The Power of Mentorship

When it comes to education, mentorship plays a crucial role for many, particularly people of color, something Alamance Achieves recognizes and is actively working to foster throughout Alamance County through their partnerships with educators and others in the community.

For Dr. Donna H. Oliver, mentorship is personal. Not only did she benefit from it during her education and her career, but she also felt compelled to pay it forward once she was able.

Dr. Oliver didn’t set out to become an educator. Her first dream was to become a medical doctor. As one of the first Black students at Williams High School, Dr. Oliver remembers clearly a history class where they were discussing the Civil War. As the only Black student in the class, she felt particularly uncomfortable. “It made me feel invisible and unimportant,” she recalls. “But my teacher took that conversation and turned it in such a way that I began to sit up in my seat and feel proud and feel important as a young black girl in the South. Then I was able to hear some of the white students discussing the topic from a different point of view from what they were saying when the conversation first started.” At that moment, Dr. Oliver became aware of the power teachers have — the power to save a young person by saving their mind just as a medical doctor saves the body from disease. ‘I felt I received a calling to be a teacher.”

That teacher, Nancy Garner, changed Dr. Oliver’s path. But she wasn’t her first mentor. That honor goes to her kindergarten teacher Juanita Spaulding, who also went to her church, and continued to mentor her throughout her life. “When I became North Carolina Teacher of the Year, she was by my side,” she said. Another early teacher, Julia Jordan, became a life-long mentor and supporter, as did John A. Freeman, the second principal Dr. Oliver worked under as a teacher.

“He pushed and pulled me, he recommended me for a variety of teaching honors and he assigned me many leadership roles because, unbeknownst to me, he was preparing me for future leadership roles. Because of his mentorship and leadership, I was selected by my peers as the Cummings High School Teacher of the Year, which started me on the path to becoming the Burlington City Schools Teacher of the Year and, ultimately, the North Carolina Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year.”
–Dr. Donna H. Oliver

This legacy of support continued into Dr. Oliver’s time in college at the then Elon College, where Mr. Voight Morgan, a biology professor, took the time to nurture her in a school where she was again one of only a handful of Black students. “That meant so much to me as a student at a predominately white school.” Even when Dr. Oliver transitioned into working in higher education, the power of mentors continued to influence her life. “Dr. Gloria Randle Scott and Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, from Bennett College, both continue to mentor me to this day, and I even have a personal friendship now with Dr. Cole.”

Dr. Oliver considers herself a teacher at heart, and she believes that a part of teaching is mentoring. She tries to practice the three C’s — acting as a consultant to former students, colleagues and friends, as well as a counselor for them and a cheerleader. Her goal is to motivate and inspire those whom she mentors, while helping them understand that they can achieve anything they set their minds to.

Dr. Oliver continues to lead the way for aspiring teachers and executive administrators, having served as the first Black woman president to lead a state university in Mississippi, and the first and only woman to date to serve as president of Mississippi Valley State University. During her term as president, she mentored two of her cabinet members and today both of them have become successful college and/or university presidents. Her mentorship has also led to many of her former high school and college students becoming classroom teachers and principals, teachers of the year in their respective schools and many have earned their doctorate degrees under her mentorship.

During her career in education, Dr. Oliver has seen strides being made toward equity for students of color, but she is quick to acknowledge that the work is nowhere near complete, nor will it be without additional legislation to close the inequality and access gap. “There are many underserved students still today in low socio-economic areas, who don’t have a computer, who don’t have access to the internet.”

In addition to leveling the playing field in terms of resources and access, Dr. Oliver stresses the importance of the nation making education a top priority for all students. “Standards and expectations have to be high, for both teachers and students. There is no room for mediocrity in the classroom — academically or socioeconomically. We need masterful, effective teachers in our classrooms who genuinely care about all students. Thank God for those teachers, as there are so many of them. We just need to pay them and respect them. We also need smaller class sizes to help students learn better in comfortable well-designed classroom,” she says.

