Wellesley Students create Parent Child Educational Partnership at Blackstone School

I remember the moment when the idea for the Parent Child Engagement Partnership (PCEP) popped up into my head. Well, it wasn’t really an idea, but instead came as a couple of questions I scrawled into my notebook as I listened to a mother at the Blackstone Parent Council meeting. She was remarking how sometimes it was difficult to participate in meetings like the Parent Council because the kids of those attending the meetings didn’t have a place to go. I looked to the corner of the room, where a group of kids sat silently as they ate pizza off of paper plates. I looked down at what I had written: how do we encourage parent engagement? How does parent engagement become meaningful and purposeful?

The goal of PCEP is for kids to play an active part in creating an engaged community of parents. As of now PCEP is a once a month, hour long educational program in the new Blackstone Library for kids whose parents are attending the parent council meeting. Wellesley College counselors plan a fun, hands-on curriculum that allows each child to take on a leadership role as the group works together on the day’s activity. For our first curriculum we talked about spring, learned about syllables, and then created a group Haiku that the kids then wrote on the kites they made.

On our first afternoon, when the parents came up to the library after their meeting, something spontaneous happened – something that it is now an integral part of the PCEP framework. The kids ran to their parents and read in unison the Haiku that they had written, clapping out and counting the syllables all the way through. Without even knowing it, the kids proudly involved their parents in a community that we were just starting to build. Now every PCEP curriculum sets aside time for the students to show their parents what they have learned in order to strengthen a community of parents, kids, and teachers who are excited to be with each other. I hope that in the coming year PCEP continues to challenges traditional notions of parent engagement by constructing a program that encourages kids to inspire their parents to attend parent council meetings.

Making this program a reality has been one of the highlights of my Wellesley College career and I am so grateful to Kyle at St. Stephen’s and Salome at Blackstone Elementary for making it possible. I am especially thankful to all the kids who have stepped up at one time or another to be leaders in making this program a meaningful and purposeful experience.

Photo Credit: Kate Vander Wiede, South End News

Check out the story on page 7: http://www.mysouthend.com/issues/issue_394.pdf

Submitted by Graciela Gonzales, Wellesley College Class of 2011

Blackstone Library Opens and Celebrates Read Across America Day!

Principal Barbosa, 2 Blackstone students, and the Cat-in-the-Hat officially open the Blackstone library!

On Wednesday March 2^nd, the St. Stephen’s community hosted a Blackstone Library celebration for 80 people, including library team members, community partners, special guests, Blackstone staff, and 50 Blackstone students.

First, Principal Barbosa gave some kind words of welcome to the group gathered at the entrance to the library. Liz Steinhauser and Kyle Boudreau, organizers of the Blackstone – St. Stephen’s Partnership, spoke about the very dedicated efforts of volunteers from Church of the Epiphany, Winchester, Simmons College and Cornerstone Church. Finally, three important guests, Bishop Tom Shaw, City Councilor John Connolly, and the Reverend Thomas Brown each spoke about the importance of the library and a love of learning.  To conclude the ceremony, two Blackstone students, Principal Barbosa, Eileen Marks and Kyle Boudreau each took a pair of scissors and cut the ribbon, declaring the library open!

Immediately following the ribbon cutting, 35 volunteers read their favorite book to a Blackstone classroom. Volunteers from City Year, Generationns, Inc., and other community partners engaged their classrooms with great stories, doing their part to get Blackstone students excited about their new library. Overall, the day was a huge success and the St. Stephen’s –Blackstone partnership hopes to continue this momentum into future service events!

UPDATE!!! We got some press: Here is a link to an article about the library celebration in the South End News: http://www.mysouthend.com/index.php?ch=blog&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=117188

Honoring Dr. King: A Beautiful Service Day

On a brisk, bright January day, members of the St. Stephen’s community gathered at the Blackstone Elementary School and at St. Stephen’s church to remember Dr. Martin Luther King in a positive and constructive way: A day of service that benefitted the children of the South End. Over 140 volunteers took part in various acts of service. At St. Stephen’s volunteers from Northeastern University and Massachusetts Promise Fellows led a day of activities for St. Stephen’s youth. During the day there were classes in art, drama, dance and science, all of which incorporated some of Dr. King’s messages of racial and economic justice.

At the Blackstone, volunteers from Tech Mission, Boston Collegiate Charter School, St. Stephen’s Teens, Americorps, Simmons College and St. Stephen’s worked on various tasks throughout the school. While a solid team continued their work on the library, St. Stephen’s teens started renovating the school’s greenhouse. Former Micah Intern Kathryn Kendrick, YLC Lead Councilor Hannah Rauchfuss and S2POT Teen Staff Director led the painting of a new mural and Danielle Andrews from the Food Project led the construction of soil beds.

