This is NAZA - Nashville After Zone Alliance

THIS
is
N.A. A.
Whether it’s
mixing a
solution or
mastering a
step dance,
NAZA leads
students
from “at-risk”
to “ready-tosucceed.”
This article was written by Naomi Annandale, PhD candidate
at Vanderbilt University, researcher in child and family life with
disabilities, and freelance writer and editor.
Development of this article was supported by The Wallace
Foundation as part of its effort to advance citywide afterschool
coordination in nine cities, including Nashville.
ON THE COVER (CLOCK W ISE FROM TOP R IGHT ): At the Oliver Middle School Pencil PACE site, students
can work on STEM projects; students at the annual NAZA Amazing Race and Showcase; students camping with support from the YMCA Community Action Project; mentors help students navigate computer projects at Apollo Middle
School's Pencil PACE program; students maintain the community garden they installed at the YMCA site at Jere
Baxter Middle School.
FACING PAGE: Students at the Martha O'Bryan Center program at Isaac Litton Middle School celebrate competing
the 5K walk/run at the Annual Amazing Race and Showcase.
A big group of middle
school kids can make a
lot of noise. They can also
quiet down when they need
to. In Nashville After Zone
Alliance (NAZA) programs,
kids do both.
step routine for NAZA’s year-end celebration.
The kids are learning, growing into new
peer and mentor relationships, and enjoying themselves, all in one afterschool
experience.
Talking, laughing, feet
pounding, about 50
students climb the stairs
at Nashville’s Litton Middle
School as they move from
their afternoon meal to
homework and tutoring.
When they reach the upstairs, however, voices drop
as their leader gathers them to walk,
more subdued, down the hall. Other students are already hard at work on their
studies. Later, some will head outside for
baseball. Others will practice a collaboratively-written drama about Ruby Bridges
with professional drama artists from the
Nashville Children’s Theater. Still others
will gather in the school gym to perfect a
WELCOME TO NA Z A
NAZA, Nashville’s growing effort to provide access
to a high-quality afterschool program that helps
students enter ninth grade ready to succeed in high
school and beyond, targets some of the community’s
most disadvantaged middle school children. NAZA
brings together diverse stakeholders, including
schools, local community agencies, national educational research organizations, parents and families,
around the common goal of student success.
Having completed its first four years of operation
and grown from engaging 200 middle schoolers in
one geographic zone, to nearly 1,500 in what will be
five zones beginning Fall, 2014, NAZA has made a
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Art projects, like this student mural on display at Isaac Litton Middle School, give students a sense of
purpose and recognition for a job well done.
major move in the name of long-term sustainability. Housed since its inception in the Mayor’s office,
NAZA has moved to a new home in one of Nashville’s
strongest assets: its nationally-recognized public library system.
WHY NA Z A?
NAZA emerged out of increasing local concern about
the high school dropout rate and awareness that
Nashville had a serious lack of quality afterschool
programming for middle school students with the
greatest need. The numbers tell the story:
■ Historically, about one-third to one-half of
Nashville’s low-income and minority students
drop out of high school.
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“When I joined, I started to see
my grades improve, because we
spent time on homework and we
did games to help our academic
skills. I also did hip hop dance
and karate and cooking. I was
even able to talk about my problems at home and school. Now I
am so happy, because someone
understood me and did not judge
me. I feel free to be myself.”
NAZA participant
■
Those who don’t graduate face huge barriers: 90
percent of new jobs require at least a high-school
diploma; college graduates earn more than twice
as much as those who don’t graduate from high
school; and youth who drop out from high school
are eight times more likely than others to go to
prison.
■ Students spend only about 25 percent of their
waking hours in school, and the risk of youth
crime and child victimization increases significantly after school.
■ Research shows that students who participate
in high-quality afterschool programs are more
likely to graduate from high school.
■ Only about 10 percent of Nashville’s 20,000 middle school students participated in afterschool
programming when NAZA began. Those whose
families lacked transportation or could not afford to pay were usually left out.
