Key takeaways from the 2023 Community of Practice Focused on Black Student Success

Guest Presenters:

• Morgan Evers, ASPIRE (Leon, Wakulla and Gadsden counties)
• Colleen Lockwood, Bridge2Life (Broward County)
• Chuck Tiernan, LEAP Tampa Bay
• Tessa LeSage, FutureMakers (Southwest Florida)

FCAN Host: Kimberly Krupa, FCAN Network Consultant

The Florida College Access Network hosted a virtual Lunch-&-Learn webinar on Monday, June 12 showcasing the results of four college access communities engaged in building a talent pipeline focused on Black student success. The final capstone session was designed to showcase the 2022-2023 Community of Practice learning journey, with special guests from FCAN’s partners at NextEra Energy. Here are the key takeaways: 

ASPIRE Capital Region
Morgan Evers, the LCAN lead from ASPIRE Capital Region, focused her presentation on ASPIRE’s scaling-for-equity journey. Through the Community of Practice, Morgan’s team at ASPIRE used the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) continuous improvement cycle to implement a FAFSA completion campaign strategy at an additional high-need school in Leon County, Ghazvini. This year, Susan Barrineau, head of guidance at Amos P. Godby High School in Tallahassee, won the College Ready Florida Innovator Award for her role in establishing the ASPIRE’s BEACON pilot program. Through BEACON, the school partnered with  ASPIRE to train professionals in the community as volunteers who could come to Godby and work with seniors to complete last year’s FAFSA. Godby saw immediate results: the percentage of seniors at the school who completed the FAFSA increased from 18% through March 2021 to 41% through March 2022. In scaling this success to a second location this year, ASPIRE learned what it takes to build a college-going culture across an entire school year and begining in 9th grade, when exposure to FAFSA and the postsecondary journey really begins.

Bridge2Life (Broward County)
Colleen Lockwood, the LCAN lead from B2L, showed an incredible video summary of her team’s efforts to incorporate parent voice into their LCAN action planning, implementation and project design. The project, entitled “We Can Serve Our Black and Brown Families Better: An Emancipatory Community-Based Study,” is a collaborative effort spearheaded by Colleen’s team, including head researcher Dr. Charisse Southwell. The results of two years’ worth of listening to parent perspectives have reinforced B2L’s commitment to developing solutions that are “culturally sustaining, rigourosly evidence-based and accessible,” said Colleen. Armed with fresh parent feedback, the B2L team will be working next on convening and creating strategies that work including STEM education; using data to illuminate issues; understanding and investing the communities B2L serves; and communicating for impact.

LEAP Tampa Bay
Chuck Tiernan, the LCAN lead from LEAP Tampa Bay, brought to life how his team incorporated the continuous improvement tools that were the backbone of this year’s Community of Practice into their work building a “college and career prepatory journey” beginning in middle school. Chuck reviewed his “aha!” moments from the learning year from three different perspectives. While students want to understand what’s ahead in their education journey, and how to navigate it, parents want consistent communication about helping their child transition from middle school to high school to life, not just exposure to academics pathways but adulthood. Partners, meanwhile, want effective ways to share knowledge and align toward greater impact. As a result, Chuck has steered LEAP’s focus toward three pillars – college and career planning activities, consistent communication and impactful relationships – all of which are embedding LEAP’s equity value statement: “Aligning educational opportunities and resources to meet the unique needs of ALL people and empower EVERY person to find success.” 

FutureMakers (Southwest Florida)
Tessa LeSage, the LCAN lead from FutureMakers, based at Collaboratory in southwest Florida, wrapped up the webinar with a lively overview of how stacking success and layering opportunities results in a stronger talent pipeline. Tessa leads southwest Florida’s equitable jobs project in rural Hendry County, and that initiative was the focus of FutureMakers’ Community of Practice project. New team members have been brought on to execute the Hendy County Action Team project, including boots-on-the-ground navigators who work one-on-one with Hendry County adult earners to accomplish three overarching (and ambitious!) systematic goals: (1) Increase the number of residents with a high-school diploma or GED to 80%; (2) Decrease the amount of time it takes students to obtain a degree or certification; and (3) assist applicants with job placement and ongoing career support. The team leveraged PDSA tools from the CoP to study their results, refine their project goals and continue the work despite barriers encountered, such as the benefits cliffs described in this Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta report.

Thank You NextEra!

To learn more about this work – and watch the recording – click the link below.

• Community of Practice 2022-2023: Capstone Recording