3 STAC Interview Member

INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR AMERICORPS MEMBERS

Note: If you serve at multiple schools, for questions that are specific to a school rather than the program overall, think about [NAME OF CASE STUDY SCHOOL].

NOTE: Telephone interviews with a sample of AmeriCorps members who serve at case study schools will be conducted in winter 2016.

MEMBERS’ DUTIES

1. Can you please describe your role and duties at the school where you serve this school year (2015-16)d?

[Probe]: At how many schools do you serve? How many hours per week on average do you serve across all schools—and how many at [CASE STUDY SCHOOL]?

2. Did Have the your activities changed throughout the school year (2015-16)? If so, how andthen why?

3. What are the formal or informal channels among school staff andhave you been told about the reasons that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members for communicating about school improvement goalsare servingneeded in your school? Who told you this information and how?

[Note]: this may include the grantee organization, school leader, other school staff, students, written materials, etc.

4. Are you familiar with your school’s improvement goals and/or turnaround plan? What are some of those goals?

[Note]: School improvement goals = Formal goals communicated by school leadership

5. 7. What are the In which of the following ways did you (that AmeriCorps members (yourself or as a whole) contribute to the school’s capacity to implement address school its turnaround program activitiesgoals? Please give me some details about what you mean by this. If there are multiple ways, list the top 3 for me.

   • Note: interviewer, probe for details about each way they improve the school’s capacity.

   • SpecificallyIf needed, how did you help the school build capacity through…

     • Affecting relationships between students and staff.

     • Involving families (e.g. in attending events, providing access to information and resources to support their child’s education, helping students complete homework, volunteering in child’s classroom).

     • Supporting the academic needs of specific groups of students.

     • Supporting the behavioral and/or socio-emotional health needs of specific groups of students.

     • Improving the school environment and climate.

     • Supporting teachers in the use of data/assessments.

     • Providing before-school, after-school or extended learning time programming.

     • Other activities and contributions.

6. Are there other school partners, volunteers, or external support staff working at your school? Do you interact at all with these other partners?

   • If there are other external partners, how are there activities similar to what you are engaging in? How are they different?

RELATIONSHIPS AT SCHOOL

7. 6. Please describe for me how your work is structured in relation to other work that happens at the school. That is, is your work stand-alone or do you work closely with other school staff? How involved are you in school operations like faculty meetings, professional development, or other initiatives?

8. What types of supports have you received, or are available to you, to implement your planned activities at the school?

[Probe]: Supports might include (but aren’t limited to) training, other people, and materials.

• Are there any ways that you could have been better prepared to do your work at the school?

9. Now I’d like to hear about your relationships with the staff and faculty at [School name]. What was the general attitude reaction among school staff and faculty to your addition topresence at the site/school when you first began serving? How did perspectives, collaboration, and/or relationships with the school staff (principal/teachers/counselor/school leaders) change throughout the year, if at all? How well do you feel school staff understand your role at the school?

10. What are your relationships like with the students you work with directly?

PERCEIVED IMPACT

11. In your opinion, is your AmeriCorps program successful in helping students you worked with directly worked with at this school to improve in the following areas? Is so, how? How have you determined this?

Probe specifically for

• Academic achievement?

• Academic engagement?

• Behavior?

• Attendance?

• Socio-emotional health?

12. [As needed, if not already covered] How helpful do you think AmeriCorps memberthe services that you are involved with were implemented this year will helpare to the students you directly work with at this school? Why?

13. Are there additional supports that you think need to be put in place in order to help students succeed? Are there additional supports or supervision that would help you better meet the needs of students?

14. I want to go back now to the specific services you provide to students to understand exactly what you’re doing in the school. Please describe your three most important activities/responsibilities at the school (the activities that require the greatest amount of your time)? (If at multiple schools, focus on the case study school.) For each of these, I’d like to know with whom you collaborate to carry out the activity, who the target audience is, how frequently the activity takes place, and approximately what percentage of time you spend on the activity.

Probe: Who do you collaborate with to carry out the activity?

Probe: Who is this activity intended to help or support?

Probe: What is the frequency and amount of time you spend on the activity?

(If member serves at more than one school, percentage of time should refer to percentage of total hours across schools. Frequency is based on member’s time, not per student.)

Activity	Collaboration	Targeted Audience	Frequency	Hours per Week &/or Percentage of Time
a.
b.
c.

15. WhatWhat lessons have you learned from workingserving as an AmeriCorps member at this school that might be helpful to other schools/organizations implementing the program?