volunteer pro- gram; those leaders are then trained by the district staff to recruit, inter

62 VOLLINTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS view, screen, orient, and place volunteers and to monitor the program. Teachers are expected to provide on-thejob training and to confer regu- larly with their volunteers. The district supplies manuals that detail the rights and responsibilities of volunteers and suggest ways for schools to use volunteers produc- tively. Faculty orientation is available to schools on request, to familiarize staff with the objectives, structure, and policies of the school volunteer program; to define in measurable terms the benefits of volunteers; and to eliminate any misconceptions teachers may have. The staff of the Depart- ment of Community Participation provides training for volunteers in more than 12 curriculum areas on request, at individual schools or regionally. The Dade County volunteer program includes a wide array of activities from the standard math and reading tutoring, prekindergarten and kin- dergarten assistants, and computer assistants to more targeted efforts. Ambassadors for Public Education volunteers serve as a communication link between the principal and the community by keeping local businesses and organizations abreast of school activities. I'm Thumbody is a program designed to enhance self-esteem in second graders, using a 45-minute film presentation and follow-up activities by a trained volunteer. Listeners are volunteers who serve as adult friends, typically spending 30 minutes a week with students, one to one. A commitment of 1 year is considered necessary to develop trust. Oventes is the Spanish counterpart. In Neigh- bors Involved in Kids' Education (NIKE), volunteers provide after-school enrichment in math, science, social studies, communication, physical edu- cation, and computers. Projects and activities are designed by the Florida Department of Education. Sapty with Strangers is a program for children in grades K-5 that uses slides and audio cassettes to teach children how to handle encounters with strangers, to reduce risk of molestation or abduc- tion. In Superstars, volunteers work in a program for self-motivated stu- dents in grades 1~ to develop problem-solving skills and creative thinking. Study Skills Assistants uses volunteers to train students in study techniques, such as organizing, planning, alphabetizing, and locating information; test taking; and memory devices. Finally, in Creative Writing, volunteers work with students on poetry, short stories, and letters, to supplement the crea- tive writing curriculum. The committee visited four sites in Dade County. At all the sites, committee members were impressed with the warm human involvement of many people in the volunteer programs. The Southwood Middle School is a school for grades 7-9 in a white upper-middle-class neighborhood that offers instruction in visual arts, photography, literature, and theatre, including dance. The school has many parent support groups that assist in raising money and support for specialty areas and that also help out in class. There is mentoring by senior citizens, and Southwood has several business partners.

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 63 Norland Middle School is an arts equivalent of Southwood, in a less affluent neighborhood, which depends primarily on the state department of education program, NIKE. The program uses students from a neigh- boring high school who work with junior high youngsters in a 2-hour after-school enrichment program in math, science, language arts, comput- ers, and social studies. Sixth graders go to a nearby elementary school to do similar tutoring. The school principal believes Norland's daily atten- dance rate the highest in Dade County- is directly due to volunteers' presence and the role modeling of NIKE leaders. At the Miami Agricultural Center, a retired veterinarian, retired horti- culturist, retired carpenters, and retired dog trainer and breeder work with at-risk students to care for and train animals, renovate buildings, and grow plants. The principal of one participating school has done pre- and postprogram research that shows reduced absenteeism and gains in test scores for participating students in comparison with a similar group of students identified as equally at risk but not in the program. All those involved in the program are enthusiastic and convinced that students' emotional and behavior problems have been reduced. '`They told me these were pretty tough kids. Around the animals, they turned out to be very enthused and receptive to learning," says a retired veterinarian who spends three afternoons a week "down on the farm." The Palmetto Elementary School has very high parent and partner par- ticipation; the average number of volunteers in the school weekly is 65 to 80, some for all or a major part of the day. It has recouped a declining enrollment through the enthusiastic acceptance of volunteers to work with prekindergarten special education students and emotionally disturbed and nonhandicapped youngsters in grades K-5. The school principal offers strong leadership to the volunteer program; every teacher must have a volunteer. Volunteer programs include a school bank; economics, featur- ing stocks chosen by students; newspaper writing and editing in coopera- tion with a local newspaper; library aides; tutors; and a Listeners to Chil- dren program for which volunteers are trained by the local mental health association. The principal is fearless in using outside assistance; the school atmosphere is warm and caring. The committee also met with chairs of the committees and subcommit- tees of the Miami-Dade advisory committee to the coordinator of commu- nity participation, including business representatives, several principals, and a representative of the American Association of Retired Persons. All expressed enthusiastic support for Dade County volunteer activities and were absolutely convinced that their involvement makes an appreciable difference to students and schools. Existence of an evaluation department in the Dade County public schools has made possible analysis and evaluation of several of the volunteer programs. Probably the best in terms of technical design was the initial

64 VOLIINTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS School Volunteer Development Project that ran from 1972 to 1975 with federal funding; a fairly conventional tutoring program that worked with children 1 or more years below grade level in math, reading, or both, it showed relative gains in both math and reading among students. A second evaluation concerning an adopt-a-grandparent program ex- amined the implementation fidelity of the program and outcomes on both the elderly and children, using a nonequivalent control group design. Positive outcomes were found for attitudes toward the elderly in an at- risk group of children and an increase in self-esteem for at-risic and typi- cal participants in the program. There were no changes for the compari- son group of students and no evidence that the program affected the older persons' self-esteem, feelings of depression, or attitudes toward chil- dren. There was also an evaluation of the Burger King recognition pro- gram, in which students received free food for good attendance and citi- zenship. It showed strong support in schools and widespread adoption but no evidence that it affected districtw~de attendance. Comet Lab, Adopt-a-Grandparent, and Pet Companion programs were tried simultaneously by a principal on a group of 30 high-risk youths. The evaluation unit conducted a pre- and postprogram analysis, with no comparison group: it showed positive changes in self-concept, self-con- cept as a learner, and attitudes toward the elderly. There are turo other volunteer-type efforts in Dade County. A program of partnerships between Dade County schools and primarily businesses celebrated its tenth anniversary in 1988. A November 1988 listing showed 183 elementary schools, 48 Cursor highs, and 41 senior highs and special centers with at least one partner each and some with multiple partners. The total number of partners in Dade County is now reported to be 1,000. Among the partnership projects is Twiglet Bank, a partnership between First National Bank of South Miami and David Fairchild Elementary School. With the goal of creating an actual banic run by children for children with real money, the First National Bank provided all technical assistance, in- cluding training students (a minimum of 2 hours per week per student for 4 months); the cost of renovating a caboose in which the bank is housed; all banking supplies, insurance, security, business cards, and account docu- mentation; and some furniture. The Fairchild School committed to lend- ing whatever school staff support was necessary, in particular by making Twiglet Bank an actual class. The Bureau of Community Participation also operates a speakers' bu- reau that invites teachers to request presenters from the community on a wide variety of topics. A catalog provides brief descriptions of the materi- als that speakers are prepared to present and sets specific procedures, including forms to be used by school staff in requesting and scheduling presentations.

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS DALLAS, TEXAS 65 The Dallas Independent School District is the eighth largest in the coun- try, with an enrollment of almost 132,000 students in 181 schools, includ- ing 8 magnet high schools and 11 specialized academies or "vanguards" at the elementary and middle school levels. Forty-eight percent of the student population is black, 31 percent Hispanic, 19 percent white, and 2 percent Asian. The school district employs some 10,000 teachers and has an annual budget of $470 million. In Dallas, parents working through the PTA and other groups were helping in schools even before the district implemented its first official volunteer program in 1969. In that year, the National Council of Jewish Women, followed by Sun Exploration and Production Company and the Junior League of Dallas, began working with the district to provide sys- tematic recruitment, training, and recognition of volunteers. Volunteer participation grew steadily thereafter and increased sharply in 1976 in connection with a desegregation court order. Supporters say the continu- ing growth of volunteerism is related to local promotion, along with na- tional attention to improving public education. In 1987-1988, the district reported that 17,325 individual community volunteers worked 411,251 hours; the monetary value of this volunteer service was estimated at $2,878,757. In addition, business volunteers con- tributed an estimated 35,557 hours, valued at $1,183,090, through adopt-a- school programs and some 2,440 business and school partnerships. All 181 schools have some form of community involvement. The Dallas school volunteer programs are administered by two paid coordinators who share a position; they are part of the school district's Community Relations Department, which has an annual budget of $5 million. The volunteer office is responsible for training all volunteers who serve in the system, including individuals from the community, par- ents, and volunteers from adopt-a-school programs and business partner- ships. The volunteer office also provides schools with a variety of forms, including a volunteer request form to be completed by teachers, needs as- sessment forms to be completed by principals to identify specific needs of schools, applications and registration forms to be completed by volun- teers, and a volunteer service record for documenting the number of hours contributed by volunteers each month. The office also provides sample letters of appreciation and volunteer appreciation certificates. At each school in the district, a coordinator, either a member of the staff or a volunteer from the PTA or the community, is responsible for day-to-day volunteer activity, including sign-in of volunteers. The staff volunteer leader or volunteer chairperson at a school is responsible for sending the sign-in sheet to the volunteer office.