Thousands of kids were falling through the cracks,
and the potential cost was huge. In response, Mayor
Karl Dean created the Project for Student Success
Task Force, a diverse group of youth advocates and
nonprofit and school district leaders, in 2008. He
charged them with assessing Nashville’s needs and
strengths and developing recommendations to increase the graduation rate.
As they became aware of the link between student
success and programming outside school hours, they
saw that Nashville had a severe shortage of quality,
accessible, afterschool programming, especially for
low-income middle school youth who lacked transportation resources. The Mayor asked the team to
develop a vision and implementation plan for that
target group.
In 2009 Mayor Dean allotted $400,000 to launch
the alliance as the city’s only new initiative in an
extremely tight budget year. “There is tremendous
need for afterschool programs for our middle school
students [and] tremendous interest from our students as well,” Mayor Dean said at the time.
Since then, NAZA has accomplished, on time, its
five-year goal of establishing five zones for afterschool programs, which allows it to have a footprint
in each of Nashville’s 12 high school clusters. This
means NAZA reaches high-need students throughout the city.
The city’s budget line item for NAZA has grown
steadily as the program’s reach and participant
numbers have grown. For the 2014-2015 budget year
NAZA has a $2 million budget that includes $1.6 million from the city and $400,000 from private sources
including The Wallace Foundation to work with a
targeted 10 percent of Nashville’s 15,000 low-income
middle school students.
Additionally, both Metro Nashville Public Schools
(MNPS) and afterschool providers contribute substantial in-kind resources. NAZA’s coordinated
approach to afterschool allows a young person to
engage in high-quality programming for approximately $1,300 per school year.
WHAT NA Z A LOOKS LIKE
NAZA offers a coordinated system of quality af-
FI VE ZONES FOR AFTERSCHOOL PROGR AMS
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Stepping helps students learn leadership, accountability and goal-setting through teamwork.
terschool programming for middle school youth
that is separate from the school district but
supports the district’s efforts to improve student success. NAZA is organized geographically in
zones, and operationally as a partnership between
local government, larger nonprofit organizations,
and program providers. Programming is offered in
multiple locations in each zone, for approximately
two hours each day, four days per week, throughout
most of the school year. Students receive an afternoon meal, then engage in academic work and enrichment programs that range from sports to the
arts to learning about running a business and being
financially savvy. Programming also addresses social/emotional development, including supporting
healthy peer and mentor relationships.
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NAZA is advised by a leadership council including the mayor, the school superintendent, some
of the leaders from the original Project for Student Success Task Force, parents, and other community members. The leadership council represents the voice of the wider community, and helps
administrators stay informed about how NAZA is
functioning in each zone. “This body represents
thought leaders and stakeholders in the community
who are really NAZA’s champions,” said NAZA Di-
rector Candy Markman.
The model is not “cookie-cutter.” The programs reflect the needs and characteristics of the families
they serve. For example, in one zone, several programs work with large numbers of English Language
Learners, many of whom live in a few particular
apartment complexes. Those programs meet in the
complexes, which simplifies transportation, puts the
English learning close to home, and increases parent
engagement.
NAZA programming reflects what middle school
students need. Quality youth programs offer kids
opportunities to make choices, to build meaningful
relationships, and to develop self-confidence and determination. These are inherent to NAZA’s design,
with its menu of enrichment options, opportunities
to speak with mentors and friends about life challenges and struggles, and encouragement to grow in
self-confidence and perseverance while learning and
having fun.
NAZA offers hands-on learning. From making
stained glass art, to learning robotics, to engaging
in business development activities, students grow
through active learning. Activities develop internal
abilities critical to individual success, such as determination and entrepreneurship.
NAZA constantly seeks to improve. NAZA leaders work with MNPS to monitor participants’
grades, math and reading proficiency, attendance
and behavior, both at school and within the NAZA
program. Drawing on the MNPS data helps NAZA
leaders to quickly spot and respond to positive and
negative trends, and offers a snapshot of NAZA’s
own strengths and areas for growth and improvement. Moreover, with help from national experts
on youth program quality, NAZA leaders have developed a system for regular assessment of the program. The assessment indicates that instruction and
leadership have improved substantially since NAZA
was launched.
