School Turnaround AmeriCorps National Evaluation:

Year 1 Final Report 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps National Evaluation: 

Year 1 Final Report

FINAL

September 28, 2015 

Prepared for:

Corporation for National and

Community Service

1201 New York Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20525 

Submitted by:

Abt Associates Inc.

55 Wheeler Street

Cambridge, MA 02138 

Authors: 

Jennifer Bagnell Stuart

Beth Gamse

Anna Jefferson

Ed Bein

Hiren Nisar

Brian Freeman

Samantha Burke 

Amy Checkoway

Erin Sullivan

Katherine Murphy

Marissa Personette

Will Huguenin

Alex Silverman

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

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Contents 

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................................4
 

Background.............................................................................................................................................4
 

Data Sources ...........................................................................................................................................5
 

Key Findings...........................................................................................................................................7
 

Limitations ..............................................................................................................................................9
 

II. PART 1: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS..........................................................................................11
 

Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................11
 

Perceived Impacts of AmeriCorps Services in Supporting School Turnaround Efforts:

Case Study Findings: Comparative Analysis, Lessons Learned, and Implications about Using
 

Implementation Findings: Cross-Cutting Themes ..........................................................................16
 

Summary ...............................................................................................................................................32
 

Partners..................................................................................................................................................37
 

Potential Uses and Challenges of Administrative Data .................................................................44
 

III. PART 2: DETAILED FINDINGS .................................................................................................49
 

Implementation Findings....................................................................................................................49
 

Perceived Impacts of AmeriCorps Services in Supporting School Turnaround Efforts............93
 

Case Study Findings ..........................................................................................................................110
 

IV. CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................141
 

Summary of Implementation, Case Study, Perceived Impact, and Grantee Administrative
 

Data Collection Findings...................................................................................................................141
 

Lessons Learned, Promising Practices, and Suggested Improvements to the School
 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Program .................................................................................................141
 

Implications for the Program Theory of Change...........................................................................142
 

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Table of Exhibits

Exhibit I-1: Conditions that Moderate Program Effectiveness ............................................................................. 9

Exhibit II-1: Program Implementation and Evaluation Timeline.......................................................................14

Exhibit II-2: Network of Key Program Stakeholder Relationships ....................................................................17

Exhibit II-3: Factors that Facilitate Progress and Factors That Present Barriers and Challenges by CrossCutting Theme ..........................................................................................................................................................19

Exhibit II-4: Vignette of Parent’s Perceived Impact of Program ........................................................................33

Exhibit II-5: Grantee, School Leader, and School Staff Perceptions of Most Important Student Outcomes in 

Next Two Years (2014–15).......................................................................................................................................33

Exhibit II-6: School Staff Perceptions of Changes in Student Behavior (2014–15)...........................................35

Exhibit III-1: Prevalence of Activities and Interventions Offered in School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

Schools........................................................................................................................................................................52

Exhibit III-2: Member Activity Tracking Information .........................................................................................58

Exhibit III-3: School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Service and Activity Tracking Information for 

2014-15, by Grantee ..................................................................................................................................................59

Exhibit III-4: Number and Types of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Service Activities for 2014-

15, by Grantee............................................................................................................................................................60

Exhibit III-5: Relationship with Target School Prior to School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program .............62

Exhibit III-6: Target Number of Students Expected to be Served by School Turnaround AmeriCorps.......63

Exhibit III-7: Frequency of Student Progress Meetings between School Turnaround AmeriCorps Members 

and School Staff.........................................................................................................................................................64

Exhibit III-8: Grantee Opinions about Communication and Collaboration with Partner Schools ................64

Exhibit III-9: On-Site Coordinator Roles and Responsibilities ...........................................................................71

Exhibit III-10: Grantee, School Leader, and School Staff Satisfaction with Elements of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps Program Operations (2014–15).........................................................................................................73

Exhibit III-11: Grantee and School Leader Perceptions of Important Elements of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps Implementation (2014-2015).............................................................................................................74

Exhibit III-12: School Improvement Grant Strategy Most Influenced by School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

(2014-2015)................................................................................................................................................................. 75

Exhibit III-13: How Students Received School Turnaround AmeriCorps Direct Services (2014–15) ...........76

Exhibit III-14: Average Hours per Week and Weeks per Year Members Served in School (2014–15)..........77

Exhibit III-15: Mechanisms to Identify and Reason Students Identified to Participate in School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Activities (2014–15) .....................................................................................................79

Exhibit III-16: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions of Value of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

(2014–15) ....................................................................................................................................................................81

Exhibit III-17: Factors that Facilitate Progress and Factors That Present Barriers and Challenges by 

Program Stakeholder................................................................................................................................................83

Exhibit III-18: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions of Success of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

(2014-2015)................................................................................................................................................................. 95

Exhibit III-19: School Leader Perceptions of Level of Influence of School Turnaround AmeriCorps on 

School Turnaround Goals (2014–15) ......................................................................................................................97

Exhibit III-20: School Leader Perceptions of Improvement in Student Academic Achievement and 

Academic Engagement Outcomes (2013–14)........................................................................................................98

Exhibit III-21: School Staff Perceptions of Improvement in Student Academic Achievement and Academic 

Engagement Outcomes (2014–15)...........................................................................................................................99

Exhibit III-22: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED1 Performance Measure ..............................................101

Exhibit III-23: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED2 Performance Measure ..............................................102

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Exhibit III-24: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED4A Performance Measure ...........................................102

Exhibit III-25: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED5 Performance Measure ..............................................103

Exhibit III-26: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED6 Performance Measure ..............................................103

Exhibit III-27: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED7 Performance Measure ..............................................103

Exhibit III-28: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED27 Performance Measure ............................................104

Exhibit III-29: 2012-2013 / 2013-2014 Student-level Data Quality ....................................................................106

Exhibit III-30: 2014-2015 Student-level Data Quality.........................................................................................108

Exhibit III-34: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14) .................................................111

Exhibit III-35: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study schools (2013-14)..................................................115

Exhibit III-36: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14) .................................................121

Exhibit III-37: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14) .................................................126

Exhibit III-38: Teacher Perspective on the Challenges of a Changing School Community..........................130

Exhibit III-39: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14) .................................................131

Exhibit III-40: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14) .................................................136

Exhibit IV-1: CNCS School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program—Program Level Logic Model .................144

Exhibit IV-2: CNCS School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program—Direct Service Provision by AmeriCorps 

Members Logic Model ...........................................................................................................................................145

Exhibit IV-3: Relationship-Building Mechanisms Observed in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps Theory 

of Change ................................................................................................................................................................. 146

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I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps grant program, launched in 2013–14, is a joint initiative of the 

Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and the U.S. Department of Education (ED). 

The grants provide support for AmeriCorps members, placed in low-performing schools, to help achieve 

the schools’ school improvement goals. At the activity level, School Turnaround AmeriCorps is very 

similar to other AmeriCorps programs, yet it differs in three important ways. First, School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program host schools must be designated as School Improvement Grant (SIG) or Priority 

status schools or be among the 5 percent of a State’s persistently lowest-achieving Title I schools;1 second, 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs must establish partnership agreements with the schools that

must include specific grant requirements; and three, the services delivered by School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members in schools should be aligned with the goals and student needs identified in the 

schools’ turnaround plans.

The program provides additional resources to help increase the capacity of the lowest-achieving schools 

to implement their respective turnaround models successfully. The program’s goals are to improve 

students’ academic performance, academic engagement, attendance, high school graduation rates, and

college readiness. By 2014–15, its second year, the program was operating in over 70 schools.