66 VOLLINTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS The adopt-a-school program is administered separately from the basic volunteer program, though there is considerable cooperation between them. Under the Director of Community Relations and three staff members, the adopt-a-school program is part of an organized effort to supply assistance to individual schools and the district as a whole. Adopters are provided a list of suggested activities, including volunteering and sponsoring special events, and they are urged to select those that match their own capabili- ties. The adoptions are monitored, and principals are asked at the end of each year to complete an evaluation of the status of the adoption and the degree of involvement by the partners. An effort is made to see that all schools in need receive some form of support. In counting volunteer service hours from both adopt-a-school and the basic volunteer programs, the Dallas volunteer office takes into account a very long list of activities: · tutoring; · a listener program; · assisting teachers (preparing materials, typing, mimeographing, duplicating, monitoring tests, preparing bulletin boards); · library work (processing and shelving books, assisting with classes, RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) reading and book distribution, mak- ing tape recordings, storytelling, decorating bulletin boards); · school office assistance (enrollment and pre-enrollment work, an- swering telephones, attendance monitoring, high school registration, filing, typing, duplicating, clerical assistance); · classroom enrichment, through SPARK (special programs for enrich- ment of knowledge, arts and crafts, music, physical education, mini courses); · lunchroom and playground supervision; · health room work (18-hour Red Cross training, clinic assistance, special health screening); · "other school activities" (local school or districtwide volunteer train- ing, sponsoring school club activities, taking pictures of students, assisting assembly programs and classroom parties, interpreting for non-English-speaking parents, orienting new students to school, tele- phoning parents to check on student attendance, making costumes or scenery, preparing food for student activities or teacher apprecia- tion, helping with senior class activities); · chaperoning (field trips and local and out-of-town band, orchestra, and choral activities); · transportation (taking a child other than one's own to a doctor, tak- ing sick children to their homes, driving participants to athletic and other events and contests);

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 67 · traffic and bus safety (assisting at safety patrol meetings, monitoring on buses, assisting with loading and unloading buses); · after-school and summer programs (tutoring hours in summer are counted districtwide unless a particular school is specified); · volunteer direction (telephoning; attendance at school and volun- teer-office-sponsored orientation and training sessions and special workshops; activities related to recruitment, placement, volunteer record-keeping, recognition, etc.~; · workshops (attendance at workshops and training sessions and meetings and individual orientation with teachers and other school personnel); . community involvement (advisory committee meetings, career coun- seling, making learning materials at home or school, sponsoring field trips, collecting and disbursing school clothing); · volunteer executive committee work (assisting volunteer program activities, planning volunteer recognition); Dallas City Council of PTA Board of Managers (activities directly affecting students and parents); · Positive Parents of Dallas (an arm of the PTA that concentrates on providing information to the media); and · PTA activities, except attendance at board meetings and general meetings. . No fund-raising activities are counted as volunteer hours. In the com- posite figures for numbers of volunteers, an individual is counted just once, no matter how many incidents of volunteering the individual has been involved in or for how many hours. In Dallas, committee members visited the Health Special High School for Pregnant Students, where five different sets of volunteers provide a variety of support services to the school and its pregnant students. Vol- unteers help with intake interviews and clinic and child care services and help the girls resolve problems so they can continue their education after the birth of their babies. Volunteers include seniors from a Catholic high school who tutor; a sorority that provides after-school mentoring; another sorority that operates the Stork's Nest Boutique; the National Council of Jewish Women, which does mentoring and clerical work during school hours; and individuals who tutor students after they return to their home schools. One of the founders of the Dallas school volunteer program 20 years ago is now a regular member of the Pupil Assistance Support Ser- vice team at the school. At a Dallas elementary school, committee members were introduced to "Off Our Rockers" senior citizen volunteers, who tutor 1st graders in reading and help children cut and paste, each with his or her own volun

68 VOLLINTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS leer. A volunteer from the Dallas Zoo was on hand to give a lecture on snakes, complete with a live example that students could handle. Under an enthusiastic and supportive principal, the elementary school has an adoption with a company, Central and Southwest Services, that "started with dollars and materials and has grown into hands-on people." The company has contributed used computers to the school, and employees instruct youngsters in their use. Also at this school, Highland Park United Methodist Church funds Reading Is Fundamental and supplies volunteers and strong parent support. According to the principal, volunteers "fill the gaps where paid services cannot be supplied." At another elementary school, strong parental support was also evident, in programs run by parents, including an "art cart," music classes, and computer training. The Junior League of Dallas has developed a special curriculum for non-English-speaking prekindergartners, using props such as groceries on shelves in a simulated store and other commonplace items to engage the youngsters in English-language communication. The ',Upwords" pro- gram, now in its second year, is expected to ease the transition to regular school for children who do not hear English spoken in their homes. The Dallas Communities in Schools program involves mentors to help moti- vate students to stay in school and set personal and career goals; and the School Community Guidance Center uses volunteers as resource people for students who need nontraditional settings for education. Top administrators of the Dallas school system, including a new super- intendent who concedes he does not yet have a handle on the multiplicity of volunteer activities going on in his district, are highly supportive of the adopt-a-school and volunteer programs. The district has adopted a policy statement that instructs teachers, principals, and all other staff members to "seek to strengthen and support community groups, cooperating in any way possible to provide assistance, materials, facilities, or other aid to assist them in helping the schools." Each school is to make a systematic effort to identify businesses' industries, other educational institutions, community groups, and organizations that are interested in schools and have resources that would enhance the learning program. Parents are urged to play a meaningful rQle in school life, and the district mandates involvement of parents and citizen groups on advisory committees and in other appropriate advisory roles. Principals and teach ers are encouraged to be active members of their local Chamber of Com- merce and other civic groups that serve the area of the school to which they are assigned. KINGFIELD, MAINE Kingfield, Maine, is the headquarters of a rural school district in an isolated area in the western mountains of the state. The district consists

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 69 of five small towns ranging in size from 550 to just over 1,300 in popula- tion, widely scattered over an approximately 400-square-mile area. The population is largely employed in forest products industries and in the recreation business centered on Sugarloaf Mountain. The majority of the parents are high school graduates. However, there are also many profes- sional people in the area and a thriving arts community that organized the Mountain Arts Association that has helped to bring music, painting, performing arts, and dance to the schools. In three~uarters of the fami- lies, both parents work. A little more than 1,000 students are served by four elementary schools and one regional high school. The high school student population was 311 in 1988; the 739 elementary students are roughly divided among four K-8 schools. The district (Maine School Administrative District No. 58) is governed by a nine-member board of directors and administered by a superinten- dent. Staffing includes four full-time and one part-time principals and about 66 certified classroom teachers. There are also five special education teachers, two speech therapists, eight Chapter I remedial math and read- ing teaching assistants, five teacher aides, and one special education teacher's assistant. This small rural district also has a part-time paid volunteer coordinator. Now more than 10 years old, the district's volunteer program began when a concerned parent saw a need for student enrichment activities and organized volunteer help for the schools with the blessing and sup- port of the school administration. The ski recreation area established on Sugarloaf Mountain Resort had attracted many new families into the area; many of the new residents also saw volunteer work as an avenue for making contacts and establishing friendships in the community, in addi- tion to aiding their children. These parents, as well as longer-time resi- dents, proved willing to contribute time to improve the education of their children. In December 1979, 89 volunteers were working with the school on a continuing basis in a variety of activities. Parents, grandparents, and some students participated. In time, the volunteer coordinator, originally an unpaid position, became a part-time paid job with support from the school board. Goals for the program were established and became part of a volunteer handbook. In 1983, the state legislature, recognizing the po- tential contributions of volunteers, passed an act to establish a statewide office of school volunteer programs, and this office now provides support and assistance to volunteer programs throughout the state. Emphasizing enrichment activities, this rural district has regularly re- cruited more than 200 people each year, who volunteer about 6,000 hours of time. These numbers probably undercount total volunteers serving the schools: the numbers are derived from sign-up sheets and the hours are

