Over the last year, the EALI Education Group has been working together to improve educational opportunities for the children in Unincorporated Alameda County. Whatever troubles our children have in the Unincorporated Eden Area, one thing that many children have in common is that they go to school. It makes sense to develop a program to reach our children that is funneled through our schools.

Our first challenge was integrating into the winning Education goal a new project that came from the Public Safety group. The winning goal at the November 2013 charrette for the Education group  was “Advocate and provide avenues for increasing resources and opportunities for all students and schools in the Eden Area.” The Education Group created two projects. After months of meetings and hours of discussion, the Education Group combined the two projects into one very ambitious, all-encompassing project:

Collaboratively, develop a resource clearinghouse and referral system that identifies and coordinates resources from school districts, community-based organizations, and businesses that provide meaningful learning and engagement opportunities for students, families, and staff, including community service, mentoring, college-and-career readiness, parent education, internships, and youth-crime prevention.

Once that was done, the challenge came in figuring out how to tackle such a lofty goal and creating a project that remained within the scope of the EALI initiative. The EALI process brings neither funding nor authority to our project design. How do we overcome these limitations? We sought to do so through collaboration and cooperation.

The next challenge came in the rich discussions we had over the past year in figuring out what our focus would be. We spent a lot of time assessing the strengths we have in the Unincorporated Eden Area, as well as the resources we could bring into a program for students. We discussed everything from preschool, to job opportunities, to reading programs, to supporting families of formerly incarcerated individuals. We had lofty ideas, but we really needed to focus on who the target of our intervention would be. Who would be the program participants? Even saying we would focus on K-12 students was too wide of a net. Our inability to agree to a target population became a source of frustration for a handful of participants.

Another challenge for the EALI Education Group was bringing together four separate legal entities: three school districts, Castro Valley Unified, Hayward Unified, and San Lorenzo Unified, and a community youth organization, Reach Ashland Youth Center. Figuring out what could be done, what each district already did, and what Reach Ashland could possibly do was central in creating a project that would benefit all targeted students in the unincorporated area.

After much discussion, what rose to the top is something that the EALI Education Group hopes will truly serve students well. Leaders at the Reach/Ashland Youth Center put together a proposal that focuses on key transition years. The proposal focused on the transition from middle-to-high school and how an area-wide program could support students during those years. It is important to note that the Reach Center’s current population includes residents ranging from early-teen years to the early 20s. Further, the Reach Center is located adjacent to Edendale Middle School, and just down the road from San Lorenzo High School. The Reach Center’s staff have been hired to work specifically with those age groups. Thus, it is no surprise that the Reach Center’s proposal would consider the middle-to-high school transition years.

Discussion at the EALI meeting moved that transition stage earlier to the elementary/middle school transition with the thought that an earlier intervention would be better. This earlier focus also recognizes that at-risk elementary students transitioning into middle schools are often years behind grade level, and the middle schools are not fully equipped to help students bridge such gaps without additional support. While we all agreed that there was much more that we could do with multiple age levels, we also agreed that we needed to start somewhere. We need to create a program now, and scale from our successes.

A project that narrowly focuses on the transition years from elementary to middle school will provide EALI an opportunity to make a real difference next year in students exiting their elementary years. In the case of Reach, it also presents an opportunity to bring an only slightly younger population into their client stream who will hopefully stay in the Reach program in both middle and high school. Reach is now tasked with designing a pilot program. At the next EALI meeting, Reach will present its plans, and the hope is that the full EALI Group will reach consensus on the key program approaches and elements.

Now the work can begin. We have the foundation of a program with real potential. As a community, we have the opportunity to shape this project, bring in some innovative ideas, and utilize information from programs that are known to be beneficial to this transition age. The EALI Education group is truly excited at the potential for this project.

Brian Foster also contributed to this post.