Healthy Community Initiative

Minnesota Alliance With Youth AmeriCorps Groundwork Fellow
2024-25 Project Plan

Position Title:  Northfield Community School Groundwork Fellow

Host Site: Northfield Public School District/ Healthy Community Initiative

Overall Goal of Alliance Groundwork Fellows Program: Alliance Groundwork Fellows will serve as capacity builders in their communities, coordinating efforts that bridge and build the integration of school and community wide support for youth to help address education inequities, such as the achievement and opportunity gaps.  Groundwork Fellows will create, strengthen, and connect resources and best practices that increase a young person’s school attendance, behavior and/or course performance (all indicators with a strong link to academic engagement and high school graduation).

Northfield Community School Groundwork Fellow Position Overview: Using public schools as hubs, community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of support and opportunities to children, youth and families. A full-service community school is both a school and a community resource, with an integrated focus on academics, health, social services, youth development and community engagement. This leads to a better learning environment for all students, stronger families and a healthier community. Each community school is responsive to the needs, opportunities and resources of the individual school, but a community school is based on several key components.

COMMUNITY SCHOOL KEY COMPONENTS

• Out-of-school-time programming
• Expanded health resources/services
• Youth development programs
• Adult programming
• Family resources
• Early childhood programming
• Social service connections

Since 2014, Greenvale Park Community School has been funded by the highly competitive Federal 21st Century Community Learning Center grant, which expires in 2025. The Minnesota Department of Education requires that reapplicants conduct a rigorous Community Needs Assessment. The Groundwork Fellow would lead this Community Needs Assessment work. Specific goals and activities that the member will accomplish during their service: 

Goal 1:   Evaluate Out of School Time opportunities as an intervention to address the needs for school day engagement and learning.

• Conduct Focus Groups to understand full need
  • Parents
  • Youth
  • School Day staff and Administration
  • Community Partners
• Research best practices for evaluation and apply those to findings
• Benchmark/Evaluate current programming in the Northfield and Surrounding communities

Goal 2:  Build the framework to address education inequities, such as the achievement and opportunity gaps in out of school time  (OST) space using the National Center for Community Schools Assets and Needs Assessment and Toolkit.  

• Convene stakeholders to review data from the focus groups and work through the various steps of the Assets and Needs Assessment Toolkit.
• Develop communication platforms to share results – this may include group presentations, one on one meetings and/or general dissemination via traditional and social media channels

Goal 3: Compile a comprehensive implementation plan for Out of School time programming in Northfield Community School

• Evaluate and quantify findings and develop a mechanism to share findings in a relevant manner

Anticipated Schedule: (hours and location) 

Monday  – Friday 9-4, occasional nights and weekends
Office at Greenvale Park Community School – 500 Lincoln Parkway, Northfield

For more information contact Amy McBroom at amcbroom@healthycommunityinitiative.org or Erin Bailey at ebailey@northfieldschools.org.