For a complete list of duties, requirements, and how to apply click here.

For a complete list of duties, requirements, and how to apply click here.

During his speech, President Obama highlighted Communities in Schools and Big Picture Learning’s Met Center in Rhode Island as examples of programs already working to not only keep kids in school, but to help them achieve high school diplomas and envision future success. He said:

“Of course, getting it right requires more than just transforming our lowest performing schools. It requires giving students who are behind in school a chance to catch up and a path to a diploma. It requires focusing on students, from middle school through high school, who face factors at home, in the neighborhood, or in school that put them at risk of dropping out. And it requires replicating innovative ideas that make class feel engaging and relevant — because most high school dropouts in a recent study said the reason they dropped out was that they weren’t interested in class and they weren’t motivated to do their work.

“So that’s why we’ll build on the efforts of places like Communities in Schools that make sure kids who are at risk of dropping out have one-on-one support. That’s why we’ll follow the example of places like the Met Center in Rhode Island that give students that individual attention, while also preparing them through real-world, hands-on training the possibility of succeeding in a career.

“And that’s why we’ll invest in accelerated instruction in reading and math to help students who’ve fallen behind make up credits and ultimately graduate on time. It’s also why we’ll foster better alternative high schools and transfer schools, where students who have dropped out and who are at risk of dropping out, can return to the classroom and earn their diploma.”

Watch President Obama’s entire speech here.
Also, read General Powell’s recent blog post on the White House website.

This is a new position designed to reduce the workload of the Executive Director by supervising 11 staff who manage the network partner support and evaluation work of the organization. The successful candidate will be part of the senior leadership team, collaborating with the Sr. Director of Finance & Administration and the Executive Director in support of a multi-million-dollar budget and ambitious goals for continuous improvement. It is a full-time, salaried position located in Portland, OR.

For a complete list of duties, requirements, and how to apply click here.

It is within this context that AHSI intends to lead – through innovation and intentional collaboration – a national response to the imperative that our country educate all youth. AHSI aspires to assist large and medium-sized cities in the U.S. and their states in developing a diverse range of high quality pathways to graduation as part of their secondary school portfolios. AHSI will use its new business model to scale-up results achieved by this highly regarded network of school developers. AHSI will work with interested partners to develop pathways to graduation, college, and careers to help ensure that a greater number of this nation’s underserved young people graduate high school prepared for promising futures.

AHSI PLACE-BASED PARTNERSHIPS
AHSI is working with cities, school districts, and community-wide partners to expand the number of high quality pathways to graduation through AHSI Place-based Partnerships in Indianapolis, IN; Nashville, TN; and Newark, NJ. The National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education, and Families facilitates these efforts. AHSI welcomes the opportunity to form new Partnerships in other localities.
For more information visit the AHSI Partnerships page.

SCHOOL DISTRICT, STATE EDUCATION AGENCY, AND OTHER PARTNERSHIPS
AHSI will assist large and medium-sized cities in the U.S. and their SEAs in developing and integrating high quality alternatives as part of their secondary school portfolios. Cities of this size often overlap with or include multiple school districts. These cities generally have sufficient capacity to offer a range of pathways to graduation that include diverse high school models, and they are well-positioned to scale-up these efforts with partners locally and statewide for systemic change.

While AHSI will focus its energy in this way, we welcome inquiries from any interested locality, including rural communities, because the network is composed of organizations with expertise that can be tapped in these locales as well.

AHSI offers a fee-based service model to fulfill a scope of work jointly developed with the prospective client. AHSI anticipates working closely with interested cities, school districts, State Education Agencies, and other partners to help assess the status of secondary school options and alternatives; identify effective local, state, and regional high school models; and propose a range of high quality school designs that would expand pathways to graduation.

FEDERAL PROGRAM OPPORTUNITIES
AHSI is actively contributing to federal efforts to reduce this nation’s dropout rate and increase high school graduation and college completion rates. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, opportunities to work with SEAs and Local Education Agencies (LEAs) are emerging. AHSI is capable of supporting a State’s Race to the Top strategy. AHSI is also gearing up for the Investing in Innovation Fund. AHSI is well positioned to contribute to other public programs that create opportunities for expanding high quality pathways to graduation and post-high school success.