70 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS those entered in the log each day, but additional services, such as occa- sional support activities offered by PTA members, are often not recorded and counted. Parents continued to be the primary source in late 1988, accounting for more than three-fourths of the volunteers. However, services of senior citizens were increasingly tapped, as were young adults (persons with no children in the schools) and students willing to help other students. Some volunteer involvement by local businesses resulted in in-kind contribu- tions: a lumber mill gave drumsticks and furniture; a plant nursery helped kids raise pumpkins; business volunteers put up playgrounds; a paper mill printed note pads with volunteers' names; and one organization set up a portable wildlife exhibit that travels from school to school. A Junior Great Books program for several levels of elementary students has been operating very successfully since the beginning of the Kingfield volunteer program. This program, requiring the volunteer leaders to be trained by the Great Books Foundation, is a "pull-out" program in which part of an elementary class participates in the enrichment activity, leaving the teacher with a small number of students who can then receive much more individual attention. Other activities in which volunteers play a role include Math Superstars, a math problem-solving activity borrowed, transplanted, and adapted from the Miami Dade County school system; a creative short-story writing activity on the intermediate level; one-on-one tutoring; a gifted and talented program; a German-language program; an art appreciation course; and an active and growing computer activity. Senior volunteers presented a unit on aging and one on World War II. Taking advantage of the fact that the school district is 18 miles from the University of Maine at Farmington, university student volunteers were tapped to help in the School Success Program, which provides support in crafts, recreation, and mentoring for at-risk youngsters. Volunteers also provide clerical and cafeteria support and help in the classroom. The National Dance Institute program brought in by the Mountain Arts Asso- ciation utilized considerable volunteer help in building scenery, making costumes, and organizing transportation. PIA activities, including fund raising, are not directly part of the school volunteer program, although there is cooperation and many of the same parents participate in both. During the site visit by the committee (late October 1988), we witnessed a mock election in which students cast bal- lots for the presidential, state, and local candidates of their choice. This activity, organized by the national PTA, was run by the local PTA and the school volunteer coordinator. Prior to the balloting, students had the opportunity to discuss issues in class and at home with their parents. Although the volunteer program handbook includes a general state- ment of goals, specific objectives are program related. For example, the

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 71 Junior Great Books program seeks to enhance children's interpretive and communication skills. This program also has its own handbook that spells out teacher, volunteer, and student responsibilities; lays out procedures and materials to be used; and includes an evaluation component by which each group completes an evaluation form at the end of the program. Needs assessments are conducted informally early in the school year when the volunteer coordinator meets with teachers who request volun- teer services, reviews last year's efforts, and discusses volunteer needs for the year ahead. The volunteer coordinator then meets with teachers indi- vidually (usually during planning periods) to try and fill specific needs, for example,'students who could benefit from one-to-one tutoring in read- ing and math. Because the district is small, the volunteer coordinator personally knows all of the teachers and the volunteers. Recruitment of volunteers is one of the duties of the volunteer coordi- nator. A form is taken home by each child at the beginning of the school year asking if parents want to volunteer. Lists of possible tasks accom- pany the form, which gives the parent an idea of what help is needed. Inasmuch as the program is now more than 10 years old, there is a core of persons who volunteer each year, so the recruitment effort is to replace those whose children have left school or who go to work or stop for some other reason. In addition, the coordinator frequently calls persons who are on the substitute teacher list, who will often volunteer if no work is available. A newsletter describing what is going on and requesting help needed also serves as a recruitment vehicle. Again, because each town is small, specific needs can often be met by word-of-mouth recruitment. Someone usually knows someone who can handle a particular task. Fu- ture plans call for attempting to get greater involvement from fathers and from local businesses. Although the program is run informally, there are administrative pro- cedures that govern operation of the program. Volunteers are required to sign in and out in a log book when they work at each of the schools. Procedures are explained during orientation sessions set up if there are many new volunteers or done individually, often together with the teacher the volunteer will be helping, if turnover is small and few new recruits come into the program. Screening of new volunteers is done, but subtly so as not to offend anyone. Tuberculin tests are required every 2 years. If a prospective volunteer is not suited to work with students or does not want to do so, the volunteer coordinator usually tries to find work that he or she can do at home. Again, because the community is small, most people know each other and it is seldom that a complete stranger is screened. Assignments are made on the basis of the volunteers' interests and skills, beginning with what they noted on the sign-up sheets. Job or task descriptions are usually informal and set forth by the teacher and

72 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS volunteer coordinator, particularly if the volunteer effort is to be more than short term. Formal training is offered only when a particular program requires it. The Junior Great Books program does have specific training requirements for volunteers who participate in the program, and the school district pays for people to participate in the training conducted by the Great Books Foundation. Teachers also receive formal training when needed, but usu- ally are informally instructed by the volunteer coordinator as to their responsibilities with respect to the volunteers who help them. Because of the nature of the area, volunteers usually stay for several years, particularly while they have children in elementary and intermedi- ate grades. Recognition for volunteer efforts takes many forms. Name recognition is possible through the volunteer program newsletter; social events (e.g., breakfasts, ice cream socials) are also used to acknowledge the contribution of volunteers. Much of the assessment of volunteer programs is conducted on an informal basis. The coordinator is in frequent touch with teachers in each school, and they discuss how the programs are going and any problems that need resolution or improvement. There is also an annual evaluation form completed by all teachers who use volunteers. This form uses a 4- point rating scale to rate service performed, and it includes some 21 ques- tions aimed at getting teacher's perceptions as to accomplishments of the program, as well as suggestions for improvement. A similar form is com- pleted by each volunteer. The coordinator reviews all forms as an addi- tional aid to determining what works best and what improvements are needed. A separate evaluation is made for the Junior Great Books pro- gram, and students also complete an evaluation form for this program. Perceptions as to what could be done to improve the program include greater community involvement, particularly by fathers and businesses in the area. More and better training for volunteers and the teachers who use them could result in even better programs. Those few instances in which the use of volunteers did not work out well were almost always due to insufficient knowledge of what was expected or to insufficient training. Impediments to carrying out successful programs are chiefly insufficient funds for training and for materials and transportation. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND The Montgomery County School Volunteer Program has been in opera- tion since August 1978. The program serves a large, diverse county with a population of 650,000, bordering on Washington, D.C. The county has been described as a relatively well-to-do suburban community, a bed- room community for the nation's capital. Actually, the county includes