In summer 2014 CNCS contracted with Abt Associates to conduct the first year (2014–15) of a two-year 

implementation evaluation of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. The first evaluation year 

(Year 1) corresponds to the second year of program implementation. Note that for the purposes of this 

evaluation, only those School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools that meet specific study requirements are 

included; consequently, 57 of the over 70 schools in the program are participating in the evaluation.2

This report summarizes the complete Year 1 findings of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program

evaluation. The study as a whole was designed to address the following research objectives:

• Examine the strategies used to support schools’ capacity, school-level interventions, and the 

direct services that AmeriCorps members deliver to support school turnaround efforts. 

• Understand how local context may affect program implementation and identify best practices for 

the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in terms of supporting schools’ ability to 

implement their turnaround plans. 

1 More specifically, SIG guidance defines “persistently lowest-achieving schools,” as determined by the State, as 

(a) Title I schools in improvement, corrective action, or restructuring, and (b) secondary schools that are eligible 

for, but do not receive, Title I, Part A funds, that are among the lowest-achieving five percent or lowestachieving five schools in each set, whichever is greater. In addition to the lowest-achieving five percent of 

schools (or lowest-achieving five schools) identified in this manner, a state education agency (SEA) must identify 

as persistently lowest-achieving schools any high schools in each set of schools that are not captured on the basis 

of academic achievement but that have had a graduation rate of less than 60 percent over a number of years. U.S. 

Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. Guidance on Fiscal Year 2010 School 

Improvement Grants under Section 1003(G) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. March 1, 

2012.

2 For the purposes of studying schools that were roughly comparable in their implementation of School 

AmeriCorps Turnaround programming, the study excluded two types of schools: those that did not implement 

the School Turnaround AmeriCorps intervention in 2013–14 and/or in 2014–15 and some of the Teach For 

America (TFA) schools. Only a representative sample of TFA schools (5 of 17) was purposively selected to 

participate in the evaluation because of TFA’s distinctive intervention. 

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• Compare the implementation of school turnaround efforts in AmeriCorps schools to those of 

matched comparison schools with no or minimal AmeriCorps presence to provide insights into 

the perceived effectiveness of the program with respect to the following outcomes: 

o overall success in school turnaround,

o academic achievement,

o students’ socio-emotional health,

o school climate, and

o school capacity to implement its turnaround effort.

The findings described in this report include the comprehensive set of survey, qualitative, and 

quantitative analyses conducted throughout the Year 1 evaluation.

This report provides an overview of the goals of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program and the 

approach and key questions the national evaluation is designed to address. It presents contextual 

information about the 13 grantee programs in their second year of partnering with over 70 of the lowestachieving 5 percent of School Improvement Grant (SIG) or Priority status schools in the 2014–15 school

year. It documents the types and nature of services that the over 450 School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members provide to support schools’ efforts to meet their turnaround plan goals.3 Findings on 

implementation effectiveness and the perceived impacts of the program in improving student outcomes 

are presented from multiple program and school stakeholders’ perspectives: grantee staff, members, 

school leaders, teachers, and parents. The results of six comparative case studies provide additional 

context and detail for understanding the mechanisms at work across School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs that provide a wide array of academic and supportive services to struggling students in lowperforming schools. This report also compares stakeholder perceptions to administrative outcomes data 

and discusses the potential uses and challenges of administrative data for evaluating School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps and other CNCS education-focused programs. Lessons learned, in the form of both strengths 

and challenges, are summarized into emerging promising practices, suggested improvements, and 

implications for the program’s theory of change. 

Data Sources

This report draws from the following primary data sources:

Grantee Staff

• Online survey administered to staff of 13 School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs between 

May 4, 2015, and June 4, 2015 4

3 Corporation for National and Community Service. e-Grants service location and member data as of 2014-15 for 

the 2014-2015 school year.

4 There are 12 grantee organizations and 13 grantee programs. Four grantee organizations implement their own 

programs. Eight grantee organizations are State Service Commissions with subgrantee organizations that 

implement the programs. One state commission has two subgrantee organizations, each of which operates one 

grantee program. The term “grantee staff” specifically refers to grantee and/or subgrantee organizations’ staff 

members who participated in the grantee focus groups, and is generally synonymous with the term “program 

staff.” Eleven of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs are single-state programs that must apply for 

funding through State Service Commissions and address local needs in only one state, and two are national 

programs that must apply for grants directly from CNCS and address local needs in at least two states.

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• Pre- and post-interviews with staff at 13 and 12 grantee programs, respectively. Follow-up 

communications with staff of all 13 grantee programs about how they use their partnership 

agreements and about their data access/collection practices related to student-level data

• Online focus groups with 11 staff members from 10 of the 12 grantee organizations

AmeriCorps Members

• Interviews with 26 School Turnaround AmeriCorps members

• Online focus groups with 10 School Turnaround AmeriCorps members affiliated with 7 of the 13 

programs

School Leaders and School Staff

• Surveys administered to 57 principals whose schools were in their second year of hosting a 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program and to 543 instructional staff and counselors in such 

schools (The principal and staff surveys were administered online between Jan. 1, 2015, and Feb. 

13, 2015.) 

• Interviews with principals of 25 schools hosting School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs

• Small group phone interviews with nine principals (three principals in each of three separate 

discussions)

• Case studies of six matched pairs of 12 SIG/Priority schools, six schools with School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps programs and six similar schools without such programs

Case study data collection consisted of interviews with 12 principals in six AmeriCorps program 

schools and six comparisons schools, interviews with 32 teachers or other school staff (two to 

four per school), four in-person focus groups with teachers in two program schools and two 

comparison schools, and four site observations documenting school physical appearance and 

school climate in two program schools and two comparison schools.5

Parents of Students Receiving AmeriCorps Services

• Telephone interviews with 50 parents of children attending School Turnaround AmeriCorps

program schools

In addition, the study team obtained the following secondary data from existing sources:

• Partnership agreements between 12 grantee programs and their 55 partner schools6

• Grantee performance measures and narrative responses recorded in the 2013–14 mid-year and 

annual grantee progress reports (GPRs) for all 13 programs

• Grantee activity log or AmeriCorps member services tracking information from six grantees

• Student-level data, including student achievement data, student attendance, and/or student

behavior data for the 2012–13 (2 grantees), 2013–14 (8 grantees), and 2014–15 (10 grantees) school 

years

A detailed description of data sources for the report is included in the Technical Appendixes. 

5 Here forward, the term “program schools” refers to schools with School Turnaround AmeriCorps members.

6 One of these 12 grantee programs provided documents that were not identified as a “partnership agreement” 

per se but that function as such.

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Key Findings 

The story of low-performing SIG schools in their second year of operating School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps programs offers several insights about stakeholders’ perceived impact of the program, the 

conditions and factors that moderate effectiveness of program implementation, and the mechanisms that 

help to explain the program’s theory of change. In terms of what was achieved, in general programs were 

moderately successful in providing direct services and supplemental resources that help turn around 

low-performing schools. In terms of how programs achieved success, the second year of program 

implementation illustrated that programs demonstrably learned which conditions were important to 

establish and maintain to allow School Turnaround AmeriCorps members to support SIG and Priority 

schools effectively. Improved understanding of why programs were successful or experienced challenges 

helps to refine hypotheses that explain how and why program interventions should produce desired 

outcomes.

