DeltaCorpsApplication_ArtesianSchools_Amended.docx

Artesian Schools, Inc.Executive SummaryArtesian’s DeltaCorps program will lead to a smooth transition from 8th grade to high school byincreasing student attendance and homework completion rates. Our program will engage in theCNCS focus area of Education to meet these community needs through mentorship, with four (4)DeltaCorps members serving 40 students in Memphis.Organizational and Community NeedIn Shelby County, Tennessee, 39% of children live in poverty. Children in poverty are less likelyto access networks of people and organization who will be able to help them become upwardlymobile.1 Additionally, students with low socioeconomic status and/or chronic absenteeism aremore at-risk for dropping out of high school.2 Research confirms that quality mentoringrelationships have powerful positive effects on young people in a variety of personal, academic,and professional situations. Ultimately, mentoring connects a young person to personal growthand development, and social and economic opportunity.3 The Artesian DeltaCorps program will increase student attendance and homeworkcompletion rates, as well as improve behavior in school, which will lead to a smooth transitionfrom 8th grade to high school and will ultimately improve graduation rates. Our program willengage in the CNCS focus area of Education to meet these community needs throughmentorship.1 Memphis Grizzlies Foundation2 Ritter, B. (2015). Factors Influencing High School Graduation: Issue Brief Prepared for the Washington StudentAchievement Council. Retrieved 10/3/2016 from http://www.wsac.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2015 .12.3.Ritter.Graduation.Issue.Brief.pdf3 http://www.mentoring.org/why-mentoring/mentoring-impact/ 1 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc. We are specifically focusing on the Frayser-Raleigh communities (38127 and 38128zipcodes, respectively), in Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee. The Frayser-Raleighcommunity began experiencing population decline due to difficult economic circumstances inthe 1980s after International Harvester and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company closed andeliminated thousands of jobs. The neighborhood has become one of the most economicallydisadvantaged and crime-infested areas of Memphis. Frayser-Raleigh is predominately African American (80%), followed by Caucasian (16%)and Latino (4.7%). Our targeted population of teens ages 15-19 make up almost 10% of the totalpopulation of Frayser and Raleigh. The demographic construct of the community—mostly lowincome, historically underserved, with students who are first in their families to attend college,and students of color—represents the target population we are most interested in serving throughthe DeltaCorps program.Project DescriptionGeneral Program Outline. ​Artesian’s DeltaCorps members will provide key social andemotional supports for at-risk students, and their service will complement the academic supportsthat AmeriCorps tutors will provide students at our high school, Southwest Early College HighSchool (SEC), beginning in Fall 2017. Our goal is that our DeltaCorps program will providestudents who are at-risk for dropping out of high school with mentors who will increase thestudents’ motivation to finish school, as demonstrated by the expected outcomes of increasedattendance and homework completion rates, and improved behavior. Therefore, the DeltaCorpsmembers’ service activities will relate to the focus area of education. Following are the service 2 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc.activities that Artesian DeltaCorps members will engage in, as well as their respective expectedoutcomes and measurable objectives: 1. Each DeltaCorps member will identify ten (10) 8th grade students interested in SEC who are chronically absent and/or have chronic behavior problems to mentor over the course of 9-12 months. Since the program spans from mentees’ last semester of 8th grade through their first semester of 9th grade, students will experience a smooth and supported transition between middle and high school, which will lead to increase school engagement compared to their non-mentored peers. Measurable objectives for this activity include: (1) Mentor/mentee pairs will meet at least 4 times each month over the course of the program; (2) At the end of the program, mentees will report increased trust with their mentors compared to at the start of the program. 