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 73 considerable light industry research and other white-collar services- and it includes urban and rural as well as suburban areas. In 1987-1988, there were 161 public schools administered as one district by a superin- tendent under an elected school board. There were close to 100,000 public school students and 6,833 teachers. Approximately 67 percent of the stu- dents were white and 33 percent minority (15.6 percent black, 10.6 percent Asian, 6.6 percent Hispanic, and 0.2 percent Native American). The county school volunteer program was organized as a result of a relatively low-key state initiative beginning in the middle 1970s. During that period the state superintendent had applied for and received a fed- eral grant under the Education Professions Development Act to fund a staff specialist in volunteer program development. That specialist invited school superintendents from all over the state to send representatives to a round-table meeting on developing volunteer programs. After this initial meeting, the representative from Montgomery County was particularly interested in reading improvement programs that were organized by vol- unteers with help from a number of PfAs. These efforts proved success- ful enough that the Board of Education allocated one half-time position in each of the county's six areas to bolster reading and to organize volun- teers to help. The tight money situation in 1975-1976 resulted in cutbacks on these positions, and the volunteer program, with no one to continue to organize and keep it going, began to fade. Recognizing the contributions possible from volunteer help, one county school board member pushed for and succeeded in establishing a full- time position in 1978 for a coordinator of volunteer services to serve the courtly. With someone in charge and responsible, this program grew rap- idly over the next 10 years. By 1988 the volunteer services staff of two professionals and a part-time secretary (a budget under $100,000) had recruited and placed 29,187 volunteers who provided 1,691,049 hours of services to students and teachers in grades K-12, Head Start, and adult education. About 7,000 of these volunteers worked in instructional pro- grams; more than 12,000 served school support needs; and another 10,000 provided occasional services as speakers, contest judges, and so on. Volunteers helping with instruction served an average of 3 hours per week as classroom aides, tutors, mentors, tutors in English for speakers of other languages, computer assistants, media center aides, and career edu- cation assistants. In support services, volunteers averaged 2.5 hours per week working as chaperons and room parents, boosters, advisory com- mittee members, newsletter editors, clerical and attendance aides, and health room and cafeteria aides. To manage this program, the volunteer services coordinator works closely with each school participating in the volunteer program. Volun- teer program coordination at the school building level is provided by

74 VOLllNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS volunteers recruited by the PTA and appointed by the principal. These coordinators team up with paid staff at the school to provide administra- tive management of the program; they recruit, orient, screen, place, and provide recognition for volunteers, while the paid staff coordinator (usu- ally a part-time teacher or administrator) provides faculty orientation, conducts a staff needs assessment, and coordinates the training and super- vision of volunteers. The training given volunteers averages only 3.8 hours per year but is considered essential to their effective utilization. Both paid and volunteer program coordinators, and the volunteers them- selves, participate in the evaluation of the program. The central office coordinator of volunteer services conducts twice-yearly volunteer program management training for both paid and volunteer staff. A course for teachers is also offered '`The Effective Use of Volunteer Services in the Classroom." The course is approved by the Maryland State Department of Education for 1 hour of credit for recertification. In addition, the central office of volunteer services provides handbooks, forms, certificates, and other program materials to schools. The volunteer services coordinator also is on call to provide consultant services in program development to principals and PTA representatives. In addition to school recognition activities, the Board of Education holds a yearly reception to honor the principals, volunteer coordinators, and vol- unteers of programs that meet the State Department of Education criteria for an outstanding program. These criteria specify a staff orientation program in which a minimum of 80 percent of the staff has participated; an individual (either staff or volunteer) designated to provide training, leadership, and coordination to the school volunteer program; and a corps of volunteers who provide an average of not less than 100 hours per year of volunteer services in the school instructional program per each 50 stu- dents in the school. To encourage high schools and other schools that are just beginning their volunteer programs, a showing of 50 percent more volunteer hours than the previous year can be substituted for this last requirement. In 1988, 71 schools were honored. In addition to the school-organized volunteer programs, the Office of Volunteer Services offers teachers the Connection Resource Bank (CRB), a computerized data base of volunteered resources to support the mathe- matics and science curriculum in grades K-12. The CRB is a project of the Montgomery Education Connection, a nonprofit foundation of local busi- nesses whose mission is to support public education in Montgomery County. Teachers can obtain information about personnel, site resources, materials, and educational opportunities for themselves through a phone call to the CRB. In three years of operation, the CRB filled 1,158 teacher requests and served 31,391 students. Volunteers are recruited from various groups in the community, but the preponderance, 82 percent, are parents. Given the small central office

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 75 staff and the school-based volunteer organization, this emphasis could be predicted. Business volunteers account for 8 percent, community organi- zations about 6 percent, senior citizens 3 percent, and college and univer- sity students only about 1 percent of volunteers. The dollar value of the hours provided by volunteers, if estimated using the low hourly wage of school aides, would still be in excess of $11 million according to the vol- unteer services coordinator. This figure represents an increase of 2 per- cent in the school budget, or the equivalent of 813 full-time, 12-month staff people. Support for the volunteer program from the superintendent and the school board is solid. Involvement of the community is considered essen- tial for a good school program, and extensive use of volunteers who have first-hand knowledge of their school is a major factor in organizing this community support. Principals are encouraged to organize volunteer programs in their schools. To aid in monitoring the volunteer programs, a survey of volunteer services is conducted each year. The survey forms are completed at each school (using volunteer services), based on compilations from sign-in sheets that volunteers fill in each time they work. The detail compiled provides a comprehensive picture of numbers of volunteers, hours worked, type of activity, school level, and training conducted, as well as respondents' com- ments on major strengths of the program, major needs, and services they would like the central office to provide. Individual reports are used to review what is happening at each school; the data are also compiled for the entire district and used to monitor progress. A summary report is sent to the state office. Because of the small staff, little effort is spent on determining the accu- racy of each school's report. Qualifying for the state honors, for example, is an inducement to record-keeping, which could also lead to overstating numbers, but volunteers who occasionally drop in to a school for a few hours may not sign in and are frequently not included in the volunteer count. Evaluation forms are aimed at obtaining individual teacher and volun- teer perceptions of the program's effectiveness. They are used chiefly in monitoring the process and to pinpoint problems that need attention. Growth of the volunteer program and greater willingness of teachers and administrators to participate are pointed to as indications of program success. Formal evaluations on outcomes have not been attempted. SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA The volunteer program visited by the committee in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles County is different than those we visited in other cities. Known as the 31st District Parent-Teacher-Student Associa

76 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS lion (PTSA), the volunteer organization is a nonprofit group that operates independently of the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is admini- stered by a 16-member volunteer corporate board of directors elected by delegates from its membership of 76,000. Its mission is to benefit all children; its focus is on the students attending the Los Angeles public schools in its area; and it is recognized under board rules of the Los Ange- les Unified School District. The San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles (the 31st District) in- cludes 171 schools and 168,000 students. The volunteer organization has two distinctive functions. As an entity established in 1953 by the Califor- nia State PTA, it is authorized to carry out its programs and facilitate the administration of 152 units and membership within seven PTA councils in the San Fernando Valley, County of Los Angeles. The objectives of the PTA are promoted through educational endeavors directed toward par- ents, teachers, and the general public, and they are developed through conferences, committees, projects, and programs. Under its Articles of Incorporation in the State of California, its primary purposes include car- rying on philanthropic and educational work and promoting the welfare of children and youth in the home, school, community, and place of wor- ship. This was the impetus to create and administer programs coopera- tively designed to meet the needs of the students of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The concept of volunteerism within the 31st District PTSA is unique in that volunteer professionals design and administer programs or projects for which staff may be employed to implement. No member of the PTSA board may be employed by the PTSA. Dedicated volunteers contributed nearly 20,000 hours to PTSA projects in 1987-1988. The 31st District PTSA volunteers develop policies and procedures to ensure compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local regulations as to legal and financial accountability for staffing, certification, insur- ance, leasing, and licensing. Each project or program is evaluated indi- vidually on an annual basis and should be self-sustaining. Grants to maintain financial viability may be considered. The socioeconomic composition of the population of the area served by the PTSA programs and projects ranges from poverty level to upper middle class. According to the Los Angeles Unified School District, the schools in the area include those that are overcrowded and operate year round in addition to those with a traditional calendar; the students are about 15 percent white, 63 percent Hispanic, and the rest other minority. The population served by the PTSA projects that the committee visited are primarily minority children from single-parent families or families where both parents are employed and unable to afford private care. Many programs and projects are administered by the 31st District PTSA.

