CLOSING THE OPPORTUNITY GAP
The yawning gap between rich and poor is stunningly apparent in Connecticut. This state ranks among the top three wealthiest in the nation.1 Its capital city hovers near the top of a different list; Hartford places among the top six U. S. cities with the highest child poverty rate.2 Connecticut’s income gaps are growing faster than any other state in the Union.3 For Hartford’s children, opportunity is as difficult to grasp as a mirage.
Consider the facts cited by Michael P. Danziger, founder of The Steppingstone Foundation (Boston), in Connections: The Journal of the New England Board of Education:
...and then ask yourself how a small non-profit could make any difference.
Your answer will be delivered by the Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation (HYSF), which launched The Steppingstone Academy Hartford in 2006 as a joint venture with The Steppingstone Foundation. Their mission:
The Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation is dedicated to strengthening the city of Hartford by developing and implementing academic programs that increase college access for Hartford schoolchildren. HYSF’s first initiative, The Steppingstone Academy Hartford, prepares highly motivated students for admission to and success at Connecticut’s top independent high schools. By increasing educational opportunities, HYSF supports the development of a vibrant and productive community, making Hartford a better place in which to live, work, and raise a family.5 HYSF prepares middle school students for the rigorous academics of independent school. It also pushes the Scholars, as participants are called, to examine issues of values and community as a way to ready them for the culture of boarding school.
The HYSF web site describes The Steppingstone Academy Hartford program this way:
We recruit highly-motivated, financially disadvantaged middle school students with grades in the “B”-range who have no history of college attendance in their families. This demanding 14-month academic enrichment program is designed to prepare Scholars for Connecticut’s top independent schools. HYSF also provides Scholars and their families with support services to help them throughout The Academy program and high school.
The Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation is based on the overall premise that, regardless of circumstance, children can achieve at high levels if they are prepared in a focused, demanding academic environment that is responsive to their needs.6
Christian Guerrero is Program Director for The Steppingstone Academy Hartford. We caught up with him in October 2008 and asked him to talk about their progress.
“What has made it exciting is right now we are working with our second class; we started working with our second class in June. At the same time, our first class has moved on; those Scholars are now in their first year of high school. There are 20 students in our placement schools. It is interesting to see how our kids are doing.”
Guerrero also observed the growth includes not only the program, but also Scholars’ academic and social aptitude and capacity. He added, “The Scholars from our first class are really growing. The Steppingstone Academy program is intensive and rigorous. What we are hearing from our first class is the work in their new independent schools its just as hard or harder.
“What is also new for them is participation in extra-curricular activities. Many of these students had to put their outside interests aside in order to participate in our program. Students in our program spend an additional 10 hours a week on academics, which takes away the opportunity to participate in a sport or dance program.”
Steppingstone Scholars attending independent school not only enjoy typical extracurricular activities, they also get to experience sports they would not encounter at the typical urban public school. Guerrero said, “One student is fencing. She just loves it. Another is a member of her varsity volleyball team. Others are playing soccer. One picked up organized football. It has been interesting to see this change and growth of these students.
“The Scholar who has taken up fencing recently gave a speech at an event sponsored by Robinson & Cole, a law firm in Hartford that supports our program. Celymarie presented her story to 150 lawyers and their clients. This was a kid who was very shy when she started our program. She kept to herself; she was very focused and determined. Since then, she has really blossomed.
“In the spring, prior to Cely’s placement in an independent school, she took another student—one of our toughest Scholars—under her wing. The other girl was struggling. With Cely’s help, the student began to spend more time on her studies; she spent more time being focused and engaged. It was awesome to see this quiet and shy Scholar become a peer who could help her classmate and speak to a group.
It is exciting to see the personal growth occur when you give kids an opportunity, when you give them time and attention and the tools they need to really become Scholars.”
The Academy curriculum compliments and expands upon Steppingstone Scholars’ regular 8th grade homework by “identifying and eliminating academic weaknesses and building on academic strengths.” 7 But the program doesn’t just increase Scholars’ academic workload. It also encourages “Scholars to take responsibility for their learning process and helps them take risks and challenge the world around them.”8 In this way, HYSF provides Scholars with the enrichment as well as a sense of personal responsibility and agency so they have the practical and personal skills to succeed in high school and college.
As Program Director, Guerrero oversees all content of the program: “I am like the Principal,” he explained. “I help to look at the curriculum for the entire 14-month academic component. I supervise the admissions process, academic preparation, support services, and independent school placement of the Scholars. Preparation in the fall, for example, is different from the spring. In the fall, our classes are primarily focused on preparing the Scholars to take the Secondary School Admissions Test (SSAT), and on the application process for independent schools. In the spring we explore “Character and Community”; we challenge our Scholars to consider what their values are. We ask them to reflect on their own issues, problems, and strengths.”
