Interim Study Committees Meet about Youth Issues

 With summer nearing an end, the General Assembly’s interim study committees are just starting to heat up.  The Select Commission on Education has met six times since late April and have been studying and hearing public testimony on issues related to the state’s A-F grading system of schools, turnaround academies, public schools ability to disannex from their existing school corporation, and the proportions on what is considered instructional and noninstructional spending by public schools.  At their next meeting on August 14, the commission will study the implementation of policies surrounding teacher evaluations and licensing.  They will also meet two more times – September 4 & 19.  Please check the General Assembly’s website for specific agendas, times and location of these meetings.

Other committees have begun posting their meetings, including the Commission on Developmental Disabilities, Commission on Autism, Interim Study Committee on Driver Education, Committee on Child Care (the first posted meeting has been cancelled), Child Custody & Support Committee, Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee, and the Health Finance Commission.  The full calendar of meetings is available on the General Assembly’s website.  MCCOY will be following most of the above-listed committees for issues relevant to our policy priorities.

One issue of importance to MCCOY was not assigned to be studied this summer – HEA1169 School discipline (Koch – R-Bedford).  Mindi Goodpaster worked with the education committee of the Children’s Coalition of Indiana (CCI) to organize the Bullying in Indiana mini-symposium on July 26.  This event, the first of its kind for the CCI, was a huge success.  The symposium featured three expert panels addressing the issues of defining bullying and cyberbullying within Indiana’s current statute; school discipline policies related to bullying and the intersection with First Amendment rights; and best practices related to both school and state level policy.  The panelists included:

·       Dr. David Estell, Associate Professor, Indiana University

·       Joel Hand, Attorney & Public Policy Director for BullySafe Indiana

·       Anita Carpenter, CEO, Indiana Coalition Against Sexual Assault

·       Gavin Rose, Attorney, ACLU-IN

·       Seamus Boyce, Partner, Church Church Hittle & Antrim

·       David J. Emmert, General Counsel, Indiana School Board        Association

·       Marilyn Leatherman, Washington Township School Principal (Retired)

·       Dee Kempson, School Social Work Consultant, Indiana Department of Education

·       Representative Eric Koch (R-Bedford)

·       Representative Greg Porter (D-Indianapolis)

The Children’s Coalition and MCCOY hope to continue the dialogue begun at this event in preparation for the upcoming legislative session.  Both CCI and MCCOY will adopt the topic of bullying as one of their policy priorities and are committed to working with the legislature to develop policies that keep the children of Indiana safe.  For more information on how to get involved, contact Mindi Goodpaster mindi.goodpaster@mccoyouth.org.

August Champion for Youth: Jennifer Nelson

What is your profession or vocation?

Ministry Administrator/ Community Outreach Coordinator at Edna Martin Christin Center

	How are you an Everyday Champion for Youth?

I developed a pre-school program that focuses on kindergarten readiness with an affordable rate for everyday working parents.  The program accepts students 2-5 years old and is open Monday-Friday 8am-5pm.  The curriculum focuses on reading, math, social studies, science, and social skills along with the basics needed to do well in school.  Our mission is to inspire our children to live God-centered lives so we have daily bible lessons and devotions with them.  The classrooms all have low student teacher ratios and the teachers attend regular trainings for enrichment to assure that we are providing the best and up to date care and procedures possible.  Our ministry is not just a Christian based program, but one designed to instill our students with morals and a love for exceeding academically.    

What impact do you hope to make on youth?

I hope that this ministry will be a memorable experience for the students and the parents.  We must instill morals while children are young. We  also must understand that the things we are teaching them now are the things that will set the bar for their development in the future.  Being here is definitely a place where we can do that.  We have all the support that the parents will need from social services to just being a shoulder to lean on.  I hope that we can touch some lives and that all our students succeed in to the highest of their ability and take all the knowledge from their experience being here with us all the way to adulthood.