Dr. Oliver concludes, “Teaching is a privilege and an honor, an art and a science, especially when you do it right. Remember, teachers teach today and touch tomorrow! My continued hope is that one day America will truly realize that when it comes to honoring professions, highly effective, masterful teachers should be at the top — in respect and salary. The biggest investment America can make in itself is to invest in education for all!”

Learning in a Pandemic

Handling what the pandemic has thrown at students and their families, as well as teachers, has been top of mind for many people over the past year. The educators in the Alamance Burlington School System (ABSS) worked quickly last spring and summer to assess their students’ needs to ensure that learning continued despite the disruptions.

While it has been a struggle, many have worked hard to find the positives along the way. “We’ve had so many opportunities to show that we can go above and beyond what the concept of education was or is now,” explained Amy Richardson, Chief Accountability Officer with the Alamance Burlington School System’s Office of Student Learning.

Going online

Between April and July 2020, ABSS investigated several online instructional platforms, before opting for Google Classroom for kindergarten through 5th grade, and Canvas for middle and high school students. The goal was to find systems that would provide students and teachers continuity and ease of use. “In doing that, we landed on a way to not only deliver lessons, but we also worked to streamline the core curriculum to guarantee our standards were a part of the curriculum kids get at every school,” Richardson said.

From there, training was provided for nearly every teacher on how to use the platforms, what it meant to have digital resources and how to best provide blended learning. Richardson shared, “All of this gives us a solid base for coming back to core learning, too. And we’ve made adjustments along the way for what worked well, what didn’t and where can we continue to make improvements.”

Additionally, ABSS’s efforts included providing hotspots to families in the school system’s more rural communities, as well as to get devices into students’ hands.

A big part of the ongoing process has been recognizing the interconnectedness of various systems that impact students and their learning in Alamance County. For instance, Richardson shared that  the challenge for some rural residents was simply about internet connectivity. “If you can’t get a cell signal, a hot spot won’t work,” she said. “We can provide a device, but if the infrastructure is not there, we can only go so far to meet that need.” Despite these challenges, she has been amazed to see the ongoing dedication of the school system’s Technology department, who have been working nonstop to provide hotspots and resources to students.

Staying on track

Keeping all students on track for learning has been a significant concern, and this is something that ABSS is also addressing. They have identified high school seniors at risk of not graduating, and they are providing additional, individualized support sessions to either get the student back on track to graduation this year or to shorten the extra time they will need graduate.

A similar focus is being given to 8th graders who will transition to high school in the fall. Meanwhile for those students in third grade, the need to meet end-of-grade reading proficiency levels, part of the state’s Read to Achieve legislation, has not changed. What is yet to be determined is whether the reading camp to assist those not meeting the standards will be in-person or remote this summer. 

Along the way, Alamance Achieves has been a valuable partner, particularly in their response to putting resources into students’ hands, such as books. “One of the goals was a push to get books into homes, since regular access to the school and classroom libraries went away,” Richardson said. Alamance Achieves stepped in to help create literacy rich environments in the home. “It was exciting to hear about those efforts.”

A Look Back at 2020

Alamance Achieves is proud of the continuing impact it has on helping
its broad coalition of people, organizations and systems who are working
together to improve health care and education outcomes for all in
Alamance County. Our 2020 annual report is an opportunity to show
our national partners, StriveTogether, the impact of our work, but it is also
a chance to let the community know about the efforts being made, so they
can get involved with us.

Here is a look back at 2020 to highlight many of our efforts last year and what will be our focus moving forward.

Early Health & Well-being

To support moms and babies from birth, the Alamance County Health Department is exploring the implementation of a Universal Home Visiting program that would help connect all families and infants in Alamance County with the support they need. The next steps are aligning funding sources, identifying existing gaps and opportunities in postpartum support for families, and engaging community stakeholders in implementation.