Applying these findings will improve grantees’ capacity to implement effective programs and achieve 

stronger results in School Turnaround AmeriCorps. Because the findings are generally conditiondependent rather than intervention-specific, they may be generalizable to other CNCS education-focused 

programs that place national service resources in low-performing schools to support student 

achievement, student engagement, and college readiness. Collectively, these findings tell the story of a 

new program that had achieved promising results by its second year of implementation and that has the 

potential to increase its impact—provided that it benefits from the lessons of the initial years and 

addresses and resolves underlying tensions in the AmeriCorps program model to create the right 

conditions for success.

Perceived Impact of the Program

The study found clear evidence that the program provides services matched to schools’ turnaround needs 

and that those services are perceived as helpful. The services address key turnaround outcomes, in 

particular, students’ academic performance—which is typically the major reason that schools are in SIG 

or Priority status and, correspondingly, the yardstick used to determine whether and when schools exit 

improvement status. The most common program services that support improvement in student academic 

performance are tutoring and after-school programs--most of which also provide tutoring. These 

supplemental academic supports address academic achievement, which is the schools’ most pervasive 

and severe challenge and which was commonly ranked as the most important school turnaround 

outcome for students by both school leaders and staff. Similarly, the specific SIG strategy ranked by 

school leaders as being the most influenced by School Turnaround AmeriCorps members is academic 

achievement, although leaders also ranked increased positive school culture and environment and 

increased learning time among the top three strategies. Targeting School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

services to students in need of academic supports is the most common recommendation from teachers 

and counselors, followed by targeting those in need of academic engagement. 

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is perceived as contributing positively to key student 

outcomes, including academic achievement and student socio-emotional health; these findings reflect 

perceptions of the large majority (79 percent or more) of school leaders, staff, and parents. Further, 75 

percent or more of staff reported having observed student improvement in other targeted outcomes, 

including significant and moderate improvement in attentiveness in class, getting along well with others, 

and coming to school motivated to learn. A majority of school staff (74 percent) reported that they 

observed significant or moderate improvement in academic achievement or academic engagement 

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outcomes for those students served by the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program.7 In addition, 29 of 

38 interviewed parents observed positive differences in their children since the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program began, about half of which related to students’ academic performance.

Conditions and Factors that Moderate Effectiveness of Program Implementation

Five prominent, interrelated themes about the effectiveness of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program emerged in the evaluation of its second year of operation.8 Interestingly, the strongest themes 

about the conditions that facilitate program effectiveness are not intervention-specific, likely reflecting 

local variability and flexibility in grantees’ mix of activities in partner schools (described in Chapter II, 

Part 1). Specifically, the cross-cutting themes are 1) relationship building between program and school 

stakeholders; 2) grantee capacity to administer programs, encompassing both grant management 

functions and AmeriCorps member qualities, preparedness, and training; 3) schools’ capacity to manage 

external resources, including school leader attitudes, behaviors, and leadership, and the extent of staffing

and resources at host schools; 4) planning, communication, and collaboration of the partners, including 

teacher collaboration and supports; and 5) external factors, such as students’ home environments and the 

broader context of the school district that are generally outside the school’s sphere of influence, the 

program scope, and member control. 

As shown in Exhibit I-1, the importance of relationship building was a particularly prominent theme that 

interlaces with the grantee and school capacity themes, all of which must be considered in the context of

external factors. Each of these themes (and their subthemes) emerged as key mechanisms that explain and 

influence the effectiveness of the strategies and direct services that School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members deliver in program schools. The resulting lessons learned about which strategies worked well 

and which strategies were less successful are therefore broadly applicable to program operations across 

all grantees and intervention types.

7 Sources: school leader and school staff surveys. 

8 Sources: grantee interviews and focus groups, principal interviews, member interviews and focus groups. 

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Exhibit I-1: Conditions that Moderate Program Effectiveness

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The Conclusion, in Chapter IV, compares the original program logic model with the phenomena that 

have been observed to explain or influence program results based on Year 1 evaluation findings, and 

discusses implications for refining the program’s theory of change.

Limitations

The study administered surveys to grantees, principals, and instructional staff, and achieved different 

response rates for each respondent group as follows. All 13 grantee programs responded to the survey. 

The response rate for the school leader survey was 68 percent, which suggests reasonable confidence that 

survey responses can characterize the perspectives of participating schools’ leaders. The response rate for 

instructional staff and counselor surveys was less robust, as less than half of the educators invited to 

complete surveys did so. As a result, those responses are less likely to be representative of all 

instructional staff and counselors sampled in the study schools, and the study team applied statistical 

adjustments for nonresponse (see Appendix A.2 for more detail). All survey findings presented in this 

report are descriptive and are based on surveys of personnel whose organizations (grantees or schools) 

participate in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Therefore, it is not possible to determine 

whether and how their experiences may have differed from those of employees at similar 

nonparticipating organizations. 

Interviews and focus groups used standard protocols; however, not all respondents provided similar 

information or the same level of detail to each question posed. Interview data reflect participants’ 

responses to those questions at the time of data collection and may not necessarily have captured the 

same level of detail from each individual participant. As a result, the frequencies reported in this 

document represent the most conservative estimates of the proportion of participants reporting on an 

experience or perception. Further, parent interviews were conducted with individuals whose names had 

been provided by staff from program schools. These parents may well be the most engaged or 
appreciative parents in the school so their opinions may differ from those of other parents whose children 

are involved in the program. For more information on the interviews and focus groups, see Appendix 

A.5.1. 

Finally, grantees’ administrative data—the performance data, member activity tracking data, and 

student-level outcomes data that they collect and report—were variable and inconsistent, which limited 

the study team’s ability to analyze data across grantees systematically. Documentation of these data was 

limited in some instances because grantees did not provide complete and consistent data to Abt

Associates; in other instances, the data that grantees shared are of such poor quality that meaningful data 

analyses are not possible. The section on the Potential Uses and Challenges of Administrative Data in Chapter 

II includes a more detailed discussion of the limitations of the administrative data collection and the 

extent of the analyses and conclusions that can be drawn from the results.

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II. PART 1: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, including its theory 

of change, strategies, and defining elements within the context of the Corporation for National and 

Community Service (CNCS) and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) partnership. It then describes the 

key study features, including the goals, design, and samples that allow the study to address research 

questions about the program’s implementation and perceived impacts.

School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program Overview

CNCS and ED are collaborating on a new grant program to increase high school graduation, college 

readiness, and educational attainment for students in our nation’s persistently lowest-achieving schools. 

Since fall 2013, School Turnaround AmeriCorps has been providing grants to eligible organizations that 

work with schools receiving School Improvement Grant (SIG) or Priority school funding.9 The grants are 

designed to improve academic outcomes for students in SIG-funded schools as they implement their 

improvement strategies.

10 The SIG schools must implement one of four school intervention models—

turnaround, transformation, restart, or school closure. Priority schools can implement interventions 

aligned with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility turnaround principles.

The goal of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program is to improve students’ academic performance, 

academic engagement, attendance, high school graduation rates, and college readiness, thereby helping 

to turn around the lowest-achieving schools. Its premise is that AmeriCorps members are particularly 

well-suited to deliver effective turnaround interventions and achieve the desired student outcomes in 

eligible schools. The original program logic models, included in Exhibits IV-1 and IV-2, depict the core 

activities of the interventions being implemented by AmeriCorps members and illustrate how those 

activities are expected to lead to the intended short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes for the 

target population for the intervention. They also contextualize the program by describing key 

assumptions that underlie the hypothesized causal relationship between program activities and intended 

outcomes and factors (moderators) that may condition the degree to which those activities achieve 

intended effects.

