New Funding Launches Second Year Teacher Program
[ed. note: As the academic year draws to a close, we are delighted to recognize new BECA donors as well as faithful ongoing contributors by highlighting the work they enabled us to undertake during this academic year.]
World Day of Prayer - USA Committee
At a Board Meeting in 2008, BECA's Directors asked themselves a simple question: how can we deepen the cultural exchange aspect of our model? BECA has always prided itself as an organization that fosters meaningful cultural exchange between native U.S. teachers and the Honduran students, families, and teachers they serve. However, Board Members acknowledged the tremendous effort exerted in training an entirely new team each year since most BECA volunteers can only afford to volunteer with BECA for one year. The Board decided to introduce a two-year teaching position that would provide modest stipends for teachers who remained for a second year in order to strengthen our capacity on the ground and deepen the ongoing relationships that BECA volunteers have with the community. After announcing this program to the 2008-2009 teaching team, three teachers enthusiastically agreed to stay for a second year. In addition to providing on the ground support for their incoming teammates and academic stability for our students, these teachers also took on more senior responsibilities outside of the classroom in fulfillment of BECA's mission. BECA's Board and the Honduran community were ecstatic with such a result.
With BECA committed to bringing back these three teachers, BECA Executive Director Laurence Birdsey explored new avenues of funding for the two-year teacher initiative. As luck would have it, Board Founder and Chairperson Jaime Koppel had recently been introduced to Reverend Drew Giddings, a prominent social entrepreneur in New York City and founder of Action by Congregations Together (ACT) for Children. Rev. Giddings immediately recognized the value of BECA's work and sought to connect BECA to likeminded members of his network. As a result, Rev. Giddings connected BECA with the World Day of Prayer - USA Committee (WDPUSA), which is a worldwide ecumenical movement of Christian women of many faith traditions who come together to observe a common day of prayer each year on the first Friday in March. After introducing its model to the WDPUSA, BECA received a generous grant of $2,000. BECA used those funds (together with another generous grant from the Harris Foundation) to pilot our two-year teacher initiative during the 2009-2010 school year.
The two-year program has proved a bigger success than even BECA's Board anticipated. By every measure, the investment has been incredibly valuable. Classroom evaluations and discussions with Honduran parents evidence that students in classrooms with our returning teachers have excelled.
The three second-year teachers increased the quality of education for SJBS students not only by applying their experience to their own teaching, but also by sharing their knowledge with new teachers. The larger community also benefitted thanks to the "Senior Teacher Projects" undertaken by each returning teacher:
Fulfilling a long time objective of BECA, Rebecca Bush transitioned her Kindergarten students from a half day of instruction to a full day in order to provide increased bilingual exposure to students who are at a critically impressionable stage in language acquisition. Moreover, she partnered with a first year teacher to raise money and launch the SJBS Library Rehabilitation Project, which will introduce barcoding and temperature control to the SJBS library.
Jenna Foster, a certified teacher, works as an assistant to BECA's curriculum developer, writing the English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum for grades 1 through 3. In the Fall, she was responsible for conducting focus groups with stakeholders of the curriculum development project, including parents and students. In order to increase quality of instruction in first year teachers, she has initiated and currently leads weekly "curriculum coach" meetings with all lower school teachers. The lower school team has expressed their unanimous appreciation of these meetings.
Tim Douglas has contacted Engineers without Borders, a US-based organization dedicated to the development of infrastructure and improvement of living conditions in developing countries, in order to explore viable water filtration systems for our low-income community members. He also leads several extra-curricular activities at SJBS, including soccer club and after-school tutoring.
As we look to continue this project in future years (two teachers have already agreed to return in 2010-2011), BECA is laying the groundwork for ever better measuring how well we are serving our volunteers and our students. This Spring we introduced both DIBELS and Iowa student testing, two different forms of student assessment which will not only help us collect longitudinal data on our students' progress, but will also provide timely feedback for our teachers. We believe this quantitative data will reinforce our qualitative findings that second-year teachers add a tremendous boost to BECA's program of providing high quality bilingual education and cultural exchange to low-income Hondurans.
Many thanks to Drew Giddings and the World Day of Prayer - USA Committee for your incredibly valuable first-time support and thanks also to the Harris Foundation, whose ongoing support has been of tremendous importance in BECA's growth over the last few years.