Kindergarten Readiness

Ensuring that children are prepared for kindergarten sets them up for success throughout elementary school and beyond. Last year, we expanded access to Ready Freddy, an evidence-based program that supports families and kids as they prepare for starting school. 

Third-grade Reading

To support students learning remotely, Beyond the Classroom, a group of community partners and school leaders, created eight learning hubs to assist more than 100 students in Alamance County. The goal of the hubs was to help minimize learning loss, support families with limited access to high-speed internet and devices, and promote social-emotional health during this stressful time.

Pandemic Solutions

The disruption that resulted due to COVID-19 in 2020 is ongoing, but Alamance Achieves and our partners — the Alamance-Burlington School System, Alamance County Public Libraries, Burlington Housing Authority, Alamance County Government, S.A.F.E., Healthy Alamance and Alamance Partnership for Children — were quick in shifting our focus to adapt to the changing needs of children and families in Alamance County. One example was our support of the work of our partners who lead an effort to establish more than 240 food distribution sites to help those in need, as well as more than 200 grab-and-go bus stops were created to allow children to pick up meals even if their parents were working.

Other efforts to align strategies to fit the new and changing needs included testing a strategy to address the stress on families with young children by offering a service to a small group of families in two elementary school zones that delivered some basic hard-to-find household needs such as toilet paper, paper towels and disinfecting wipes.

Looking Ahead

As a result of the investments made by the community in 2020, 86 families were enrolled in Ready4K, 39 more kindergartens started school on track to succeed and, during the pandemic, 753 emotional/social books were delivered to students and 53 families with young children were able to divert additional funds toward expenses and bills.

Moving forward, we are focused on amplifying community voices and working toward ensuring more Black, Latinx and Indigenous families, students and youth are guiding the work to come. It was recently announced we were selected to receive a grant from the StriveTogether Challenge Fund to support our work. All of these efforts will include a push to ensuring we are partnering with an equity lens so as many voices as possible are contributing to our efforts in 2021.

Elon Service Year Fellows

Giving back to the community that supported them.

The Elon Year of Service Graduate Fellows program is a partnership between Elon University and several organizations in Alamance County, which offers six recent Elon graduates the opportunity to engage in one year of meaningful service work to improve the health, education and economic well-being of residents in Alamance County.

Lallo Yadeta is one of this year’s Data Fellows, and she has spent her time with Alamance Achieves, one of the program’s six supported agencies. Others are Alamance County Health Department; Alamance Regional Medical Center; Economic Development, City of Burlington; Healthy Alamance and Impact Alamance. Lallo has been focused on several projects including visualizing the raw data the school system and other partners have given Alamance Achieves, facilitating the data team and providing data to help contextualize Alamance Achieve’s Community Voice Project. “Additionally, Sylvia Ellington and I have formed a Racial Equity Team where we hope to convene equity practitioners in the county to discuss best practices,” she said. 

During the year, fellows receive a plethora of support from Elon University, including access to the Student Professional Development Center, personalized training from Elon’s Center for Leadership, graduate school information sessions and access to faculty/staff liaisons.

Lallo feels the program is a great opportunity for the students who are involved. “Most importantly, it’s a great way for the university to connect with Alamance County,” she shared. “The fellowship allows students who were a part of this community for four years to give back and make actionable and meaningful change.”

Lallo was a double major at Elon University, receiving a degree in Public Health and International & Global Studies with a minor in Political Science. After her year as a Fellow ends, she plans to pursue a master’s in public health. 

While COVID-19 did not affect the size or recruitment of this year’s group of fellows, it did change the level of daily collaboration amongst members of the cohort. Adapting has been a challenge, but all the fellows have risen to the occasion and continued to find ways to best serve the community and make the fellowship an enriching experience.  

A Community's Journey Within a National Movement

Alamance Achieves is committed to the goal of every child in Alamance County thriving, from cradle to career. Achieving this requires educational equity. To help in this effort, Alamance Achieves’ work is being supported by their national partner, StriveTogether, through the Challenge Fund. StriveTogether is a nationwide network that works with communities at a local level to transform failing systems with a collaborative improvement methodology that directs data from small changes to inform adjustments in that community.