INVITE US to work with your community, city, or state. Please contact us.

Talmira Hill,
AHSI Director
Phone: (781) 485-9979
Email: talmira.ahsi@gmail.com

Lauren Smock-Randall
AHSI Network Support Coordinator
Phone: (401) 752-3430
Email: lsmock-randall@bigpicturelearning.org

Current Initiatives

• Data
• High School to Career & College Transition

Archived Initiatives

• Math & Quantitative Reasoning
• Principal Training & Support

The purpose of the AHSI Policy Work Group is to provide a forum for collaborative identification and problem-solving around the policy opportunities and barriers that affect development of high-quality alternatives for high school. Staff of the education program at the National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (NLCI) support and facilitate the Policy Work Group.

Since formation of the Work Group in 2006, an ever-growing group of members drawn from the AHSI network and partner organizations have:

• Informed and created the overall AHSI Policy Framework
• Informed development of Federal legislation aimed at increasing support for alternatives for high school
• Supported the development of NLCI’s publication
• Setting the Stage for New High Schools: Municipal Leadership in Supporting High School Alternatives
• Planned and participated in a mini-convening on Performance-Based Education and the California policy environment for alternatives
• Provided extensive briefings on policy and program development at the US Department of Labor
• Multiple Pathways Learning Exchange; and Selected, provided formative support to, and launched three AHSI Place-Based Partnership efforts to build out portfolios of new alternatives for high schools through city-schools collaboration in Indianapolis, Indiana; Nashville, Tennessee; and Newark, New Jersey.

Policy Work Group initiatives for 2008-2009 include:

• Continue to support development of coordinated portfolios of alternatives in the AHSI Place-Based Partnership sites, and to identify policy “lessons learned” from those sites;
• Advise NLCI on efforts to establish and sustain strategic partnerships with national and regional organizations and government agencies, so as to connect AHSI intermediaries and the AHSI policy perspective The AHSI Policy Perspective with national and local events and policy discussions;
• Advise NLCI as it conducts explorations and seeks to explain the AHSI policy perspective and operations in California; and
• Monitor and inform as possible, developments in state and Federal policy relevant for alternatives for high school.

Important Dates

The Policy Work Group meets quarterly by teleconference, and meets in person at the AHSI Spring and Fall Convenings.

Supporting Documents

• The AHSI Policy Perspective
  Download PDF
• Setting the Stage for New High Schools: Municipal Leadership in Supporting High School Alternatives
  Download PDF

AHSI’s first national conference will highlight results based on student attainment of academic and other proficiencies. By focusing on evidence of success among their students beyond high school, AHSI organizations will create a forum for K-12 and college educators, policy makers, and representatives of community-wide agencies, youth development, and workforce development organizations interested in educating all youth. Participants will discover new strategies, exchange best practices, make connections with schools and postsecondary institutions, and explore opportunities for improving policy and practice. Sessions will be tailored to meet the needs of educators, youth professionals, and policy makers implementing middle and high school innovations, including teams of educators funded under the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation Fund programs.

Conference strands will assist attendees in cultivating supports for students in middle and high school that promote college and career readiness, access, and post-high school success. Strategies include (a) college readiness — preparing students as early as the middle school years for completing high school and continuing to postsecondary success; (b) college access — supporting successful transitions from high school to college and careers, including student academics, financial aid, and related supports, as well as coordinating efforts with 2- and 4-year colleges and universities, certification programs, and with career options; and (c) continuing to support graduates as they pursue post-high school pathways. Sessions will present academic and other school-based interventions, strategies for collaboration with community-wide agencies for non-academic supports, as well as capacity building for longitudinal data and evaluation systems and other systemic elements for achieving the highest possible results.

The AHSI National Conference is scheduled to take place in early February 2011. Please continue to check back for more details as they come available!

Written by Julia Steiny
February 14, 2010

A class of Charlestown (Mass.) High School students are riveted to their teacher’s lesson about plotting negative slopes. And smiling, to boot. With long dreadlocks pulled into a loose pony tail, Hayden Frederick-Clarke talks to the kids with a fascinating blend of rich, well-educated vocabulary and street syntax. He’s cool.

