Form 2 STAC Interview Grantee

INTERVIEW INSTRUMENTS FOR GRANTEE

TARGETED RESPONDENT: These interview questions are intended for grantees. The interview will be administered to the grantee’s executive director or designee and/or local site director(s).

CONTENT: This document contains interview questions to be asked of grantees. The timing for each question is as follows:

(1) An interview for grantees that will be administered at the beginning of the school year [PRE]. These questions focus on programmatic details, overall reflections, and then a focused section on partnerships with schools.

(2) An interview for grantees that will be administered at the end of the school year [POST].

PRE INTERVIEW

Programmatic Details

1. [PRE] Are you working in the same schools this year as last year?  If not, what changes were made and why?

2. [PRE] What is the process for selecting and placing members in partner schools? How do you work with districts to determine which and how many members will be placed in certain schools?

3. [PRE] Can you describeWhat are the key activities that will be/were implemented by your organization’s School Turnaround AmeriCorps members are engaging in at schools implementing this school year? Of these activities, which focus on specific students, which focus on specific grades, and which focus on the entire school? Have these activities changed over the course of the program, and if so, how and why?

4. [PRE] How does your program relate to your host schools’ improvement goals? How is the program designed to help schools build the capacity to implement these goals? As applicable, explain how members’ activities fit into the broader scope of the turnaround initiatives of the schools where they serve. One central objective of School Turnaround AmeriCorps is to increase the school’s capacity to implement school turnaround goals. In what ways did your programming directly or indirectly address that objective? How could programming be changed to better address school capacity building?

5. [PRE] What worked well last year and why? Which strategies were more helpful in supporting schools’ turnaround efforts? (As needed) Why do you say that?

6. [PRE] What was one specific issue you overcame last year related to members’ work in schools (e.g., not a grant administration problem)?What did not work so well last year and why? Did you make any changes to the program this school year as a result?

   • [Follow up if did make changes]: Why did you make these changes? How did you communicate with the school(s) about any changes?

7. [Grantee with SIG exiter] Have any of your schools successfully exited SIG status since the start of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program? If any, why do you think the school(s) was effective in addressing turnaround goals? To what extent did AmeriCorps members contribute to that success?

Partnerships with Schools and Districts

8. [PRE] Can you please describe your collaboration current relationship with the school(s) and school district(s) taking part in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps implementation? Have there been any changes in the partnership over time?

9. [PRE] How would you characterize the relationships between AmeriCorps members and school staff members last year? Has your organization or the school(s) done anything to help members fit into the school community?

   • Are there differences in the relationships between members and certain kinds of staff members, such as principals, counselors, teachers, and administrative staff?

10. [PRE] What challenges arose in forming and implementing the partnership with thehave you faced partnering with school(s) you are working with? How have did you addressed these challenges? them?

11. [PRE] Can you describe any challenges or barriers you faced with successfully partnering with schools or districts at the outset of the grant? How did you overcome these challenges, if at all?

12. [PRE] What lessons (both positive and negative) did you learn from the start-up stage of the grant in terms of your school partnership(s) that might be helpful to other grantees and schools?

13. [PRE] Please describe for me the process of coming up with your partnership agreement with your partner school(s).

    • How did you determine the primary roles and responsibilities of your organization and the school(s) as outlined in your partnership agreement? Did you discuss what these roles and responsibilities would be with the school(s) before drafting the agreement? Who wrote, read, and approved of the partnership agreement(s)?

14. [PRE] How effective do you think the partnership agreements are overall?

    • Has the partnership agreement been a helpful tool when discussing and implementing the program in schools? Have you revised the agreement since the beginning of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program and if so, how and why?

    • [If haven’t already covered] Have you experienced any issues with lack of buy-in into program by school leaders despite having partnership agreement? If so, how did you address these issues?

POST INTERVIEW

15. [POST] Were there any changes in the key activities members engaged in at your School Turnaround AmeriCorps school(s) during the year? Why did you make these changes? To what extent were these changes informed by data?

16. [POST] What worked well this year? Were there any activities that were effective this year that were not as effective last year?

17. [POST] What did not work as well this year? Were there any activities that were challenging this year that were not challenging last year (e.g., new challenges)? If possible, what changes would you make to the design of your program going forward?

18. [POST] We talked in the fall about your partner schools’ turnaround goals. How effective do you feel the program was in helping schools build the capacity to address those goals this year? Are there goals in particular you think the program helped address and if so, why?

• Probe: school goals could include academic achievement, socio-emotional health, improving attendance, improving graduation rates.

19. [POST] Who serveds as the primary supervisor your organization of the program this year? Was that person a school staff member or from your organization? What were the supervisor’s responsibilities? What about this role worked well and what did not work as well?

20. [POST] Were there any [other] major personnel or other changes in the schools you are working with? If so, did this have any impact on the program and how did you address these changes the year?

21. [POST] Can you please describe your relationship collaboration with leadership in the schools and school districts taking part in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps implementation this year? Did anything change about your relationship from last year to this year?

22. [POST] What Did any new challenges arose arise in forming and implementing themaintaining your partnership with the school(s) you are working with? How did you address them? Did these changes lead to any modifications of the written partnership agreement?

23. [POST] What can your organization do to improve your relationship with your school partners? What can the school(s) do to create a better relationship between school staff and your organization?

24. [POST] Do you know if there are other school partners or volunteers at your School Turnaround AmeriCorps Schools? Does your organization interact at all with these other school partners?

25. [POST] If there are additional external partners, how are their activities similar to those of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members? How are they different?

26. [POST] What else should we discuss that is important for understanding how your organization interacts with school(s) engaged in this turnaround effort?

27. [POST] What lessons have you learned from observing and working with the school that might be helpful to other organizations?

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