Washington Reading Corps: Impacts of National Service and the ...

One key area coordinator said that she requires that all VISTAs keep a notebook of theircontacts. That way when teachers say, “Why aren’t the VISTAs doing something?” there’ssomething to show for what they do. Also, this notebook provides a transitional tool for the nextyear's VISTA member.Program understandingMany of the key area coordinators felt that this was an area with many misunderstandings,though things had improved during the second year of the Reading Corps. The group felt thatgrant writers often didn’t realize the part that national service members would play. If schoolsdid not receive the number of AmeriCorps members they requested, they became lesscooperative with the key area coordinator. Some schools felt that they were no longer bound tothe commitment they had made to serve a certain number of students if they did not have thenumber of AmeriCorps members they'd requested. One key area coordinator said that somesite supervisors tend to disregard guidelines of the program, without any sense of accountability.Another suggested that schools who are bad partners should be “cut loose.” A third said thatschools are realizing they need to contribute to the process, that they need to work withAmeriCorps—they can’t just check a box and get a member and have everything taken care of.Informing teachersThe group agreed that teachers and school administrators need to know about the ServiceCorps requirements and what the process is. Susan Harris from the Washington Service Corpssaid there are no guidelines or expectations around how many volunteers are needed perstudent. Some schools ask for a huge amount of volunteers to serve 120 students when anotherschool might ask for only 20 to serve the same number. She stressed that real-world thinkingneeded to be put into place here, not just numbers thrown out.The time schedule for working with and informing teachers is difficult. They’re gone all summerand don’t want to come to meetings to learn about the roles and rules of AmeriCorps. Shewould like teachers to think now about roles for next year. The group agreed that mandatorymeetings for teachers don’t work. They have to do site visits to get the word out.GrantsSome grants are written at the district level and then "farmed out" to schools, with no buy-in orunderstanding from the schools. In some cases, schools (as part of these district grants) arereluctant to participate. These schools simply want the grant and fail to understand what they arecommitting to when they receive national service members. Key area coordinators suggestedthat the grant needs to be like a mini-contract with a signature so that schools view it as acontract. It was noted that sometimes the memos of understanding are signed by the principalwho hasn’t actually read the document. The site sponsors and principals have to haveownership for this to work, a final point that was stressed.62