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 77 Three were reviewed by the committee: PTA Latchkey Project, PTA den- tal clinics, and PlA health clinics. In the PTA Latchkey Project, nearly 90 employees provide affordable, quality care at 17 school sites, before and after school, for approximately 800 elementary students, of whom 25 per- cent are subsidized (partly by a United Way allocation). The PTA dental clinics program employs a dentist to operate three clinics year round and several dentists and dental technicians to serve students otherwise unable to afford dental care (subsidized in part by United Way); there were more than 5,000 visits for dental care in 1988-1989. Of the PTA health clinics, two are operated in conjunction with the Los Angeles Unified School District, for which the 31st District PTSA employs optometrists and oph- thalmologists, who dispensed over 1,000 new glasses to students in 1988-1989. The PIA Latchkey Project began as a pilot project in 1982 in response to a needs surrey conducted by the 31st District PTSA in the communities that it serves. A lack of affordable, supervised activities for elementary school students before and after school was identified. Concerns were expressed about gangs, drugs, and poverty and the need for this service in a secure environment. Using a combination of persistence, acquired expertise, and volunteer efforts, leases were obtained for space in school buildings from the school district and licenses were obtained from the Department of Social Services for three sites. FIaving pioneered this venture successfully, the PIA worked for the passage of child care legislation. In 1985, California enacted legis- lation, SB 303, that made state funds available to public and private agen- cies to operate latchkey centers in schools. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) applied for and received funds to establish other sites. Subsequently, the mayor of Los Angeles, the City Council, and businesses have supplemented funding for additional programs in the district. Parents or guardians may enroll children who are students at the school at which the PTA Latchkey Program is offered for a fee; 25 percent are subsidized. Each site has a director who must have a minimum of 12 college units in child development, a counselor with a minimum of 6 units, and an aide. An adult/child ratio of at least 1:12 is maintained. Each program in the project must provide time for homework, with tutor- ing if necessary; some physical activity; some opportunity for quiet play; and nutritious refreshments. Each program may offer enrichment activi- ties requested by parents. Each center has facilities for children who are ill. Each year the PTA Latchkey Project conducts a survey of parents and summarizes the responses. In June 1988, the project reported five positive responses for every concern or suggestion. Among the criticisms, parents wanted either more or less structure, longer program hours, chocolate

78 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBUC ~H=LS milk or no chocolate milk, more adults per student, more supervision but not a "prison," more or less organized play, more artwork, more exercise or dance, quiet time instead of naps, more parent involvement, more secu- rity, and isolation for children with colds. At every site, parents asked for more help with homework. Concerns and suggestions have prompted program refinement. Overall, the income of the project currently exceeds expenses. Salaries and benefits have been increased for site employees; an increase in subsi- dized fees will be explored; and an executive administrator may be em- ployed due to project expansion and to relieve routine project administra- tive responsibilities of the Board of Directors. At the PTA health centers, in addition to the optometric services and eyeglasses provided by PTAs and PISAs, diagnostic services including cardiology, orology, neurology, audiometry, orthopedics, weight control, pediatrics, and general medicine are mostly provided by the staff of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Students must be referred to the PTA health centers by a school nurse, doctor, or administrator; parents or guardians may make appointments at the PTA dental clinics for any student in the Los Angeles schools. Forty percent of the cost of the dental services rendered is underwritten by con- tributions from PTA or PTSA units within the 31st District and by a grant from United Way. Fees are calculated on the balance, and charges are also subject to a social services scale based on the family size and in- come. Any remaining portion that the family is unable to pay is either paid by the school's PTA or PTSA unit or with funds from a PISA reserve account. Los Angeles Unified School District personnel, from the area superin- tendent to the president of the Board of Education to the site principals, consider the PTA Latchkey Project and PIA dental and health clinics a critical support system for educators and suggest that it may be necessary to redefine the role of schools in urban areas to include such services. Despite the complexities of operating what is in effect a social service agency, the PTSA is expanding its services. Three of the original found- ing members of the PIA Latchkey Project who met with the committee said they view the PTSA's involvement in out-of-school supplemental activities as being within the purview of PlA's mission. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) represents a com- pact urban area of about 700,000 people, where living and especially hous- ing costs are among the highest in the country. In 1988, there were 114 public schools serving approximately 65,000 students, including 14 ethnic groups with 27 different languages. More than one-half of San Francisco's

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 79 school children come from homes in which English is not the primary language. Eighty percent of the school students are defined as having special needs; almost 35 percent are limited in English proficiency; about 15 percent come from homes receiving welfare; and 85 percent are minori- ties. With tight budgets characteristic of most of the nation's large cities, San Francisco's teacher/student ratio is 1:32 for the K-12 grades and it is one of the highest in the country. Nevertheless, according to the superin- tendent, emphasis is on individualized instruction for each student, plac- ing heavy demands on classroom teachers. The committee was told that teachers are increasingly reaching out to the volunteer community for help not only in broadening and enriching their students' education but also to ensure that each student can adequately read, write, and compute. The task of recruiting, screening, training, and placing these volunteers is the responsibility of the San Francisco School Volunteers, an independ- ent nonprofit agency. Begun in 1962 by two volunteers who assisted with reading and story telling in two schools, the agency (then known as the San Francisco Education Auxiliary) boosted its number of volunteers to 30 in 1963 and received some initial support from the school district. By 1966 the organization had expanded to 200 volunteers working in 16 schools; and by 1970 the number had tripled to 620 volunteers working in elementary, junior high, and high schools. By the mid- and late 1970s, this organization, maintaining its organizational structure as a nonprofit independent group working closely with the school district and with con- tinued but modest support, had expanded to four citywide projects, in- cluding a cross-age tutoring program and a speakers' bureau, and had placed about 2,000 volunteers working in schools. In this period the first business involvement program was established, a program that has con- tinued to the present. In the late 1970s, special projects were initiated to provide English tutoring help for immigrant children, to involve senior citizens, and to assist handicapped and disabled children. During this period the agency also began to build teacher training into the program. The independent organization changed its name to the San Francisco School Volunteers in the early 1980s. New programs continued to be added, including a foreign-language enrichment program and a math program designed to improve students' problem-solving abilities. By the middle and late 1980s, the agency had extended its involvement in literacy issues and had launched, with the support of the superintendent, an adopt-a-school business program match- ing individual businesses with schools in a partnership relationship. As of 1988, the agency's annual report showed operation of 11 programs in the city, serving some 33,000 students and 2,100 teachers, with more than 2,200 volunteers in all 114 of the city's schools. To provide these services, the San Francisco School Volunteers has a

80 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS paid staff of 17 professional and clerical employees. It is managed by a director, is governed by a board of directors, and has an active advisory committee that provides direction to the board with more than 60 mem- bers serving on project committees. The annual budget is close to $500,000, with funding provided through grants from a number of foundations, donations from corporations, and special fund-raising events, as well as the contribution of the school district. In addition to managing the pro- gram, the director must be active in fund raising from corporations and must develop proposals for funds from foundations and from federal, state, and local government agencies. The independent organization of the San Francisco School Volunteers allows for considerable creativity in designing projects and raising funds to implement them. However, such funding is usually short term, requir- ing continuous fund-raising activity and a constant effort to persuade a tight-budgeted school system to take over funding so that successful proj- ects can continue and be expanded to all schools in the system. Working relationships with the school district are described as very close, with the volunteer organization helping the schools to determine their needs and then attempting to recruit volunteers to fill them. Suppor from the superintendent is enthusiastic, there is written policy support for volunteer activities, and part of the evaluation of school principals de- pends on how well they have used volunteers. The superintendent, ex- pressing his own views, said that major changes in the U.S. education systems must include the involvement of the community in a structured, organized way to supplement organized teaching. Economics, for ex- ample, should be taught not only by a teacher but with help from vol- unteers from the banking community or other experts. Projects developed by the agency are consistent with goals set by the school district and in support of needs determined by individual schools. The central, and by far the largest, activity of the volunteer organization is the recruitment and training of volunteers to meet the needs of each school. These needs Garage from tutorial help for reading and math, to help for learning disabled students, to music and art enrichment activities. Volun- teers are recruited from school parents, the community, and citywide. Parents constitute the largest source, but senior citizens, university stu- dents, and business people also provide volunteer services. The volun- teer organization does the recruiting, interviewing, and placing of volun- teers. It not only helps each school in encouraging parents and others in the community to become involved, but also recruits directly through extensive media outreach to local newspapers, radio, and television sta- tions; close working relationships with local and out-of-state university programs; contacts with area community, ethnic, professional, and educa- tional organizations; and through use of the organization's advisory com