Both logic models also illustrate how activities funded through the program address multiple student 

needs and align with comprehensive school turnaround plans by incorporating at least one of the 

following six SIG strategies:

1. Provide ongoing mechanisms for family and community engagement.

2. Establish a school culture and environment that improve school safety, attendance, and discipline 

and address other non-academic factors that impact student achievement, such as students’ 

social, emotional, and health needs.

3. Accelerate students’ acquisition of reading and mathematics knowledge and skills. 

9 School Improvement Grants (SIG), authorized under section 1003(g) of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act of 1965 (Title I or ESEA), are grants to state educational agencies (SEAs) that SEAs use to make 

competitive subgrants to local educational agencies (LEAs) that demonstrate the greatest need for the funds and 

the strongest commitment to use the funds to provide adequate resources in order to raise substantially the 

achievement of students in their lowest-performing schools. Source: 

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/sif/index.html. Accessed Oct. 9, 2014.

10 Throughout this document, all references to SIG-funded schools also include Priority-funded schools.

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4. Increase graduation rates through strategies such as early warning systems, credit-recovery 

programs, and re-engagement strategies.

5. Increase college enrollment rates through college preparation counseling assistance to include 

completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and college applications, and 

educating students and their families on financial literacy for college. 

6. Support school implementation of increased learning time.

The six strategies are aligned with those required of SIG schools implementing one of the four SIG 

turnaround models (i.e., turnaround, transformation, restart, or school closure), as well as the 

requirements associated with Priority schools that are implementing the turnaround principles under 

ESEA flexibility. In addition, these strategies are based on research on turning around the lowestachieving schools. 

The program theory of change also recognizes that leveraging community, local education agency (LEA), 

and school-level support systems can be an important component in comprehensive turnaround efforts. 

As such, the School Turnaround AmeriCorps funding guidelines encourage grantees to partner with 

multiple eligible schools within an LEA and coordinate turnaround efforts among multiple school sites. 

Implementing the six strategies through a comprehensive and coordinated approach is hypothesized to 

enable grantees to take advantage of economies of scale and aid in changing school, LEA, and community 

cultures.

Study Goals and Research Questions

The study examines the contributions of AmeriCorps members toward the success of turnaround models 

in low-performing schools in which they provide direct services, and it seeks to explain the mechanisms 

underlying those contributions. Specifically, the goal of the evaluation is to understand the effect that 

AmeriCorps members have had on grantee schools’ capacity to implement their respective turnaround 

models successfully and to improve key turnaround outcomes.

The specific goals of the evaluation are as follows:

• Describe how AmeriCorps members are supporting school turnaround efforts. 

• Contrast the implementation of school turnaround efforts at School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

sites with school turnaround sites that are not supported by AmeriCorps. 

• Identify best practices for the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in terms of supporting 

schools’ ability to implement their turnaround plans.

The study’s guiding research questions are summarized below: 

1. How do AmeriCorps members help schools implement their turnaround plans?

a. How do AmeriCorps grantees work with teachers and other school personnel to identify 

and target students with whom their members will engage so that the school is more 

likely to achieve its turnaround goals?

b. What are the specific direct service activities and school-level interventions that 

AmeriCorps members conduct at each school and how are those activities believed to 

support school turnaround?

c. What are the specific capacity-building strategies that AmeriCorps members contribute 

to each school? How do school leaders and staff view the role and contributions of 

AmeriCorps members in building the school’s capacity to implement its turnaround 

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effort? What are the areas in which schools believe AmeriCorps members have the most 

and least influence over the school’s ability to achieve its turnaround goals and why? In 

what ways, if any, does the presence of AmeriCorps members allow school staff or 

volunteers to modify their activities in ways that might benefit students?

d. Do the specific activities that AmeriCorps members conduct change over the course of 

the grant period? To what extent do grantees use data to inform continuous 

improvement efforts to meet changing needs and improve their interventions?

2. How and to what extent do School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs adhere to grantees’ 

program designs across schools or exhibit flexibility to adapt to schools’ needs and local contexts?

a. Which aspects of grantee-school partnerships appear to be the most promising practices 

in terms of satisfaction of the school leadership and the participating AmeriCorps 

members?

b. What elements of the implementation are sensitive to local contexts and might be 

difficult to generalize and replicate in other contexts?

c. Which elements of the implementation are potentially replicable in other schools?

3. Are AmeriCorps members perceived by school leaders and other stakeholders to be more vital in 

supporting certain SIG/Priority strategies than others? Which activities pursued by AmeriCorps 

members are perceived as being more or less helpful in supporting schools’ turnaround efforts 

with respect to the following outcomes and why?

a. Overall success in school turnaround

b. Academic achievement

c. Students’ socio-emotional health

d. School climate

e. School capacity to implement its turnaround effort

Study Design, Study Sample, Methods and Limitations

To answer these research questions, the research design for the Year 1 national evaluation of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps used a mixed methods design. The study design emphasized primary data 

collection from diverse stakeholder groups, including comparative case studies and surveys of grantee 

staff and school leaders, to examine implementation and perceptions from multiple perspectives. These 

primary data are supplemented by administrative data on grantee performance and member activities.

A condition of receiving grant funding was participation in the national evaluation, and therefore all 13 

funded grantee programs are represented in the findings. Most School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools 

were included in the evaluation, with the exception of one large grantee for which only a representative 

sample of schools was included.11 In total, 57 program schools were included in the evaluation.12

11 The Teach for America (TFA) intervention provides schools with AmeriCorps members who have been trained 

as teachers to teach in school classrooms, in contrast to other School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantees whose 

members provide services, such as tutoring and mentoring, to support student engagement and academic 

achievement. Because of its distinctive intervention, only a representative sample of TFA schools was included in 

the evaluation.

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School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantees began operating in schools in fall 2013. As shown in Exhibit II1, 2013–14 was the first program year for grantees implementing the intervention, 2014–15 represents the 

second year, and 2015–16 the third program year. The 2013–14 school year served as a pilot year for the 

national evaluation to develop the evaluation design, develop and pilot test the data collection 

instruments, and prepare and submit the OMB clearance package. The two-year national evaluation 

spans the 2014–15 and 2015–16 school years.

Exhibit II-1: Program Implementation and Evaluation Timeline

School Year 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016

Program implementation Pre-program First year Second year Third year

Program evaluation Baseline data Pilot evaluation Year 1 Year 2

The evaluation was designed to examine program implementation from multiple stakeholders’ 

perspectives through primary data collection, including surveys, comparative case studies, semistructured interviews, and focus groups with grantees, AmeriCorps members, school leaders, school 

staff, and parents/guardians of students who receive AmeriCorps services. Students were not asked to 

participate in surveys or interviews so as not to detract from their instructional time. These data allow the 

study to understand and compare implementation effectiveness. 

Secondary data collection included mid-year and annual grantee progress reports and performance

measurement data, grantee activity logs (when available), and other outcomes data (e.g., achievement 

scores, attendance and behavior records) obtained from grantees. These data allow the study to describe 

grantees’ data collection and performance measurement capacity. 

The case study approach attempts to understand how AmeriCorps members’ service contributes to 

program schools’ turnaround efforts and incorporates in-depth comparisons of turnaround 

implementation in SIG and Priority schools with AmeriCorps members to a similar group of lowperforming schools not supported by the School Turnaround AmeriCorps resources (i.e., the comparison 

group). 

The six case study comparison schools were matched on key characteristics (i.e., state, grade level, 

turnaround model) and were from the same local educational agencies (LEAs) as their School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps counterparts, wherever possible. Potentially eligible comparison schools were 

selected on the basis of SIG grant or Priority status and no or minimal AmeriCorps presence (among 

other criteria).