	What's one thing that you wish an adult had told you when you were a young person?   I wish someone would have told me that places like the Edna Martin Christian Center existed.  I didn’t know anything about not for profit organizations so this was my first experience even being at one. If I would have known about this place sooner I would have been here a long time ago.

	What do you want to do next to support youth? My next project will be expanding the pre-K youth programs when  we move to 37 Place in the fall.  When we make the move I want to reach out to more of our young parents and see what we can do to be a support to them.

Do you work directly with youth?

Yes

What percentage of your time is spent working directly with youth or families?

100%

Organization Spotlight: Just the Beginning Foundation

Founded in 1992 and celebrating our twentieth anniversary this year, Just The Beginning Foundation (JTBF) advocates for diversity in the legal field. Each year, JTBF reaches over seven hundred students through our education, mentorship, and outreach programs. JTBF provides diversity pipeline, education outreach, and professional development opportunities to students and legal professionals across the country. We change the lives of students from middle school through law school through mentorship and education.

To join JTBF as a scholar, young students (middle school and high school) are invited to apply for the Middle School Law Camp and/or Summer Legal Institute: these programs now serve students in Indianapolis, Chicago (currently our only Middle School Law Camp site), Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. Summer Legal Institute and Middle School Law Camp applications are available on www.JTBF.org  starting in late winter each year; deadlines vary by city but generally fall in early May. JTBF also provides school-year programs for students in Chicago and other cities, including a trip to the United States Supreme Court for students in the Washington, D.C. area. Students, parents, and teachers interested in creating a program for your classroom with JTBF can contact Laura Ramsey, JTBF Program Director (lramsey@jtbf.org) to discuss the specific needs of your classroom.

JTBF welcomes volunteer mentors and program volunteers with all our outreach programs: to join JTBF as a mentor or program volunteer, we invite legal professionals to send their name and contact information to Dana Horst, JTBF Director of Development & Marketing (dhorst@jtbf.org) to be placed on our volunteer opportunities list and to hear more about ways to connect with our scholars.

We also invite you to join us at our upcoming twentieth anniversary celebration and Conference: "Reaching Back, Lifting Up 2012". Held this year in Chicago from September 20-23, 2012 at the Marriott Magnificent Mile (540 N. Michigan Avenue), the Conference is attended by students, attorneys, judges, and other legal professionals at the top of their field. Attendees include General Counsel of Fortune 500 Corporations, leaders in national education and diversity outreach, and our corporate Diversity Partnership Award recipients as well as Pathfinder and Trailblazer Award Honorees. Our Biennial Conferences bring together students and judges for unforgettable educational opportunities.

For more about Just The Beginning Foundation, please see our website: www.JTBF.org, or socialize with us on Facebook and Twitter. For general information, you can also call 312-258-5930, or email info@jtbf.org.

A Solvable Problem

Written by: Danielle Guerin

Throughout my academic career, I was always told “you can’t learn it if you aren’t here”. I took that saying to heart, only slightly ignoring it when I wanted to be a little rebellious.  Yes, I’m admitting that I faked sick a couple times during my high school career, but never enough to affect my school work or to be noticed. According to a new study that was released on Wednesday by The Indiana Partnerships Center, at least 55,000 students in Indiana are “chronically absent”. The study defines chronic absence as missing 10% of the school year, whether excused or unexcused. In other words, it’s missing 18 days of school per year or 2 days of school per month.

2 days. It doesn’t seem like much, but it is. During those 2 days, a student can miss a pop quiz, the explanation of a new concept, or even a test. In school, every day matters. Missing school matters. According to the study, for ninth graders, missing school is a better predictor of dropping out than eighth grade test scores. 

Most of you reading this would agree with me that being present at school is the first step to academic success. So, why is it that we can’t get the students there? Are they disengaged or bored? Well, we should re-engage them and make them like school. Learning isn’t boring; it’s actually pretty fun to discover all these new things. Maybe the students don’t feel safe at school; again it’s our job to change that. Or they have any other number of barriers; if they do, we need to find out and do our best to break those barriers down. I’m not saying it will be easy. Chronic absenteeism isn’t a simple problem, but it is a solvable one. 