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 81 mittee. The agency also offers training both in one-on-one tutoring and in understanding and working with students from diverse cultures and pro- vides consultant services, including training and helping school volunteer coordinators in developing strategies for involving parents and other community volunteers in school programs and activities. Special programs designed with the aid of educational experts and usually funded by foundations or corporations are also in operation to help implement school district goals. These include experimental pro- grams in math, reading and language arts, special education, and critical thinking and writing. All of these programs have stated goals and objec- tives and provide for a strong evaluation component measuring student achievement, self-esteem, and other outcomes, as well as assessing the effectiveness of the process by which the achievements were accomplished. Several programs are specifically aimed at involving the business com- munity as well as parents. For example, the Think/Write Program, teams professional writers from major San Francisco area corporations with teach- ers in middle and high school classrooms. The objective is to give stu- dents a realistic view of the importance of critical thinking and to develop practical and creative writing skills ranging from letters, memos, press releases, and job applications to short stories and movie reviews. The activity is highly organized, with both teachers and volunteers participat- ing in considerable training. The teams usually do the writing assign- ments themselves before they are presented in class, and they use such techniques as brainstorming, mind-mapping, revising, editing, and group criticism to expose students to the importance of critical thinking as well as creativity. Viewed skeptically at first by teachers, the program, now in its third year, has more applicants than can be accommodated. Other programs include creative ways of enriching the language arts curriculum with quality literature, training senior citizen volunteers in teaching English as a second language so that they can tutor the large number of immigrant students, and helping elementary school children understand and accept children with disabilities. Business partnerships, including the Adopt-A-School program, not only bring volunteers to the schools but provide resources such as management workshops for school administrators, scholarships, summer job opportunities, and other sup- port for students, teachers, and schools. Making it possible for experimental programs that have been proven successful to be introduced in schools that have not been part of the ex- periment is a major challenge for the school district. Some of these proj- ects, such as the Think/Write Program, are literally changing the way critical thinking and writing are taught in the participating schools. Find- ing ways after foundation funding runs out to continue this creative col- laboration of teachers and business volunteers and to provide the training

82 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS required to assure the success of this type of program adds to the school district's challenge. Evaluation of virtually all aspects of volunteer activity is carried out or supported by the San Francisco School Volunteers. For example, each school year separate evaluation forms are completed by volunteer coordi- nators in each school and by the volunteers. The questions cover percep- tions of usefulness of volunteers and allow for comments on the role of the volunteer organization in recruiting, placing, training, and monitor- ing. Summary data show a generally high level of satisfaction. Individ- ual comments, however, have indicated trouble spots in communication, training, and inadequate orientation at the school or lack of understand- ing on the part of the teacher as to how to use a volunteer's time effec- tively, and they have been used to remedy problems. Overall, forms returned by the volunteers also indicate a high level of satisfaction. In addition to the evaluation forms from volunteer coordinators and volunteers, each project funded by foundation or corporate sources has stated goals and objectives and a built-in evaluation aspect. These evalu- ations, usually conducted by outside experts, include, as appropriate, as- sessment of academic achievement as well as indications of self-esteem, reduction of absenteeism, and attitude changes of students and teachers. Evaluation results show substantial improvements in elementary reading scores, high school foreign-language scores, and noticeable gains in stu- dent problem-solving ability in mathematics, writing, and English. Con- tributions of volunteers toward reading improvement score measurements made before and after volunteer programs are implied. The extent to which improvements are due to better teaching or to help from the volun- teers could not be measured, but the improvements were clearly there, and teachers attested to the contributions of the volunteers. TULSA, OKLAHOMA The Tulsa, Oklahoma, school system has lost more than one-half of its students in the past decade, as a result of sharp declines in the oil econ- omy. Currently, 41,000 students attend the district's 78 elementary, middle, and high schools. More than two-thirds of the students are white, one- third are black, and a number are Native American. In Tulsa, most black families live in one part of the city, whites in another. The Tulsa community is traditionally conservative, with an orientation to solving its own problems. While the city has pockets of poverty, disad- vantage looks different in Tulsa than it does in densely populated cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles. Neighborhoods described as among the poorest were generally made up of single-family homes with lawns, or- derly and well maintained.

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 83 An extremely strong and comprehensive school volunteer program in Tulsa had its roots in a 1970s school desegregation effort, when Tulsa, determined to avoid court-ordered desegregation, created a voluntary system of magnet schools with heavy parent involvement. In addition, under its current superintendent, the school system is committed to "ef- fective schools" principles, including community involvement. In the 1987-1988 school year, between 3,900 and 4,000 volunteers worked in Tulsa schools, contributing approximately 169,000 hours of service in a variety of capacities ranging from direct involvement in the instructional process to clerical support for teachers and administrative staff. The climate appears to favor school volunteerism and community in- volvement in Tulsa, but without exception the school officials we met during a 2-day visit to Tulsa credited an individual, the director of busi- ness/community resources, with the effectiveness of the district's volun- teer and partnership programs. The director was active as a parent in the magnet school desegregation plan, became the first director of school vol- unteers in Tulsa in the early 1970s, and now administers an Adopt-a- School business partnership program, as well as an array of specialized volunteer programs developed to meet specific needs of the schools and students. During the committee's Tulsa visit, we met with the superintendent and with the associate superintendent for instruction. Both expressed unequivocal support for the Business/Community Resources program. Two teacher union representatives with whom we met were equally sup- portive. The president and vice-president of the Tulsa Classroom Teach- ers Association said teachers in Tulsa are enthusiastic about having vol- unteer assistance. Asked if volunteers are seen as performing jobs that might otherwise go to paid aides, one said: "As I see it, volunteers are doing things that would not be done at all if they were not in the schools." The teacher representatives indicated some preference for corporate vol- unteers, saying they tend to be less intrusive and less emotional about school operations than parent volunteers. On a schedule that began at 8 a.m. each day, we visited six schools, each with a volunteer program that represents one approach to commu- nity involvement. In each school, volunteer activities were organized and structured and addressed specific instructional objectives. McLain High School is in a predominantly black neighborhood in one of the cites lowest-income areas. The school is bright, clean, and orderly, and the students are well dressed and personable. The principal is using many techniques to persuade neighborhood children to remain at McLain and not transfer to one of the city's magnet high schools. Recently, he and the district coordinator developed an Adopt-a-Class project in which professionals, most of them black, come into classes on a regular basis to

84 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS talk about student problems or about their own careers and educational experiences. On the day of our visit, a college admissions officer was discussing student aid with a class of seniors; a husband-and-wife team was leading a discussion of drug abuse and suicide; and a dentist was describing tooth structure. Many of the volunteers were on released time from area businesses and corporations. The volunteers meet once a month to exchange information and make plans; according to the principal, they provide invaluable role models for his students. At Houston Elementary School, there is an active Take Reading to Heart program in which community volunteers (at Houston the volunteers were Junior Leaguers) work one on one with kindergarteners and 1st graders who are having reading difficulties. The volunteers use a variety of ob- jects, including letter shapes and picture cards, to determine if the chil- dren have necessary reading readiness skills and to remedy deficiencies. At some point in the session, each child gets to snuggle into a cushioned area to read a book with a tutor. According to the school principal, the program has significantly reduced the number of children who must spend a developmental year between kindergarten and 1st grade. At Sequoyah Elementary School we talked with a counselor who ap- proached the district coordinator with a request for adult friends for the increasing number of students in Sequoyah's middle-class community whose parents work or are otherwise unable to give their children time and companionship. In this program, students from a nearby college walk to the elementary school, and a partnership has been developed in which the college students come to school regularly to talk with their young friends, walk with them on the school grounds, or help with a school project. We were presented with letters written for us by some of the students about "the best, best friend I ever had." Students are sug- gested for the program by their teachers and must have parental permis- sion to participate. Cleveland Middle School, which enrolls students from a middle-class working community and has a large number of Native American stu- dents, has been adopted by Warren Petroleum Company. Evidence of the partnership includes computers in the media center, volunteers from the company who teach computer use, and the library's recently computer- ized records, which were accomplished with volunteer help. The adop- tion is clearly mutual: the assistant principal pointed to a trophy case of students' artwork saluting their business partner. At Lindbergh Elementary School, volunteers are an integral part of kindergarten every day. The committee found it hard to tell which of the adults in the three kindergarten sections were staff and which were vol- unteers. The volunteers are essential to the teacher's program, in which children are busy with many different activities at the same time. Volun- teers were clearly comfortable with their roles, helping with paints, pin