Matched pairs of one treatment school staff member and one comparison school staff member 

participated in either site visits or telephone interviews to provide additional context, and the study team 

also drew from existing data sources to learn about each case study school’s SIG status, history, and 

student population. Case study data were collected through one-on-one interviews with principals and 

teachers; site visits also included focus groups with teachers and a structured observation protocol of the 

school environment. 

The evaluation integrates observations from the varied data collection strategies and their corresponding 

analytic approaches to describe the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program comprehensively,

synthesize the findings, and contextualize them appropriately.

12 This number excludes the schools newly added to the 2014–15 cohort, since their experiences in implementing 

the program will be qualitatively different from the experiences of the schools in the cohort that has already 

completed one year of program implementation.

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Lessons Learned about the Evaluation Design, Recruitment, and Data Collection

The first year of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps national evaluation yielded multiple interrelated 

insights about the program; it also generated a number of useful lessons about the evaluation itself. These 

lessons encompass elements of study design, program design and operations, and the practical realities of 

primary data collection in dynamic contexts. The study design changed throughout the course of the 

study to accommodate updated information about both treatment and comparison schools—primarily 

because of more accurate data about the number of AmeriCorps members on site and secondarily 

because of changes in schools’ eligibility status. The implications for both this study—and others—center 

on using the most current information available to determine key design thresholds before recruiting 

study participants and collecting data. 

Originally, the Year 1 evaluation featured a quasi-experimental design with which the study would 

compare the full sample of School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools and a similar number of comparison 

schools without the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, using surveys and interviews to compare 

outcomes across the two groups of schools. The design called for comparison schools that met three 

eligibility conditions: 1) program and comparison schools were located within the same district and/or 

state, 2) comparison school offered the program school’s relevant grades, and 3) comparison schools had 

fewer AmeriCorps members than School Turnaround AmeriCorps campuses. Difficulties in recruiting 

comparison schools that met those criteria meant the study was not able to form a valid comparison 

group. Consequently, CNCS and Abt Associates shifted to the comparative case study design described 

above. Under the revised design, no surveys were administered to school leaders and school staff in 

comparison schools, and therefore no comparisons of survey data were possible.

Lessons about program design and operations emerged in three key areas: currency of information, 

guidelines for grantees about reporting, and grantees’ partnership agreements. Because schools and 

districts (and grantees) are dynamic organizations, priorities and needs can change, which directly affects 

the number of AmeriCorps members on site. Changes in numbers of member placements and schools’ 

eligibility status are not necessarily communicated quickly to CNCS and therefore not to study 

contractors either; providing real time updates also was not an expectation of the grant. While obtaining 

such information is not within CNCS’s control, it may be possible for the agency to emphasize to grantees 

(and therefore to districts and schools) the value of having updates in real time. The guidance provided to 

grantees about annual performance reporting and partnership agreements could be strengthened to 

ensure that CNCS and its evaluations benefit from higher-quality data and access to such data.

The lessons about recruitment and data collection in highly fluid school contexts are many. One 

overarching lesson is that sufficient time for planning, recruitment, and data collection is essential. There 

are simply so many demands on districts/schools (and their employees) that externally commissioned 

evaluations are low on their priority lists, which is reflected in the length of time required to obtain 

Institutional Review Board (IRB) approvals, to recruit schools and individual study participants, and to

schedule and complete data collection within the school calendar, with its multiple testing, vacation, and 

other scheduling constraints. The sooner an evaluation can begin to plan outreach, recruitment, and data 

collection the better its success in studying school-based programs. A related lesson is that conveying the 

importance of a given study can be facilitated through both well-timed communications from sponsoring 

agencies and the use of incentives. 

Organization of this Document

The Executive Summary provides a brief overview of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program and 

the national evaluation, summarizes the methods used and limitations of results reported, and highlights 

key findings. The study findings are organized into two distinct parts. This introductory chapter provides 

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an overview of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program and the national evaluation, followed by a 

summary of findings from the evaluation as a whole. This chapter outlines the cross-cutting themes and 

findings, draws from results presented in earlier reports and memos as well as results from more recent 

analyses, and provides illustrative examples of summary tables and displays.

Chapter III, Findings Part 2 provides a comprehensive discussion of findings across all data sources. The 

Implementation Findings section describes services AmeriCorps members provided in schools, how 

partnerships are structured and operate, and how implementation was perceived across stakeholders—

both in terms of accomplishments and challenges. The Perceived Impacts section presents detailed 

findings and accompanying exhibits on the perceived impacts of AmeriCorps members’ service in 

turnaround schools. The Case Study Findings section provides in-depth comparisons of stakeholder 

perceptions from the paired case studies for all six sites. The Administrative Data Findings section 

summarizes the study’s findings and observations about using administrative data to evaluate educationfocused AmeriCorps programs.

Chapter IV summarizes lessons learned and concludes with implications for the program’s theory of 

change. In a separate document, the Technical Appendixes include survey data tables, supplemental 

exhibits, data collection instruments, and references.

Implementation Findings: Cross-Cutting Themes

Five cross-cutting themes summarize the conditions and factors that moderate effectiveness of program 

implementation: 1) relationship building between program and school stakeholders; 2) grantee capacity 

to administer programs, encompassing both grant management functions and AmeriCorps member 

qualities, preparedness, and training; 3) schools’ capacity to manage external resources, including school 

leader attitudes, behaviors, and leadership, and the extent of staffing and resources at host schools; 4) 

planning, communication, and collaboration of the partners, including teacher collaboration and 

supports; and 5) external factors, such as students’ home environments and the broader context of the 

school district, which are generally outside the school’s sphere of influence, the program scope, and 

member control. Each theme is discussed below and summarized in Exhibit II-3. 

Relationship Building between Program and School Stakeholders

Relationship building was a dominant theme throughout Year 1 of the evaluation and across all 

stakeholders. Data from multiple respondents and data sources indicate that building strong 

relationships—among all stakeholders—is a crucial foundation for program success. All program 

activities involve communication and interactions between various stakeholders, whether among 

grantees, districts, school leaders, teachers, members, parents, or students. School leaders and members 

are central players in the network of relationships that occur in program schools. School leaders interact 

with all six key program stakeholders—grantee staff, members, teachers, parents, students, and district 

staff—while AmeriCorps members directly interact with five stakeholders—grantee staff, principals, 

teachers, parents, and students. The other key program stakeholders establish direct relationships with 

two to four program stakeholders each, as shown in Exhibit II-2. 

The myriad potential inter-connections among program stakeholders help explain the importance of 

relationship-building themes that in turn influence program effectiveness. Given the multiplicity of 

relationships, it is not surprising that many schools use an on-site coordinator, a school-based liaison or 

coordinator who is typically a school staff member, to navigate between the people managing the 

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program and those delivering services (grantee staff and members) and the people in schools who are 

involved with the program (school leaders, teachers, and counselors).13

Exhibit II-2: Network of Key Program Stakeholder Relationships

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*The on-site coordinator is not required by AmeriCorps or implemented in all sites.

Relationship building surfaces in three areas: structure, process, and impact. First, AmeriCorps programs 

have flexibility to establish staffing structures to support members to meet locally determined needs, so 

long as they ensure that members participate in eligible activities. The on-site coordinator role, filled by a 

school staff member, emerged as an important structural mechanism for effective implementation of 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs in partner schools. Other programs employed a member of 

the grantee staff as a coordinator working across multiple schools or, in one case, a single school. Second, 

the process of building relationships between the program and school stakeholders influences programs’ 

traction in schools. When done well, relationship building creates bonds of trust and respect, and 

smooths implementation efforts; when ignored or done poorly, lack of personal capital leads to low 

receptivity of and even pushback on the program by school stakeholders. Third, effective relationship 

building, particularly between members and the students they support, helps to create continuity and 

stability in students’ lives and the broader school climate, which in turn can positively impact students. 