2. Alongside SEC’s principal, DeltaCorps members will plan mentoring activities that meet school-wide goals but that are also individualized to their mentees’ needs, which will increase their 8th grade school engagement, as evidenced by increased attendance and completion of assignments. Our measurable objectives for this activity include: (1) At the end of the program, mentees will increase their 8th grade homework completion by at least 2 additional assignments per week as compared to their homework completion at the start of the program; (2) At the end of the program, 85% of teachers or community leaders will perceive mentees to be more engaged and productive in school than prior to being mentored; (3) Upon completing a year (9-12 months) with their DeltaCorps mentor, mentees will increase their school 8th grade attendance by at least 1 day every 2 weeks; (4) Upon completing the program (9-12 months) with their DeltaCorps mentor, mentees will 3 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc. miss fewer than 3 days of school during the first semester of their 9th grade year; (5) After 4 years, the graduation rate of students who completed 9-12 months of the DeltaCorps mentoring program will be higher compared to students who were also eligible but were unable to participate in the program. 3. Artesian DeltaCorps members will visit mentees at home during recruitment and initial screening, as well as at least quarterly during the course of the program. We expect that these home visits will lead to higher parent engagement, which will translate to higher mentee engagement in school. Our measurable objective for this activity is that at the end of the program, 85% of parents will report that they are more involved in their children’s education than they were at the beginning of the program.Artesian’s DeltaCorps project is structured so that DeltaCorps members serve an average of 8hours per day, or 40 hours each week, which is more than 1700 hours. As mentioned above, theproject has objectives and tasks to meet throughout the year. DeltaCorps members will identify acaseload of ten mentees. The mentorship program will span three distinct time periods formentees: the last semester of 8th grade, the summer between 8th and 9th grade, and the firstsemester of 9th grade. DeltaCorps members’ roles and goals for the program will be slightlydifferent during these phases. During the last semester of 8th grade, mentors will focus onactivities and conversations that build trust in the relationship and help mentees build habits ofincreased academic engagement. During the summer, mentors will focus on activities andconversations that show their mentees that the mentors are not going away; they will likelycontinue any tutoring or academic help that was started in 8th grade to ensure that mentees arewell-equipped for 9th grade. During the first semester of 9th grade, mentors will work with their 4 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc.mentees to refocus them on the habits of academic engagement they started developing severalmonths earlier.Project Timeline.​ At first, DeltaCorps members will spend at least 5 hours each day (25hours/week) recruiting students and assessing their need for mentorship. DeltaCorps memberswill recruit students by working closely with middle school principals and key community-basedorganization leaders to identify 8th grade students interested in SEC. Students who are eligiblefor mentorship must be chronically absent and/or have chronic behavior problems. Until theDeltaCorps member has recruited a full caseload of 10 mentees, the DeltaCorps member willalso help the Artesian team with recruiting students and families through overseeing communitymeetings, door knocking (in pairs), and screening interested candidates. Our goal is that eachDeltaCorps member will have identified all ten of their mentees no later than February 2017, butideally before January, so that attendance and behavior improvement outcomes will be able to bemeasured for no less than one quarter of 8th grade. Once mentor/mentee matches are made, DeltaCorps members will set schedules of when tomeet with their mentees each week. During the school year, DeltaCorps members will spend 30minutes at a (most likely, school) lunch with at least one mentee each day, cycling through their10 mentees every 2 weeks; they will spend at least 90 minutes with 2 mentees after school eachday (tutoring, homework help, watching football practice, etc.); and they will meet in a smallgroup (2-3 mentees) during the week or weekend for an activity (football game, communityservice, hike, coffee, etc.). During the summer and school breaks, DeltaCorps members will havemore freedom on when to meet their mentees because they will not be bound by school hours.This time averages 4 hours per day, or 20 hours per week. DeltaCorps members will spend 2 5 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc.hours each day, or 10 hours each week, planning their mentoring activities and discussion groupswith input, as needed, from the SEC principal. DeltaCorps members will spend the rest of theirtime each week posting on social media about their successes from mentoring (not more than 15minutes/day, or 1.25 hours each week) and documenting their mentoring activities anddiscussions and determining best next-steps. We anticipate this will take approximately 1.5 hourseach day, or 7.5-9 hours each week.Project Impact and Outcomes.