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 85 ning up artwork, smiling with approval, or clearing up spills. As in the other Tulsa schools visited, the volunteers appeared to be well oriented and trained and went about their activities with confidence. The Disney Elementary School uses volunteers in a science enrichment program developed for the Tulsa schools by scientists at Amoco research headquarters in Tulsa. The scientists developed a hands-on curriculum in which students work in small groups to perform experiments and solve problems. The curriculum, now distributed nationally, relies explicitly on volunteers to work with the students. According to the science teacher, the volunteers often contribute creative ideas of their own to enhance the program. At the time of the committee's visit, students were clearly ab- sorbed and engaged in learning under competent volunteer supervision. Disney Elementary School also has other volunteer programs, including a volunteer workroom, where teachers can leave requests for copying, lami- nating, or other small services; volunteers pick up the requests when they arrive at school and fill them. As at the other Tulsa schools, the volun- teers seemed exceptionally well organized and self-starting. Tulsa's Adopt-a-School program, begun 5 years ago, is a joint effort between the Tulsa Board of Education and the Metropolitan Tulsa Cham- ber of Commerce. Companies and organizations are asked to be commit- ted for a full year and to release their employees in teams for up to 3 hours a week. Principals and teachers are expected to design programs linking students with volunteers, and the district school volunteer coordi- nator keeps communication open among the participants and assures that the objectives of each are being met. Schools are encouraged to assess their needs and request adoption on the basis of those needs. After adop- tion, the Business/C:ommunity Resource program staff conducts an orien- tation for school personnel and the adopting partner. Once the program is in place, a written evaluation is completed by participants at the end of each year. One staff member in the four-person Business/Community Resource Office spends full time managing a Volunteer Speakers Bureau. A list of speaker topics starts with "Acting," "Accounting," "Adoption," "Aero- space," and "Agriculture" and ends with "Welding," "Wildlife," ' - ills and Trusts," '~Word Processing," "Writers," and "Zoo." Teachers may request the services of a speaker by mailing a speaker request form to the office, detailing such items as the purpose of the presentation, the instruc- tional unit or activity to which it relates, the grade level, and the number of students. The speaker is identified and confirmed to the teacher and principal. Both the teacher and the speaker receive guidelines for presen- tations, and the speaker receives an introduction card and name tag. Teachers are asked to complete an evaluation form after the event, and speakers are officially thanked by the Business/Community Resource Office.

86 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS WASHINGTON, D.C. Washington, D.C., is the 15th largest city in the nation. The estimated population in 1988 was 621,658. According to a survey conducted by the Greater Washington Research Center in 1986, the population was 67 per- cent black, 28 percent white, and 5 percent "other races." Washington is also one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse cities in the United States. It is also a city of extreme contrasts. According to the 1980 census, more than 28 percent of the residents above 25 had attended 4 or more years of college, yet almost 16 percent had not completed elementary school. More than 14 percent of the households lived in poverty, yet the District had the second highest per capita income in the nation. The 1988 student enrollment stands at 87,700, including 51,174 elemen- tary students (prekindergarten through grade 6~; 17,196 junior high stu- dents (grades 7-9~; 17,396 senior high students (grades 10-12~; and 1,080 students in special education. The school system also serves approxi- mately 18,000 residents citywide with adult education services. Of the 1988 prekindergarten through 12th grade enrollment, 96 percent of the students are minorities, of which 91.7 percent are black. In 1989-1990, the public school enrollment is expected to be 90,200. For the school year 1988-1989, there were 19,805 D.C. resident students attending private schools, about the same number as in 1987. According to the Division of Bilingual Education Fact Sheet dated November 30, 1988, the language minority student enrollment in the school system is 8,991, a growth of 6,500 students from the 1980 level of 2,400. Recently, a substantial number of students from Central and South Amer- ica, Asia, North Africa, and the Caribbean islands moved to Washington. Such a diverse student population has complex cultural, linguistic, and educational needs. The largest concentration, Hispanic, represents every Spanish-speaking country in the world, with a great number of students from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. The school administrative structure is unique, as might be expected for the city. One superintendent and one Board of Education execute what are, elsewhere, both state and local district functions. The first elected school board was established in 1968; the first nonvoting student member of the board was elected in 1982. Washington was one of the cities that received seed money from the National School Volunteer Program of the Public Education Association of New York City in the mid-1970s to establish a school volunteer pro- gram. Under an energetic superintendent, the city continued to expand its community involvement and now operates comprehensive school vol- unteer, Adopt-a-School, and partnership programs, all administered by a

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 87 Volunteer Services and Training Branch established in 1977. In the 1987-1988 school year, the school system reported that 23,007 volunteers gave 5 million hours of time, worth $25 million; and every one of the city's 200 schools and programs received some kind of volunteer service. Fifty-one percent of volunteers serve in elementary schools, 20 percent in middle and junior high schools, 10 percent in high schools, 13 percent in adult education, 12 percent in special education, and 4 percent in commu- nity schools. Volunteer efforts fall into four major categories: support to instruction, which includes tutoring and classroom assistance (53 percent); extension services, defined as additions to counseling or administrative functions (17 percent); enrichment activities in the form of extracurricular learning experiences (21 percent); and advisory and advocacy activities (9 percent). The school board has established detailed regulations for the utiliza- tion of volunteer services. The superintendent and staff are specifically authorized to accept such services provided that no volunteer performs "any function or service that is currently being performed by an em- ployee" and voluntary services or their availability are not used as a basis for "reduction in force" of school personnel. Volunteers are required to sign a statement acknowledging that they have been informed of the na- ture and scope of the voluntary services to be performed and of the board's regulations, especially those concerning confidentiality, conflict of inter- est, liability protection, and political activity. The Volunteer Services and Training Branch conducts districtwide re- cruiting and volunteer recognition and is available to schools for technical assistance in program development, volunteer training, and staff develop- ment. The branch also provides guest speakers for schools or community groups and materials to support tutorial instruction and related efforts. Schools are also encouraged to recruit their own volunteers. A coordina- tor is appointed for each building by the principal; this is usually a re- source teacher or assistant principal. The coordinator collects and reports volunteer names and hours and serves as liaison with the branch for training and other assistance. The Volunteer Services and Training Branch also administers a number of districtwide programs that provide volunteers to schools. They include Operation Rescue, an elementary tutorial program cosponsored by the Washington Urban League; Project Mentor, a secondary mentoring pro- gram using volunteer professionals to supplement counseling services; Operation Outreach, an after-school tutorial program for secondary stu- dents; and Project Access, a pre-employment training program for high school seniors. The branch also assists schools to set up partnerships with businesses, community organizations, or government agencies. The committee's visit included a half-day briefing at the offices of the

88 VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS Volunteer Services and Training Branch by the director. Meetings were also held with the executive assistant to the superintendent for corporate liaison and with a member of the Board of Education, both of whom were highly supportive of the volunteer and partnership programs. The assis- tant to the superintendent said that schools are looking to the community for technical support, since even highly trained teachers have limited com- petence in areas out of their discipline. He noted that the district is asking businesses, "How is it you instruct your employees, and is it applicable to schools?" The board member stressed the importance of parent and com- munity involvement in schools in her ward. We visited three schools, one elementary, one junior high, and one senior high, all with active volunteer programs. Stevens Elementary School was built in 1868 as one of the first school for blacks in the District of Col- umbia and was named for Pennsylvania Congressman Thadeus Stevens. It is located in the heart of D.C.'s high-rise financial district. The school's attendance area includes the White House, but children attend from all over Washington in part because of an extended-day program that en- ables parents who work to pick their children up as late as 6 p.m. The principal has turned the school's midtown location to advantage: "I walk into the offices and say, 'We need help'," she said. On the day of our visit, a federal judge was challenging teams of 5th graders to compete in answering general-knowledge questions; he comes to the school weekly. A brokerage firm has developed a stock market program using math and reading skills; children follow the progress of stocks in daily newspapers, plan investment strategies, and make or lose "money." At the end of the year, the firm provides each child one share of stock. Teachers spoke with enthusiasm about volunteers in their build- ing and noted that many children develop close friendships with volun- teer mentors and tutors. The children at Stevens seemed completely at ease with visitors; they were friendly and self-confident, as were the fac- ulty. Our visit to Shaw Junior High was in the afternoon after classes had ended; we therefore saw no students or volunteers, but the coordinators of the school's volunteer program and a community education program that uses volunteers gave us a comprehensive briefing. Shaw, once noto- rious for violence and disorder, is a tightly controlled campus; students are not allowed to leave school during the day, and cleanliness and order are rigorously maintained. Parents are required to come to the school when students have problems and to take responsibility for their children's behavior and achievement. Shaw has numerous adopters, including a major chain of food markets, and is partnered with McDonalds, l.W. Marriott, and IBM. In 1987 the