The strong one-on-one relationships members forge with students improve the efficacy of their services 

and help programs achieve better results in supporting students’ socio-emotional health, academic 

engagement, academic achievement, and overall school climate. Each of these relationship-building areas 

is discussed next in more depth.

The Structure of Relationship Building: partnership agreements and the on-site coordinator role.

Grantees and participating schools must demonstrate their support and commitment to their partnership 

in implementing the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in letters of support and written 

13 Sources: principal interviews, partnership agreements, case studies. 
partnership agreements.14 Almost all programs have established partnership agreements with their 

school partners, as required by their grant. All describe provisions for data sharing and nearly all contain 

information on the roles and responsibilities of both grantees and school partners. Most agreements 

describe managing collaboratively, and/or their strategies for doing so, and include resource-sharing 

expectations. Though grantees established partnership agreements with partner schools that helped

structure relationships by defining programs’ and school partners’ roles and responsibilities on the front 

end of implementation, they did not report using or updating these agreements to address role confusion 

issues on the back end.

Another important structural mechanism for building strong relationships is the role of a site coordinator

(either a grantee employee or a designated school employee), usually on site, who is in frequent

communication with schools and grantees. Some grantees proactively hired supervisors before the 

summer began to begin establishing relationships with schools and preparing for the fall, making sure 

supervisors were strong links between schools and programs and establishing effective means of 

communication between supervisors and programs. The on-site coordination role facilitates better 

communication and improved collaboration between programs and school stakeholders, and this human 

connection and interaction appears to engender trust and confidence in members and the work they are 

doing in schools, thus creating the foundation for strong relationships.

The Process of Relationship Building: paving the road/doing the groundwork for program 

implementation. Although the Letters of Commitment and written partnership agreements are the first 

formal acts for establishing the relationship between the grantee and its partner schools, nearly all of the 

grantees had relationships with at least some of their target schools before implementing the program, 

and most of the grantees had pre-existing relationships with partner schools for at least two years before

implementation.15 This suggests that grantees understand the importance of relationship building for 

implementing school partnerships.

Programs reported that their school turnaround activities and interventions would not be successful 

without the active engagement of partner districts, schools (primarily school leaders), and teachers. 

Across these different levels, the primary positive aspects of engagement reported by programs include 

collaboration, communication, relationship building, and buy-in; the most commonly reported challenges 

were due to insufficient coordination and a lack of engagement in these same aspects, while a few 

programs experienced challenges in balancing district- and school-level needs.

Survey data from multiple respondents (leaders, staff, and grantees) indicate that grantees’ strong 

relationships with districts and leaders are a necessary (if not sufficient) condition to operate service 

programs in schools. Survey and interview responses from both principals and grantees showed that 

school leaders’ buy-in and support is a gateway to teacher cooperation and collaboration with members. 

When programs were successful in obtaining principal buy-in, principals could serve as ambassadors for 

the program (and for members’ presence) to school staff.

14 School Turnaround AmeriCorps applicants were required to submit a Letter or Letters of Support (for grantees 

funded in 2013) or a Letter or Letters of Commitment (for grantees funded in 2014) from all eligible partner 

schools and their corresponding local education agencies (LEAs), signed by school and LEA leadership and 

including evidence of the applicants’ consultation with school and LEA leadership. CNCS also requires that 

grantees establish written partnership agreements that “articulate the alignment between the local School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program design and school and LEA turnaround plans, as well as the parties’ plan for 

ongoing collaboration throughout the grant period” (Corporation for National and Community Service, 

Announcement of Federal Funding Opportunity, School Turnaround AmeriCorps FY13, p. 31). 

15 Sources: grantee survey, principal and grantee interviews. 

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Exhibit II-3: Factors that Facilitate Progress and Factors That Present Barriers and Challenges by Cross-Cutting Theme

Cross-Cutting 

Theme Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

1. Relationship 

Building

• Members provide specialized attention and one-on-one support, e.g. by 

giving students extra time on subjects with which they struggle and 

tutoring directly to the students’ interests

• Members check in on students regularly and make them feel 

accountable for their attendance

• Members couple college preparation with mentoring

• Members leverage their positive relationships and similar ages with 

students they serve to make them more enthusiastic about attending 

college

• Members help to craft the school’s behavioral culture by developing 

positive relationships with students and encouraging them to become 

more engaged in their schools

• Members are viewed as “near peers” and role models to students (e.g., 

by providing insight into college life, and contributing positively to 

school culture)

• Members provide after school activities that combine 

tutoring/homework help with recreational activities (e.g. cooking, crafts)

• Members encourage students to be more motivated and academically 

engaged

• Members build trust and positive and supportive relationships with 

teachers, students and families

• Members serve as a bridge between students and teacher 

relationships (i.e., intervening in situations before disciplinary action is 

needed)

• Member communication with parents about their child’s absences to 

improve their child’s attendance

• Member communication with parents about academic progress and 

attendance via letters about the program and in-person contact

• Members keep parents and community members informed about 

school functions and activities to promote their involvement in the 

community

• Members provide family engagement activities that improve families’ 

knowledge and awareness of the school itself

• Perceived diminished autonomy and lack of buy-in to the program, e.g., 

stemming from disagreement between districts and schools about 

member placements

• High principal and school staff turnover reduces buy-in and increases 

relationship-building work

• Lack of buy-in from teachers on a program’s intervention strategy—

e.g., a program offering an online credit recovery program teachers did 

not want

• Member perceptions of lack of respect from school staff

• Minimal-time service terms (e.g. members who come in once a week 

for a couple of hours to provide tutoring or credit recovery support) do 

not allow enough time for members to forge relationships in their timelimited interactions with students

• Members’ one-year service terms limit positive relationship building 

between students and a trusted and caring adult 

• Mandatory tutoring can be off-putting to students

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Cross-Cutting 

Theme Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

1. Relationship 

Building (cont.)

• Integration of member roles with school culture and operations

• Member participation in school functions increases buy-in from school 

leaders, staff, students, and parents

• Grantees having prior relationships and history of effective partnerships 

with partner schools

• Grantees build strong relationships and strong communication with 

school and district partners, especially school administrators

• School leadership buy-in to the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

partnership; supportive school leadership is a gateway to teacher 

cooperation and collaboration with members

• On-Site Coordinators/Supervisors promote interaction among school 

staff, members, and Grantee staff

• On-Site Coordinator/Supervisors assist member integration into school 

culture

• Teachers serving as on-site liaisons increases investment in the 

program

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Cross-Cutting 

Theme Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

2. Grantee Capacity 

to Administer 

Programs, 

encompassing both 

grant management 

functions and 

AmeriCorps 

member qualities, 

preparedness, and 

training

• Grantees having prior relationship and experience working with partner 

schools

• Grantees’ data sharing practices and trainings

• Grantee data teams that regularly review data to assess the 

connections between program services and interventions and 

instructional outcomes

• Grantees manage and use data to improve program operations, 

through quality control measures, using an external evaluator, or 

adjusting program activities in response to student needs

• Members’ mission focus and commitment to the program

• Members’ youth and energy helps to engage school staff and parents, 

and motivate students to engage in learning and academics

• Members serve as a bridge between students and teacher 

relationships (i.e., intervening in situations before disciplinary action is 

needed)