​ As delineated in General Program Outline, we anticipate thatthe DeltaCorps project will increase school engagement through improved attendance, higherassignment completion rates, and increased participation in class and school activities. We willmeasure the number of disadvantaged youth/mentor matches that are sustained by theDeltaCorps-supported program for at least the required time period. In order to ensure studentsmeet the CNCS-definition of “disadvantaged youth,” we will employ a screening tool whenrecruiting students into the mentoring program. We will count the number of qualifyingmentor-mentee matches that are sustained over the course of the program. We will collectacademic engagement data from school records and teacher surveys at the beginning and end ofthe program. A student will only be counted as having demonstrated improved academicengagement if at least one of the named elements (increased attendance, increased completion ofassignments, and increased participation) shows improvement without any of the other elementsworsening. We will track the average size of the increase among all participants in the program,as well as the number of students with a positive increase. Artesian will enter performance measure data through the OnCorps online managementplatform for member timesheets, as well as to capture required performance measurement data 6 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc.and complete quarterly progress reports. We will put processes in place prior to onboarding ourfirst DeltaCorps member that will allow us to track performance measurement data, timesheets,invoice reimbursements, and progress reports. Please see the Performance Measure Worksheetfor specific details of outputs and outcomes aligned to our performance measure.Project Vision and Sustainability: ​Artesian is extremely committed to this DeltaCorps project,and we have budgeted money as well as developed a subcommittee of SEC’s Advisory Councilto read, review, analyze, and act upon mentor/mentee/teacher/parent survey results quarterly tosee how the program needs to be improved on an ongoing basis.Organizational BackgroundOrganization.​ Artesian Schools, Inc. is a charter management organization that will operatecharter schools in Memphis. One of Artesian’s programs is Southwest Early College HighSchool (SEC), whose mission is to enable students to earn a college degree or industrycertification in a career field of their choice and transition into the workplace with thepreparation and skills necessary to enjoy a successful career and a productive life. SEC serves9th-12th grade students, and they will graduate with both a high school diploma and an associatedegree, or up to 60 transferable hours of college credit toward a bachelor’s degree. During the 2014-15 school year, Artesian was awarded a grant for 3 AmeriCorps VISTAmembers in preparation to open a school in August 2015. Their roles were to help with capacitybuilding through grant writing, community outreach, and preparing school operations. Artesian’sCEO recruited, onboarded, trained, and managed all 3 VISTAs during that time. Artesian andCNCS decided to prematurely conclude the grant term (which was 3 years) due to Artesian notreceiving a school to operate beginning in August 2015. 7 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc. Now, in preparation for SEC’s first class of 9th graders, Artesian wants to incorporate four(4) DeltaCorps members into SEC’s structure so that students will have a strong and supportedtransition from 8th grade to a rigorous high school environment through mentorship. Notably, webelieve their impact will be profound because we will specifically recruit DeltaCorps membersfrom the communities where our students live, and they will be able to remain a stable part ofour young people’s lives after their year of service. SEC’s principal, Curtis Weathers, has implemented several mentoring programs over his 22years in urban education. See Member Supervision, below, and Artesian’s organizational chartfor more information on the staffing and management structure for our DeltaCorps program. Thefollowing section describes how Artesian will ensure compliance with DRA/CNCS policies andprocedures for its DeltaCorps program, members, and volunteers.Compliance and AccountabilityArtesian’s DeltaCorps members will not perform services, duties, or activities that are assignedto employees. Artesian will meet DeltaCorps’s high operating site standards and expectations. Asa part of overall member management, Artesian will establish sound record-keeping systems andcomprehensive quality assurance program as critical elements during the development of theproject. These measures will allow for documentation that the program is in compliance with allpolicies and regulations that govern the DeltaCorps program. The program supervisor (SEC’sprincipal) will review performance data with DeltaCorps members on a weekly basis to identifysuccesses and problem areas and adjust service delivery accordingly. SEC’s principal will alsobe tasked with ensuring that the program is operating in accordance with the obligations set forthin the DeltaCorps grant agreement. Issues of non-compliance will generally require corrective 8 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc.action within two weeks, while programmatic deficiencies may have a longer timeframe to beaddressed. In the event that any level of risk or