Gesticulating effusively at the slope on the white board, he says, “When I’ve got a negative slope, I’m riding my bike down the hill, DOWN the hill. Make sense?” The kids are with him. “Cool. Now, how do we read?” “Left to right” is correct, but a few kids elaborate to show they’re really getting his point. He exults, “Thank you! You have been here. I am actually your teacher.” The kids laugh and assure him he’s the teacher. The lesson is information-rich, but it’s work to keep every kid engaged.

A girl, heavy with the end of a pregnancy, enters the room and drops hard into a chair. She’s not the only one. And actually, most of these kids seem older than typical high-school juniors and seniors. Which they are.

They attend the Diploma Plus Academy, one of five small learning communities at Charlestown High in Boston. Diploma Plus’ 29 schools and programs, dotted around the country, specialize in educating recent dropouts or those who are over-aged and under-credited, meaning they’re already 17 with maybe a couple of ninth-grade credits.

The principal, Margaret Bledsoe, fought to get Diploma Plus into Charlestown High because about 30 percent of her school’s 1,000 students are at least one grade level behind. “A kid comes in and says, ‘If you put me in the ninth grade again, I’m out of here.’ We wanted to have a program that was not just another year to fail. Diploma Plus has high rigor and challenging class work. If a kid wants an easy way to get out of high school ASAP, it isn’t that.”

Charlestown identified 50 students who were beginning to age out. “Project Reconnect,” a Boston drop-out initiative, sent 10 more students who had already dropped out. Enrollment will double next year, and top out at 180 students the year after.

Nationally, America’s 70-percent graduation rate often drops to 50 percent or below in urban areas. As early as middle school, kids start losing grades when their family moves a lot, or they just blow off school. In high school, kids leave to take care of a sick family member, or get pregnant, involved with drugs, or just bored. And one day a kid realizes there’s no way he can graduate while still in his teens.

Diploma Plus offers these kids options.

A student, Vlad, says, “Here it’s flexible. Most of us have jobs, and work is not easy with school and stuff.” Never mind adding a baby to the workload.

Betsy Roter, the Academy’s coordinator, explains, “We don’t use the language of grade levels. Here we use skills and products of mastery,” to determine when a student matriculates.

The students in the “Foundations Phase” have literacy and numeracy skills at the sixth to eighth grade level. By the “Presentation Phase,” they’ve improved to ninth to 11th grade levels. The “Plus Phase” gets them ready to transition into the world beyond high school. Some Diploma Plus programs are on college campuses, where kids finish high school and are supported through the beginnings of college itself. “Plus” students enroll in college courses, participate in internships, do major projects and participate in seminars geared toward applying to college or developing a plan for the future.

“Personal competencies” count for 35 percent toward each phase. So a kid who’s soaring academically but not showing up on time, with a civil tongue in her head, doesn’t matriculate.

Roter says, “We have students who passed the MCAS (the Massachusetts state tests) and did really well, but who have never passed a class. So they have the content, but school didn’t work at all well for them. The kids tell us they feel connected to the adults here, and that was what was missing in their earlier education.”

The Diploma Plus Academy’s discipline system is “restorative,” meaning only rarely do they use traditional suspensions and detentions to control kids’ unwanted behaviors. On Friday afternoons, and some Saturday mornings, errant students sit in circles with adults and peers to discuss their behavior. Sometimes the group helps them make a plan to make amends for their rude ways.

Roter says, “With these kids, traditional discipline has created a really negative history with authority. So we use conferencing and restorative justice. The kids say, ‘No, Miss, give me the days of suspension, I don’t want to come in on Saturday or do a circle.’ The circles hold kids accountable for the specific behaviors,” which is a whole lot more effective as a teaching technique for “personal competencies” than suspensions.

On average, across the East Coast sites, Diploma Plus graduates 90.2 percent of their kids. These are all kids who would have dropped out. The reality of kids’ chaotic modern lives today is that a ton of them fall behind. Diploma Plus has figured out a way to reverse the course of sure failure.