• Members are viewed as “near peers” and role models to students (e.g., 

by providing insight into college life, and contributing positively to 

school culture)

• Members having the background knowledge and skillsets needed by 

schools in sufficient quantities

• Members routinely review data to assess their intervention’s 

effectiveness

• On-Site Coordinators/Supervisors who work closely with members and 

school staff to manage member caseloads and match students to 

members

• On-Site Coordinators/Supervisors who serve as a professional mentor 

and resource to members

• Grantee know-how and capacity to manage the structures and 

processes required to launch a new program (e.g., manage grants, 

complete member recruitment and set up technology, access data, and 

obtain matching funding)

• Ongoing grant management issues (e.g. funding cycle limits 

recruitment and training of members before the school year starts)

• Recruiting, managing and retaining members

• Lack of a communication and coordination strategy for placing 

AmeriCorps resources in positions that effectively support schools’ 

turnaround efforts

• Monitoring program performance and managing large volumes of 

program data; accessing data from the district, tracking student data, 

and having limited resources to analyze data and present information 

about student success

• Disagreement between districts and schools about member 

placements

• Mismatch between members’ backgrounds and the skills schools need 

most and/or in subject areas needed for supporting students 

academically (i.e., English and humanities tutors when the school 

needs science and math)

• Members’ lack of practical experience in schools and knowledge of 

behavior management, de-escalation, and conflict resolution 

techniques

• Grantees provide inadequate training of members for their service in 

low-performing schools; training is not sufficient or realistic enough to 

prepare members for their work in the schools

• Member responsibilities for time-consuming data collection and data 

entry that takes away from direct services

• Members’ inability to access students during school day and slow 

build-up of caseloads

• Lack of a dedicated coordinator and splitting time across multiple 

schools hinders communication with school staff about members’ roles 

and coordination with teachers 

• Inconsistent service hours or presence at program schools

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Cross-Cutting 

Theme Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

3. Schools’ Capacity 

to Manage External

Resources, 

including school 

leader attitudes, 

behaviors, and 

leadership and the 

extent of staff and 

resources at host 

schools

• School leaders’ prior experience with other AmeriCorps programs

• Leadership buy-in to the School Turnaround AmeriCorps partnership. 

• Involving school leaders and/or teachers in member recruitment, 

placement, and/or supervision to help build school capacity to manage 

external partners supporting turnaround efforts

• Recruiting and designating a teacher for the program coordination role 

to increase teacher interest and investment in the program

• Leadership that supports and facilitates teacher cooperation and 

collaboration with members 

• Member participation in school-wide professional development 

activities to integrate members into the school culture

• Member participation in planning meetings to identify and monitor 

student needs and progress (academic and non-academic) and to help 

promote teacher effectiveness

• Members provide supports for school staff (i.e. helping teachers 

identify students’ needs and progress, helping with classroom 

management, or freeing up time for teacher professional development)

• Having an on-site coordinator (communication, organization, 

collaboration) to maintain frequent, accessible, and open 

communication channels with school leaders and provide real-time 

peer support at host schools

• Perceived diminished autonomy and lack of buy-in to the program, e.g., 

stemming from disagreement between districts and schools about 

member placements

• Lack of clarity and tension about members’ roles and responsibilities, 

e.g. member participation in school-wide professional development 

activities

• Members’ one-year service terms means that, typically, inexperienced 

members are placed in schools each year

• Viewing program rules as limiting flexibility in deciding how to use 

AmeriCorps resources in their schools 

• Lack clarity or misunderstanding of program rules, especially of 

restricted activities for members within their schools

• School leadership use of the AmeriCorps service as a pipeline to 

identify future staff members

• Mismatch between the school’s needs and services offered by School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps

• School leaders’ lack of knowledge, experience, or receptivity toward 

using external partner resources

• Schools’ lack of preparation to use external partner resources when 

program is first introduced, such as lack of a communication and 

coordination strategy

• School leaders’ lack of communication with school staff about the 

program contributes to teachers’ lack of understanding of members’ 

roles and responsibilities, such as members’ data entry and 

administrative responsibilities

• School policy changes that conflict with student attendance 

interventions (e.g. more suspensions to address behavioral issues)

• Insufficient staffing and resources at host schools (e.g. members do 

not have private and/or quiet space to work with students)

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Cross-Cutting 

Theme Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

4. Planning, 

Communication, and 

Collaboration of the 

Partners, Including 

Teacher 

Collaboration and 

Supports

• Grantees establish partnership agreements with schools to define roles 

and responsibilities, articulate the scope of activities and interventions, 

and facilitate programs’ access to school and student data

• Grantees engage partner districts and schools in planning, 

communication, and coordination of activities

• Grantee ongoing collaboration with school partners and other 

stakeholders about proactive use of data

• Grantee collaboration with school partners to recruit and place 

members in school

• Having an on-site coordinator (communication, organization, 

collaboration) to maintain frequent, accessible, and open 

communication channels with school leaders and provide real-time 

peer support at host schools

• Member participation in school-wide professional development 

activities to integrate members into the school culture

• Frequent member collaboration with teachers (e.g. identifying students 

for tutoring) when serving in classrooms facilitates classroom 

management

• Service activities that are closely aligned with the school’s curriculum

• Member participation in planning meetings to identify and monitor 

student needs and progress (academic and non-academic) and to help 

promote teacher effectiveness

• Designating meeting times with members to communicate student 

needs and combine supports

• Members help rebrand school reputation as a visible intervention in an 

ineffective or unpopular school system

• Encouraging active parent involvement in parent-teacher organization, 

school and program activities

• Establishing partnership agreements between grantees and schools 

takes time

• Partnership agreements are not consistently used as working 

documents to redefine roles and responsibilities as the program 

changes during the course of implementation or as a means of 

enforcing partner accountability

• Insufficient coordination and lack of engagement between grantees 

and school leaders

• Miscommunication and inconsistent communication between programs 

and schools

• Lack of a communication and coordination strategy for placing 

AmeriCorps resources in positions that effectively support schools’ 

turnaround efforts

• Lack of a dedicated coordinator and splitting time across multiple 

schools hinders communication with school staff about members’ roles 

and coordination with teachers

• Lack of communication between the school administration and their 

staff, e.g. not inviting teachers to the discussions and not involving 

them in the decision process about the program

• Lack of clarity and tension about members’ roles and responsibilities, 

e.g. member participation in school-wide professional development 

activities

• School staff reporting inconsistencies in knowing when a member 

would be present at program school

• Member activities that disrupt classroom instructional time, e.g., pullout tutoring

• Activities that are not well-aligned with the school’s curriculum

• Inadequate advertising of program services at the school and to 

families

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Cross-Cutting 

Theme Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

5. External Factors 

Beyond Program 

Scope and/or 

Member Control 

• Urban areas and community schools offer more partnership 

opportunities and a broader range of services

• Program parents who value school and make their child’s attendance a 

priority

• Dynamic and unstable environment in the schools in which grantees 

implement their programs including school and district leadership 

changes

• Rural areas lack external partners

• Lack of discipline in school environments

• Insufficient staffing and resources at host schools (e.g. members do 

not have private and/or quiet space to work with students)

• Lack of resources, staff, volunteers and funding for some activities 

impede after-school activities

• High teacher turnover makes it difficult for students to build enduring 

relationships with teachers

• Lack of parent response to member outreach 

• Families who prioritize other family needs over student attendance e.g., 

keeping older siblings home to care for other children

• Students lacking a “home environment that is supportive of doing 

homework”

Sources: Grantee staff pre- and post-interviews, member interviews, grantee and member focus groups, principal individual and group 

interviews, teacher interviews, parent interviews.