To learn more about this, go to www.MissingSchoolMattersIN.org

A Hoosier Education

I grew up in a community with one public high school. 

That’s not to say that decision making about education initiatives in rural areas come without their share of challenges and politics. If anything, I’ve learned that democratic processes in any community are incredibly complicated and intensely local. 

But something about my recent move to Indiana seems like a new animal. I drove 10 hours south, from rural Upper Michigan, to a state that is debating major legislative issues around education ranging from bully prevention, to policies on gang activities, to early childhood education. I moved to a city that holds 11 public school districts serving over 37,000 students, in addition to a number of private, charter, and alternative schools. I’ve moved to a city that is grappling with the implications  of a proposal  for a mayoral takeover of the public schools and a redesigned school system.

 

And I’ve jumped into a position with an organization that navigates through the thick of it all. With initiatives  in early intervention and prevention, drop-out prevention, summer learning, policy work and youth advocacy, and youth program quality—this has been a lot to take in.

The most encouraging thing about all of this is that I’m working for an organization that is really insistent on the importance and presence of youth voices in these matters. 

So as I enter into my VISTA year as one of two Student Success Initiative Coordinators for MCCOY, I am excited to continue to engage in this learning process alongside high school youth on the Youth Advocacy Council. Because, let’s face it, they know a lot more about what it means to be a Hoosier (what IS the origin of that word?) than I. And the perspectives I’ve heard from them so far have been invigorated and local and complicated and visionary.  

To learn more about how the YAC advocates for youth issues in central Indiana or to get involved, click here.

Summer Learning with 100 Black Men & St. Vincent Unity Development

As an employee of MCCOY, a social worker and most importantly, a parent, I know the importance of summer learning. Kids who don’t use their brains during the summer, lose most of what they’ve learned during the school year and fall behind their peers that do use their brains during the summer. As a parent who pays for a private school education, having my child “forget” what she learned is just unacceptable! For the second year Nya has attended summer camp hosted by 100 Black Men and St. Vincent’s Unity Development Corporation. She loves camp and wakes up every morning at 6:00am looking forward to another day. When I ask her about her day she talks about writing in her journal, reading books, math class with Project SEED, art class with Art With a Heart, and using the computer for the Ticket to Read program. She goes outside twice a day and enjoys the friendships she makes during camp. Classroom work is an important part of the camp, but so is enrichment via field trips. Nya has gone to the zoo, the Children’s Museum, the Universoul Circus, but also to the Ruth Lilly Health Center and the Survive Alive Firehouse where she learned all about fire safety and burn prevention. And would you believe that she has done all of this in seven weeks for $150!!

The motto for the camp is “Building a Better Me” and in all that they do there is the underlying presence of helping young people to be the best they can be through learning, exposure and being good people. The finale program featured songs and performances that focused on the Golden Rule, The ABC’s of Philanthropy, Give Your Treasure, I Have a Dream, and Man in the Mirror.

I am here to tell you that kids can enjoy their summer, make friends and have lots of fun while being in a safe, healthy environment that stimulates their minds and provides them with opportunities to grow and thrive. This is the second year that Nya has attended the 100 Black Men summer camp and I look forward to her being able to attend for the next seven years.

National Summer Learning Day follow-up

Written by: Monette Viduya

So it has been exactly one week since National Summer Learning Day, and I am glad to say that it was a success! Many children and adults wore the green Summer Youth Program Fund shirt that we distributed. Everyone had fun, and Devin from Camp Delafield did a great job throwing the ceremonial first pitch. Here are a few pictures highlighting the night. You can see more on MCCOY’s website. Personally, I had a great time spending the evening with MCCOY :) Thank you for everyone's help and for everyone who attended the celebration!