Blackstone teachers also took advantage of the service day, as volunteers from BCCS led classroom cleanup projects. From painting cubbies to installing a shelving unit, volunteers kept busy throughout the day.

During lunch, current Micah Intern Paul Hartge led a reflection on Martin Luther King and the importance of serving on his day. City Councilor John Connolly, Blackstone Director of Student Success Ms. Hart and the Assistant Academic Superintendent Al Taylor all expressed words of gratitude for the great effort of the volunteers.

In the end, the service day successfully engaged a great team of volunteers and we are very thankful for all of their hard work! Check out stories featuring our service day in the South End News and the Northeastern University website!

South End News: http://www.mysouthend.com/index.php?ch=blog&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=115278

Northeastern: http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2011/01/king_day.html

St. Stephen’s-Blackstone Partnership Prepares for MLK Service Day

On January 4th, the members of the Blackstone Partnership Leadership Team met to report on the progress made at the school and plan out the logistics of our upcoming service day on MLK Day, Jan. 17th. Erin Bazar of the Library Core Team reported that many of the books are now in order with spine labels. However, there are a great number of books that still need to be spine labeled and have pockets put in the back of books.  

Jorge of the Green Rangers reported that he and his fellow team members had a great training with the Food Project and learned about the importance of knowing where their food comes from and to buy local produce when possible. Jorge also reported about the Blackstone Parent Meeting where Principal Zrike formally announced his departure from the Blackstone School and how St. Stephen’s plans on continuing its support of the school through this transition period.

After this report-out, the groups broke out into project-based teams to plan the logistics of the service day. Based on some initial observations, members of the partnership will have to work diligently to get projects lined up for all of the volunteers to complete. Finally, it was great to have 4 (!) members of Tech Mission join our meeting as a new partner in our work to support the Blackstone School. We know it will be challenging to plan  the service day in less than two weeks, but I believe we can meet our goal of 100 volunteers doing successful service projects with lots of hard work and careful planning from our Blackstone Partnership Team.

Look for a new blog featuring the Service Day coming soon!

St. Stephen’s – Blackstone Partnership is Underway

A group of 20 people consisting of parents, congregants, teens, key volunteers and St. Stephen’s staff met on Tuesday night to discuss the progress of the library and greenhouse projects at the Blackstone Elementary School. For the library project, Eileen Marks and Joanna Breen reported on the great progress volunteers made since the September 11th kick-off service day. In addition to the weekly Epiphany Winchester and Simmons College volunteers that work on the library each week, Erin and Joanna led a group of volunteers on a second service day on Nov. 13th (See previous post for details of that day). A core team of volunteers is now assembling to determine the next steps for the library with the goal of opening the library on March 2nd, Dr. Seuss’ birthday.

The teen organizers gave a great report on the progress of the greenhouse project. Devin reported that the Greenhouse team is continuing to do research and visit other greenhouses and have set the goal of creating an action plan for the greenhouse before Christmas.

Principal Zrike came to the meeting and expressed his gratitude for the work St. Stephen’s is doing with the Blackstone. He hopes the partnership will continue to do great things for the students of the school. Overall, it was a very successful Blackstone Partnership meeting and we hope to get more people involved in our Library and Greenhouse service projects!

A Successful Day of Service!

Volunteers are hard at work labeling books

The St. Stephen’s Blackstone Partnership coordinated another wonderful day of service this past Saturday Nov.13th at the Blackstone Elementary School. This day of continued on the great work done by 190 volunteers on September 11th. A great team of 75 volunteers from St. Stephen’s, Cornerstone Church, Northeastern University, Boston Collegiate Charter School, Wellesley College, BU and MIT worked on two very important projects. The library project, led by our two great Simmons volunteers, Erin and Joanna, successful labeled all of the chapter books and Spanish books. Additionally, volunteers sorted many of the easy readers and picture books that helped to get the library closer to the day where books can be circulated to Blackstone students.

The second project involved a lot of heavy lifting, as volunteers helped to move furniture from an old office upstairs to make room for the school’s new parent center. The volunteers moved many heavy filling cabinets, desks, chairs and wall dividers and set the space up to be crafted to the needs of Blackstone parents.

Overall, it was an impressive day and we had great support from Principal Steve Zrike and Salome Briceno, the Director of Family Engagement and Community Partnerships. The St. Stephen’s community is now one step closer to our goal of creating a circulating library for the Blackstone Elementary School. Thank you to everyone who volunteered and showed their support!

More photos from the service day can be seen on the St. Stephen’s Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47734338@N08/sets/72157625286715827/with/5185106306/

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