“NAZA’s not just a generic
intervention. This is really an
academic intervention. We’re trying to decrease the dropout rate,
trying to help young people be
successful ninth graders, because
if they can do that, their chances
of graduating are very high.”
Candy Markman,
NAZA Director
NAZA gets results. Analyses by the American Institutes of Research indicate that
participation in NAZA’s highquality programs is associated
with improved academic performance, school behavior, and
school attendance – all benchmarks for student success.
NAZA is committed to sustainability. According to education consultants Cross and
Joftus, who work with the Wallace Foundation, sustainability “is not a mountaintop to be
summited … [but] a mindset
that is continually thinking toward the future.” NAZA has
Events like the Amazing Race 5K run/walk "build healthy habits of
been working out of that mindbody and mind," said NAZA Director Candy Markman.
set since the beginning, by enopment of high-quality, successful afterschool progaging in multi-year planning,
gramming and Nashville has had that. But, as the
building a broad alliance of stakeholders, developing
a mixed funding stream, and helping the public to
city anticipates significant shifts in leadership due to
see that NAZA is “working.” Its move to the public
mayoral and Metro Council term limits, as well as the
library system reflects that same commitment to
possibility of a new school district superintendent,
continuous improvement and sustainability.
maintaining strong municipal leadership demands
CHANGING AFFILIATION
Strong municipal leadership is crucial for the devel-
attention. To respond to this reality and to build the
circle of champions for NAZA, Mayor Dean created
a Sustainability Workgroup and asked it to develop
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Students from Apollo Middle School participate in a fitness relay.
a plan to move NAZA forward. In the process, the
Sustainability Workgroup re-visited NAZA’s original
strategic goals:
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■ Breadth: NAZA needs to secure a foothold
throughout the county. More stakeholders need
to understand that afterschool enrichment is
good for the whole Nashville community.
■ Scale: NAZA should serve at least 10 percent of
the target population within the first five years.
The need is much greater than this, but achieving this goal is a significant signal of commitment and viability.
■ Reputation and documented “value-add”:
From the outset NAZA has focused on assessing
program quality and collecting student outcomes
data, so that it is clear how NAZA is working.
■ Permanent home: Anywhere NAZA is housed
should offer a context that supports the ongoing
development of quality programming and the
resources that support and sustain a systemic
approach to afterschool.
Considering these, the group determined that successful sustainability for NAZA would mean: NAZA
“With the directions we were
going with literacy, with our programs for kids of all ages and
adults, the more we talked about
it, the more this program [NAZA]
really seemed to make sense, because it’s a way for us to directly
impact students in a way that we
haven’t in the past.”
Kent Oliver,
NPL Director
will continue to be an integral part of the Nashville
community, well beyond the 2015 elections; NAZA
will be funded at a level that allows it to continue
to meet its goals in growth and quality; and NAZA
will continue to be well-managed and successful as
determined by national standards.
LIBR ARY PARTNERSHIP
IS A WIN -WIN
After much reflection, the group determined that the
Nashville Public Library (NPL) was the best choice
for long-term sustainability, for several reasons.
NAZA’s focus fits the library’s mission: Nashville’s library system has a progressive mission focused on lifelong learning within and beyond library
walls. NPL sees itself as an educational resource for
Nashville, according to Library Director Kent Oliver,
not just a collection of media. Its mission: “to inspire
reading, advance learning, and connect communities” is reflected in extensive educational program
offerings for children and youth. Some of these programs are directly connected with Metro Schools,
such as Limitless Libraries, which marry public library resources with school library resources; new
studio spaces, which provide meaningful technology
access and settings for creative work; and literacy
outreach programs for English language learners.
NPL seeks to strengthen middle school offerings:
Like many library systems, Nashville’s library has
had more and stronger offerings for younger children and teens, and fewer for middle school students.