Character classes are a unique aspect of the Academy’s academic curriculum, and reflects HYSF’s consciousness of a need to prepare Scholars as students and as confident young men and women who can succeed socially as well as academically. Guerrero explained, “Our discussions about character and community are designed to prepare our Scholars for independent school. Most will become boarding students, and a student who is on full scholarship may be rooming with someone from a wealthy family. They will have to negotiate living away from home with people who come from very different backgrounds, so we prepare them in advance as much as we can.”
There is also a need to help Scholars cope with resentments from fellow students at their public schools. Guerrero observed, “In many schools here in Hartford, you are looked down upon if you achieve academic success. In Steppingstone Academy, you are acclaimed for your achievements. In our program, students can wear their academic achievements with honor. The social piece that is proving to be so important is the feeling, ‘I’m not alone in this. We all want to be successful academically. We can depend on each other.’”
HYSF also provides cultural experiences outside of the Academy to further expand Scholars world view and social aptitude. In the spring of 2008, HYSF and The Bushnell created “Dinner and a Play 101,” a dining and theater etiquette series. This event, sponsored by the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company, included a tour of the historic Bushnell Theater, a theater etiquette class, and a dining etiquette class. Scholars returned a second day for a formal, sit-down dinner and play to show off their newly learned skills.
This unsolicited comment surfaced from a member of the audience who was unaware of the identity of the group at the play that night: “I was very impressed with how wonderfully they behaved and the thoughtful questions they asked. It was profoundly encouraging for all of us to be together and to see the power of literature influencing both the lives of students and adults alike.”9
Guerrero attended the final dinner. “I sat with the kids, and they had to teach me everything! The way I pick things up, the way I eat my bread...it gave the Scholars a chance to be teachers for a while. We were able to engage in conversation that wasn’t about school. We were outside our normal setting. It was a great night for everyone, and we are excited to do it again on a larger scale this year.”
The Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation is part of The Steppingstone Network, which includes three regional programs run at no cost to participants: The Steppingstone Foundation—Boston, founded 1990; Steppingstone Scholars, Inc.—Philadelphia, founded 1999; and the Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation—Hartford, founded 2005—Michael Danziger, founder of The Steppingstone Foundation reports the higher than average success rate of Steppingstone Scholars due to comprehensive support services:
inRESONANCE has worked with The Steppingstone Foundation, Boston since 2005. The Boston office runs the full suite of iR solutions, PORTAL, KEYSTONE, and GENERATIONS. Philadelphia and Hartford are new GENERATIONS clients.
When asked how GENERATIONS will help him, Guerrero suddenly seemed out of breath. “We were small to begin with. We have really grown! We’ve outdone ‘double.’ We used to have approximately 75 funders and other community partners, now we have more than 450. We receive 400-500 nominations for admissions, and there are at least 100 mentor candidates, support service associates, and school guidance counselors. We have 25 schools on the admissions side, and 25 schools on the placement side; and we want to increase that. We have to enter all this data in by November 7, 2008 so we can send out letters and emails about admissions and to recruit mentors.
“We used to do this work in Excel. With GENERATIONS, it will be so much easier to get it all out. I believe it can actually all go out all in one day. Before, we were creating spreadsheets and merging that into Word documents. GENERATIONS seems a lot easier. We are really looking forward to working with inRESONANCE.”
There is one other significant factor accounting for the early success of The Steppingstone Academy: the work of HYSF is carried out by staff who have all “lived the program.” We recommend you begin your exploration of the Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation and The Steppingstone Academy Hartford by meeting the Staff (click here).
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1 Based on a ranking of states by personal income per capita published by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2007. back
2 www.ctkidslink.org/publications/econ07ctpovertyranking.pdf. back
3 http://www.ctkidslink.org/sps/swish.cgi, "Connecticut's Income Gaps Have Costly Consequences for the State's Children". [Note: copy name of article into search field and then scroll down through resulting list to find this article.] back
4 Michael P. Danziger, “An Independent Path to College Success,” Connections: The Journal of the New England Board of Education, (Spring 2007, p. 17 [p. 20 in the pdf]). Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation website, “Press,” http://www.hysf.org (23 October 2008). back
5 Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation website, “Homepage,” http://www.hysf.org (23 October 2008). back
6 Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation website, “Welcome,” http://www.hysf.org (23 October 2008). back
7 Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation website, “Steppingstone Academy,” http://www.hysf.org (23 October 2008). back
8 Ibid. back
9 Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation website, “Spring Newsletter,” http://www/hysf.org (23 October 2008). back
10 Danziger, “An Independent Path to College Success,” p. 17 [p. 20 in the pdf]). Hartford Youth Scholars Foundation website, “Press,” http://www.hysf.org (23 October 2008). back