Part of that effort involves StriveTogether’s Theory of Action™ framework, which supports communities that are working towards changing the systems that shape opportunity.

StriveTogether’s Theory of Action provides progressive milestones for change. It is not a prescription that must be followed to the letter. This adaptability allows a community’s local context to guide the framework of how things get done. The milestones inform necessary collaboration of cross-sector leaders from systems like education, housing, health care and more to realize better results for each communities’ youth and families. It does this by focusing on the organization of all the moving pieces in a community that impact a child and his or her family in a way that more effectively gets kids from birth to a meaningful career.

To measure progress, the Theory of Action looks at six different “gateways”—exploring, emerging, sustaining, systems change, proof point and systems transformation. Alamance Achieves is currently at the sustaining gateway. The grant from StriveTogether will move Alamance Achieves further along the continuum, closer to systems transformation. These milestones provide communities with a way of seeing how they are progressing through their efforts towards their desired outcomes. And each gateway involves evidence-based decision making, collaborative action, a shared community vision, and investment and sustainability. Doing so, ensures a more equitable outcome for children and families.

StriveTogether is currently working with more than 70 communities across the country, including Alamance County, to achieve the goal of helping every child succeed in school and life. They provide resources, tools and best practices to help communities create opportunities for children and to close any equity gaps that exist in education.

Throughout it all, StriveTogether and its partners are committed to engaging with the community, advancing equity, developing a culture of continuous improvement and leveraging existing resources all in support of education.

Alamance Achieves was just named an awardee for the Challenge Fund from StriveTogether. They join fifty other communities across 26 states who are working to deliver more equitable outcomes for children and families. These communities are part of the Cradle to Career Network, a national movement led by StriveTogether to ensure every child has every opportunity to succeed. Altogether, StriveTogether has provided $20 million in grants since the onset of the pandemic in 2020 and will award another $12 million by the end of 2021.

Ready for Kindergarten?

Text-based program aims to help families boost learning.

Virtual learning has upended many families over the past year. To help support parents during this time, Alamance Achieves is offering families and learners support through a free research-based text messaging program—Ready4K.

Ready4K is for families with kids ages 0 to 10. It provides information on ways to help children learn and grow, as well as fun facts and links to community resources for even more support.

How it helps

The text program has been shown to offer significant gains for children in literacy and early math building skills. A study conducted by Stanford University found that Ready4K participants gained two to three months of literacy skills over the course of one school year, while another study conducted by the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital indicated that 84% of the families enrolled learned new math tips and appreciated the reminders to engage with their children on early math skills on a regular basis.

Additionally, Ready4K has a trauma-informed curriculum to help parents and caregivers strengthen protective factors such as parental resilience, social connections and knowledge of parenting and child development to offset the negative effects of any traumatic incidents a child may have experienced. Nearly half of U.S. children have experienced at least one adverse event during childhood, which, if not addressed, can have a lifelong impact. These types of traumatic experiences range from divorce or homelessness to a caregiver’s addiction to being the victim of violence. Ready4K is a great resource to support parents and caregivers on how to buffer the effects of any trauma the children they care for may have encountered.

The texts are available in English and Spanish. Families who are interested
in receiving the Ready4K messages can fill out the form on the
Alamance Achieves website—www.alamanceachieves.org/ready4k.

COVID & Learning

How the virtual year of school is affecting education.

Of the many devastating effects of COVID-19, the learning loss experienced by children could have the most far-reaching consequences. According to a report by UNESCO, in collaboration with McKinsey and Company, about 1.6 billion children have been affected by school closures around the globe. Based on existing data, this could result in students achieving only 70% of the normal gains in reading and 50% in math, with the youngest learners experiencing the most loss.

Experts anticipate that not only will this learning loss be greater for those who do not have equal access to remote learning options, but that it also will create new gaps between students and schools. Globally, the World Bank has estimated that a shutdown of five months could generate learning losses valued at $10 trillion.