Oliver said the library wants to expand its program
offerings for this age group, and he believes NAZA will give Nashville Public
Library a vehicle to stay engaged in the
lives of “tweens” in a developmentally
appropriate way.
Library is well supported: Nashville’s
libraries have strong leadership and a
unique funding model that draws from
government and private funds, including funds from the Nashville Public
Library Foundation, said Center for
Nonprofit Management Director Lewis
Lavine, a longtime partner in NAZA
conversations. The foundation is critical, said Metro Council Member Ronnie Steine, chair of the Sustainability
Workgroup. “This sister 501c3 raises a
“Going forward, we are going to
need champions. We want this program to be sustainable. We want
the city to continue to move forward, to be a leader in afterschool
programming. So we need champions to grow the program, to make
it sustainable, so that it continues
to grow, long after I’m gone. Because it’s a good thing for the kids
of this city and it’s a good thing for
the future of this city. “
Mayor Karl Dean,
giving an opening charge to
community leaders gathered
to consider the question of
sustainability
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Students at the YWCA Girls Inc. site at John Early Middle School
discuss an academic project with Mayor Karl Dean.
7
million to two million dollars every year for libraries
already, and is extraordinarily well run with another
set of outstanding volunteers on its board, which
would meet NAZA’s needs to expand its funding beyond public funding in a substantive way.”
Historically, not many afterschool systems have
tried this kind of deep partnership with the public library system. This will be a move to watch and learn
from,” said Priscilla Little, Initiative Manager at the
Wallace Foundation, who works with NAZA.
Move will afford greater focus on literacy: NAZA’s
move to the library presents NAZA and Nashville
with several significant opportunities. For NAZA,
the move presents opportunities to strengthen and
sharpen NAZA’s focus on literacy, a critical need for
NAZA participants and something library leaders
have said is a natural outgrowth of their education
efforts. Additionally, both the library and NAZA
have solid, productive relationships with the school
district, so the move has the potential to reinforce
those relationships for mutual benefit.
POTENTIAL CHALLENGES
IN CHANGE
More champions: By increasing the number of
stakeholders – groups and individuals – the move
may do exactly what Mayor Dean has been seeking:
develop more “champions.”
Move is innovative: “The move puts NAZA in the
position of leading innovation that may benefit other cities also grappling with sustainability issues.
“In an environment of limited
resources, communities must
prioritize. Our city leadership
understands we cannot back
away from our young people.
This means we have to support
and nurture our youth when
they’re not in school so they can
succeed in school and beyond.”
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Ronnie Steine,
Metro Council Member and
Sustainability Workgroup Chair
There are challenges in any major change, especially
one that has not been tried before. A shift like this
demands focused effort, including attention to issues and details big and small, to develop a new system out of what have been two separate systems.
Moreover, although Nashville’s public library does
have a progressive, highly innovative mission focused on lifelong education, broadly conceived, libraries in general carry a historical sense and understanding of mission that is very different from recent
afterschool youth development efforts. Libraries that
seek to work intentionally and collaboratively with
teens and community partners find that they need
to pay close attention to balancing innovation and
tradition, balancing breadth and depth of services,
and rethinking staff recruiting, roles, and training,
among other challenges.
Most daunting for this partnership is the most basic
question: Will it work? As Lewis Lavine pointed out,
sometimes an affiliation is really a formality, and
there is no programmatic fit. Attending to that possibility will be important, Lavine said.
Finally, there is the ongoing question of resources.
Mayor Dean will include a budget line for NAZA
through the end of his term. As of 2016, supporters must continue to make clear the importance of
afterschool programs for Nashville’s middle school
students.
Succeeding in school and beyond is what NAZA is
all about. Participants have high hopes for their own
futures, hopes that include giving back to the whole
community – including other children. As one participant explained recently: “I thought I wasn’t going to
go to college before I came to NAZA, but now I want
to go to college and be a pediatrician and help kids.”
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