noncompliance is identified, staff will work toimmediately implement a Corrective Action Plan that identifies areas of concern in programmanagement and/or documentation and reporting, required actions, staff/member roles, and atimeline for implementation. All deficiencies must be addressed by the agreed upon deadlinewith a full report submitted to Artesian’s board of directors. It is extremely important that Artesian and DeltaCorps members know the rules ofAmeriCorps. SEC’s principal will develop training materials on the rules and regulations of theAmeriCorps grant, as well as applicable state and federal requirements. A manual of ourprogram’s policies and procedures will also be created and provided for easy access to everyoneassociated with the program. As a recipient of taxpayer-funded grants, Artesian understands ourresponsibility to know the rules and regulations that govern the use of these funds since improperuse may result in reimbursement of all or some of the funds and other possible negative actions. Ms. Smith, Artesian’s CEO, has successfully managed federal and foundation awards. Overthe past three years, Artesian has received over $400,000 in grants from foundations.Additionally, from July 2014-June 2015, Ms. Smith managed a national service award for 4AmeriCorps VISTA members. Three members served with Artesian, and the fourth served atanother local school. She managed the payment to CNCS while processing invoices to the localschool for their VISTA member. Artesian’s board of directors oversees the use and managementof granted funds. The board’s finance committee closely looks at the management of thesemonies on a monthly basis.Member Training and Recruitment 9 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc. Orientation and Training. ​DeltaCorps members will be trained in mentoring best-practicesthrough the Grizzlies TEAM UP Youth Mentoring Partnership--a training and onboarding thatwas developed in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mid South. Additionally, theywill receive the same development opportunities and support as Artesian faculty and staff,specifically coaching and feedback (outlined below in Member Supervision). They will alsoparticipate in our school-wide professional development which will be monthly from January toJune 2017 and weekly beginning in mid-July 2017. Member Supervision. ​The lead contact with the DRA will be Ashley Smith, CEO ofArtesian Schools. Curtis Weathers, principal of Southwest Early College High School (SEC),will supervise members beginning with their training by the TEAM UP Youth MentoringPartnership. Student-facing activities and curriculum development are his responsibility for theschool, so supervising the DeltaCorps members fits well into his work. Both Ms. Smith and Mr.Weathers will spend the majority of their time helping DeltaCorps members recruit students andconduct home visits through December 2016. DeltaCorps members will have one-on-one meetings once a week with Mr. Weathers duringtheir debrief and documentation time (DeltaCorps members have 1.5 hours each afternoon todocument their activities and results of mentoring, as well as to debrief with other DeltaCorpsmembers or the supervisor). Group supervision will occur weekly during group planning time(DeltaCorps members will meet for 2 hours each morning developing their mentoring plans). Ms. Smith will work with the DeltaCorps Program Manager to ensure she and her team areadequately trained in any program regulations, priorities, and expectations that are not outlinedin this application. Artesian’s administrative assistant will calendar any due dates regarding 10 of 11

Artesian Schools, Inc.reporting, payment, etc., as well as any additional meetings or trainings that are required ofsupervisors and/or DeltaCorps members to insure that these important deadlines are not missed.Member Recruitment.​ In order to recruit DeltaCorps applicants, we will partner with theGrizzlies TEAM UP Youth Mentoring Partnership to identify quality applicants. Since we arelooking for DeltaCorps members who live/work in the neighborhoods where we are recruitingstudents, we will also announce the opportunity at the Frayser Exchange Club, with keycommunity organizations, at libraries, and at local colleges and universities, including ourpartner, Southwest Tennessee Community College. All candidates we wish to engage will be screened via Artesian’s 15-20 minute phone screenwhich helps identify member fit to the organization’s mission and goals. Applicants who pass thephone screen will be interviewed by SEC’s principal and at least one member of Artesian’sleadership team (CEO or board of directors). Artesian Schools will notify the applicants theyhave chosen as their ideal DeltaCorps members via email with a welcome letter and anypaperwork necessary. DeltaCorps members will start with Artesian during the month ofNovember 2016.Cost-Effectiveness and Budget AdequacyBudget Narrative. T​ he proposed budget is sufficient to allow Artesian to support theDeltaCorps member activities described in the application narrative. See budget attachment formore details. 11 of 11