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 89 school celebrated "A Decade of Volunteer Service in an Inner-City School," including career orientation, cultural enhancement, communication and technical skills, improved attendance, consumer awareness, and employ- ment opportunity. This year in the Shaw Community School, which holds classes several nights a week, the volunteer coordinator and the community school assis- tant principal are implementing the tutorial program, Operation Outreach, with the goal of increasing achievement levels of each participant by 4 months. Evidence will be documented by the SORT (Slosson Oral Read- ing Test) and a standardized math test. Volunteers also teach cooking, sewing, and crafts in the community school. Dunbar Senior High School is a Washington institution; now housed in a new building, the "old Dunbar" graduated many black national leaders, particularly in the arts. Because of its location, Dunbar does not have access to many businesses but relies a great deal on the numerous black churches in the area as a source of volunteers. Like most D.C. schools, all of its students are black, and black pride messages are conspicuous in display cases and posters. The atmosphere of the school is quiet and controlled, but relationships between staff and students are apparently warm. At the time of our visit, the principal was on her way to a hospital to visit a student who had been injured in a car accident on the way to school. The principal introduced us to the new president of the school's PTA, who was in the school as a volunteer. He is a black male librarian who meets weekly with English classes. Committee members also talked with a team of black professionals from one of the churches, which has started a mentoring and counseling program. The principal made clear that vol- unteers from churches understand that they may not use volunteering as a way of delivering religious messages. A volunteer schedule for the day showed the department and teacher with whom a volunteer was working and the volunteer's name and affiliation. The D.C. public schools hosted a volunteer experiment in 1986-1988, in which a local civic group recruited mathematicians, scientists, and engi- neers from the entire metropolitan area to supplement and enhance the teaching of math and science in junior high schools. The project found that it was possible to attract professional people to schools in all neigh- borhoods of the city; a major stumbling block turned out to be uncertainty on the part of many teachers about how to use or react with another adult, who often has a Ph.D. degree' in their classrooms. Intensive train- ing for teachers in which they were encouraged to write job descriptions for prospective volunteers led to better matches between volunteers and teachers; the program is continuing under an advisory committee of com- munity representatives.

So VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS SUMMARY In reviewing the committee's 13 site visits, the major impression shared by the members is that the impact of these volunteer programs on stu- dents was positive. This finding is not surprising in light of the fact that the sites were chosen because knowledgeable groups thought them to have exemplary volunteer programs. It was evident from interviews that the programs were based on needs expressed by teachers at the participating schools. The programs came across as well organized and supported at the policy level. The commit- tee was also impressed with the efforts in large cities and suburban areas where small staffs were able to deliver the services of thousands of volun- teers to large numbers of schools and students. Despite these efforts, however, many of the volunteer coordinators interviewed expressed the view that there were many more students who could benefit from volun- teer help than were receiving it and that greater efforts are needed. Impressions of committee members were that those responsible for organizing and administrating these programs were able, caring, and committed people trying to help overburdened education systems meet the needs of students and that the programs were achieving positive re- sults. But the committee found little in the way of formal evaluation studies to substantiate this positive view. Evaluations available even in these "exemplary" programs were largely informal attempts to determine teacher, administrator, or volunteer perceptions as to the value of the effort. For the most part, these "evaluations" are used by the administra- tors to monitor the program; they were particularly useful, the committee was told, in identifying problems that needed attention or in calling atten- tion to particularly successful activities. Those few studies that were directed to evaluating outcomes resulting from the use of volunteers were usually tied to projects carried out with outside funding from foundations or corporations, and they had an evalu- ation built into the project. These included, for example, a few studies measuring the effects of volunteer tutoring, which showed positive re- sults. But even most of these evaluations were formalized attempts to get at perceptions of outcomes. Cost factors and conceptual problems, such as isolating variables OF determining suitable measures of success, were among those cited by volunteer coordinators as obstacles to formal evalu- ation. For the most part, therefore, the committee had to rely on the available perception studies, informal evaluations, anecdotal information obtained in interviews, and their own observations and experience in as- sessing the value of the volunteer programs that were visited. In general, the committee notes that although all of the volunteer coor- dinators were proud of their accomplishments, none pretended that these were any panacea for education or indeed anything more than some help

SOME EXEMPLARY VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS 91 for the process. It was pointed out that most of the tasks undertaken by volunteers could be handled by paid staff, but funds for such staff are not available, and without volunteer help the tasks would not be done. There simply is not enough money in any of the school systems to pay for the services that volunteers provide. Moreover, there are some services, usu- ally involving enrichment, that could not be performed by school staff, such as lectures, presentations, or demonstrations by scientists, jurists, artists, and others with special expertise. As part of their site visits, committee members asked volunteer admin- istrators and others to give us their perceptions of impediments to their programs and to tell us how they dealt with them. Discussed were a range of problems, including: overcoming difficulties in recruiting suffi- cient numbers of volunteers; dealing with lack of commitment on the part of some volunteers or lack of knowledge as to how to use volunteer time effectively on the part of some teachers; and adapting to commitment changes at the policy level when school superintendents or school boards change. Some of these are factors that can inhibit the overall success of volunteer programs, which are discussed in more detail in the next chap- ter. However, the committee was told that when problems arise that affect students, such as volunteers who do not show up as agreed or are unable to work with a student, they are addressed immediately. In its deliberations, the committee tried to view the volunteer contribu- tion in perspective in order to assess its limitations as well as its potential. Volunteers usually spend 3 to 4 hours per week in a school. In the organ- ized programs that were visited, volunteers are screened, oriented, pro- vided training as appropriate, and assigned to work under the supervi- sion of professional staff. All of the program coordinators noted that volunteer help is provided only to teachers who ask for it. Teachers who are skeptical of the value of volunteers or prefer not to have an additional person working with them in the classroom simply do not participate. It was evident that no matter how effective a volunteer activity, it is only supplementary to a well-run education program. Although there is agreement that volunteer help can make a difference, neither school ad- ministrators nor the volunteer coordinators believe that any massive infu- sion of volunteers could make up the shortcomings of an underfunded, poorly run education system. The committee also observes that volunteering is clearly a growing social movement. The volunteers we talked with said they feel good about their volunteer service. The programs seen all had policy-level support and considerable citizen participation, and there was excitement about what the volunteer programs have accomplished and their poten- tial. In summary, the committee viewed the weight of evidence as to accomplishments of the volunteer programs it visited to be positive.

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Among the most prominent of President Bush's "thousand points of light" are volunteers who work with our nation's students. The last several decades show considerable growth in the numbers of school volunteers, with increasing participation by people from the business community, retired citizens, and college students, in addition to the traditionally active mothers of school children.

Yet, we must do more to ensure the success of volunteer programs in schools. It is not enough to assume that any volunteer effort will produce results, nor is it wise to use volunteers simply because they are "free."

This new volume from the National Research Council provides the first overview ever compiled of volunteer activity in U.S. public schools—reporting on how volunteers are being used in schools, what factors make programs successful, what further research will enhance our ability to create good programs, and what directions our national policy should take.

Included in this study of volunteers in public schools are the reports of the committee's site visits to 13 volunteer programs identified as "exemplary" from Boston Partners in Education to "Project Rescue" for dropout prevention in Corsicana, Texas. Each site report describes local economic conditions and their effects on education, the organization and size of the school system, and the volunteer program—with details on how each program functions and what results have been achieved.

This book will be immediately useful to federal, state, and local policymakers, school boards and administrators, principals and teachers, PTA members, business firms involved with schools, and, of course, managers or coordinators of volunteer activities and concerned volunteers.

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