Catching our kids up

Many students have lost some learning due to school closures and online learning. For instance, after Hurricane Katrina, children that were affected lost six to 12 months of schooling. These students returned to school on average more than two years below grade level. Finding a way to recoup that lose is crucial.  

Alamance Achieves is working hard to position itself to help the local community address this educational situation in Alamance County and mitigate the educational loses. “The success of our community depends on the investment we make in the children,” explained Tyronna Hooker, Executive Director. “Educating everybody takes everybody.”

With one in three children in Alamance County living in poverty, the struggle to overcome existing educational hurdles is real. Alamance Achieves is working with their Beyond the Classroom group, a group of community organizations and partners dedicated to aligning efforts to support families and students, to begin planning summer activities to support continued student learning. Alamance Achieves believes it is imperative to have the community’s voice included in the planning. Parents who have supported a virtual learned student in the ABSS system can provide feedback for community partners who are planning learning enrichment efforts by filling out the form.

School Ready

The Kindergarten Readiness Network is focused on helping children be prepared to learn.

The Kindergarten Readiness Network brings together representatives from various agencies in Alamance County, such as the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Department of Social Services (DSS), Alamance County Health Department (ACHD), the Alamance-Burlington School System (ABSS) and other community partners, to collaborate on interventions tied to the development of young children. The transition into kindergarten is a milestone for children and families. Successful kindergarten transitions enable children to thrive in school, adjust quickly to classroom rhythms and expectations, and get connected to timely and appropriate supports.

 Amy Richardson, Chief Accountability Officer Accountability Division the Office of Student Learning with ABSS, explained, “Kindergarten Readiness is about bringing the community together to understand the importance of prenatal health, early childhood wellness, access to community support, Pre-K opportunities and various other resources and programs that aid a child’s social, emotional, academic and motor skill development.”

 Doing this not only creates clear pathways for resources and supports to be introduced and evaluated for effectiveness, but it also gives caregivers a guidepost on which to reflect as they think about their own young child’s development. Richardson added, “Ultimately, the Kindergarten Readiness Network is establishing the scope of important and aligned work that our community can do to increase not only educational outcomes for students, but quality of life outcomes for residents of Alamance County.”

Linda M. Stubblefield, a network member of the Kindergarten Readiness Network, became involved when she learned the long-term effect that better preparing children for kindergarten could have on the children’s lives and the well-being of the greater community.

“The goal is to create opportunity for all children and to make sure that at the end of their learning cycle they are equipped to be better citizens and employees,” Stubblefield said. As a former business person, Stubblefield was excited about the potential the network would provide.

“In leveling the playing field, they create a better business environment and a better educated public. We want every child to have an education that will make them employable AND fulfilled.” —Linda Stubblefield, network member of the Kindergarten Readiness Network

Because of COVID-19, the work of the Kindergarten Readiness Network has shifted significantly. Rather than continuing the work of preparation, the group is focused on responding to more immediate issues such as food insecurity, housing and social/emotional support.

Stubblefield understands the impact poverty can have on a child’s educational outcomes, and she credited Alamance Achieves’ roll in directing the work of the Kindergarten Readiness Network to create a more equitable environment in Alamance County. “I think more than anything Alamance Achieves wants to help all these kids and their families make the gap between the haves and have nots not so big.”

Richardson shared that Alamance Achieves was integral in setting the stage for the work of the group. “They provide the space and resources to bring a diverse group of stakeholders together to examine the current data, listen for voids that need to be filled and equip the team with research-based interventions,” she said. “Additionally, they set the tempo for the work and keep the whole picture in mind even when the work is focused on various smaller details.”

While the pandemic has upended many things, Richardson said it has provided an unplanned time for reflection. Once COVID-19 is less of a concern, she anticipated, “The work of the Kindergarten Readiness Network will shift to even greater community voice and involvement.”