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The relationship-building process begins when members become integrated into the school’s culture and 

operations as they assume their roles in supporting schools as reflected in principals’ views of members 

as part of their teams and “school families.” In many schools, on-site coordinators helped members 

integrate into the school culture. Variations on this practice, such as assigning school staff as the on-site 

coordinator and involving principals in the selection and placement of members in the schools, also 

helped assimilate members into the school community. Having teachers serve as on-site liaisons may also

have helped to increase teacher interest and investment in the program. Beyond the initial introduction 

into the school community, other important parts of the integration process included members’ 

participation in school functions and their demonstrated commitment to the students themselves at a 

personal level. Participating in activities and demonstrating commitment helped members earn the trust 

of principals, teachers, students, and parents. Establishing strong relationships between members and 

teachers in turn supported effective delivery of AmeriCorps interventions. For example, earning the trust 

of students allowed members to frame attendance outreach to students in terms of building strong 

positive relationships with students rather than in terms of punishment for truancy.16 However, the

presence of strong relationships with members did not necessarily translate into school staff fully

understanding program rules, as discussed further below. 

Relationship building was clearly an important aspect of members’ work, demonstrated both by 

examples of effective and less-effective efforts. For example, a few AmeriCorps programs appeared to 

have been imposed on schools by the district without principal consent or buy-in, or were not removed 

when so requested by the principals. Principals of such schools reported high levels of dissatisfaction 

with the program and member quality and preparedness. Though these were not typical experiences, 

they illustrate the challenges faced when AmeriCorps programs had not been able to develop strong 

relationships. Further, these examples underscore that principals want school-level decision making and 

autonomy and question the authenticity of school commitment letters and partnership agreements, and 

they suggest that imposing external partners on pre-existing dysfunctional relationships between schools 

and districts is a pre-condition for failure.

The Impact of Relationship Building: the importance of being there/the value added by AmeriCorps. 

Survey findings indicate that the large majority AmeriCorps members served in schools for 30 hours or 

more per week (roughly the equivalent of a standard work week) for 30-plus weeks during the school 

year, and about two-fifths of members serve in schools 

where they serve 40 hours or more per week.

Consequently, members’ exposure to students in schools 

corresponds roughly to that of regular school staff—and 

considerably more than the exposure provided through a 

short-lived after-school tutoring program, for example. 

Nearly all parents and the majority of school leaders and 

staff strongly agreed or agreed that members provide 

activities frequently enough to be valuable. These data 

corroborate member sentiment that they are an important 

part of students’ lives. 

The constancy of members’ presence in schools throughout the school year reinforced stakeholders’ 

perceptions of the consistency and stability in member-student relationships, which contributed to 

Member-Student Relationship 

Building

“I have 30 kids on my caseload. So I 

try to meet with each one of them at 

least every two weeks and have an indepth conversation that's mostly just 

focused on getting to know them and 

really do that relationship building."

-Member interview

nationalservice.gov 25

 

16 Source: principal interviews. 
creating positive impacts on multiple student engagement and behavioral health outcomes, including 

college aspirations, school attendance, and self-confidence.17

The duration and intensity of members’ presence in schools helped to immerse them in the school culture 

and fostered relationships with school staff and students, which in turn enabled members to provide 

direct services more effectively, as well as contribute to improved student outcomes and school 

turnaround progress in other ways (e.g., by supporting teachers, improving school climate, connecting 

with families). Yet members’ commitment to a one-year term of service was a double-edged sword: 

principals and teachers lamented the break in relationships formed with students and the schools’ loss of 

trained and already embedded members, since members are not expected or required to continue beyond 

one year of service.

Grantee Capacity and AmeriCorps Member Qualities, Preparedness, and Training 

The first year findings identified several aspects of grantee capacity that affect implementation 

effectiveness:

• Grant administration and program operation challenges, program operation, and member 

management challenges from the grantee perspective

• Use of data for targeting, monitoring, adapting instruction, and continuous program 

improvement

• Stakeholder perceptions of member commitment

• Member qualifications and preparation

• On-site coordinator

• Individual, personalized attention

Grant administration and program operation challenges. Despite generally positive perceptions of 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs, stakeholders described several challenges commonly 

associated with operating programs in dynamic school environments undergoing major school reform.18

Some of these challenges, described below, reflect schools’ limited capacity to benefit fully from the 

program, such as school staff and resource constraints, while others are outside of the program scope and 

member control, including challenges with family supports, outreach, and involvement. Grantees also 

reported a consistent set of challenges with grant administration and program implementation, 

challenges that directly reflect their own capacity to effectively implement the program. The most 

prevalent themes related to grant administration were challenges with late starts, especially in the initial 

year and among programs without prior AmeriCorps experience, which prevented them from being 

ready on the first day of school; member recruitment/retention; keeping up with the volume of data for 

the program; partnership barriers; and communication difficulties between programs and schools.

Member management challenges. Grantees described several challenges associated with member 

management, including aligning the funding cycle with school calendars, which affected member 

recruitment and placement, sufficiently training members for their service, confusion among school staff 

about members’ roles and responsibilities, and time management for members given conflicting 

priorities. The majority of programs also reported challenges with matching members to placements, 

17 Sources: school leader and school staff surveys, principal, grantee, member, and parent interviews and focus 

groups. 

18 Sources: grantee, member interviews and focus groups, case studies. 

nationalservice.gov 26

 
including tutoring/mentoring groups that exceeded the target ratios, members’ inability to access 

students during the school day, slow build-up of caseloads, and member retention.

Use of data for targeting, monitoring, adapting instruction, and continuous program improvement. The 

most prominent strategy reported by grantees for dealing with member placement, caseloads, and 

retention issues was to engage school leaders, administrators, and/or teachers, particularly early in the 

year. Several programs reported that their approach to addressing caseload/management issues was to 

rely on supervisory staff who worked closely with members and used data to manage caseloads and 

match students to members. Members routinely reviewed data provided by the program or teachers to 

assess the effectiveness of their interventions and plan for future lessons.19

Stakeholder perceptions of member commitment. School leaders and staff familiar with the program had 

consistently positive perceptions of AmeriCorps members, and were satisfied with the program’s

implementation as well as with the overall quality of School Turnaround AmeriCorps programming.20

The majority of principals acknowledged their members’ contributions as positive and praised their 

motivation and commitment to the school’s mission, their personal maturity, and their ability to apply 

their prior service or education-focused experiences in the school.

Member qualities and preparedness. Members’ qualities and preparedness stood out as one manifestation 

of grantee capacity to deliver quality programming to partner schools. In several instances, principals 

characterized AmeriCorps members as “near peers” and role models who could relate to students in 

different ways than permanent school staff could. Their ability to create a bridge between student and 

teacher relationships strengthened the linkages between the schools, students, and their families, and 

supported both students and the staff’s capacity—for example, by being able to intervene in situations 

before disciplinary action needed to be taken.21 However, a 

vocal minority of school leaders described a mismatch between 

members’ backgrounds and the skills schools most need and 

desire; the specific areas cited included members’ lack of 

practical experience and insufficient training to work in school 

settings, particularly in behavior management and conflict 

resolution techniques; members’ lack of cultural competence; 

and members’ youth, immaturity, and lack of professionalism.22

These comments contrasted with reports from the 

overwhelming majority of school leaders, as well as teachers 

and parents, that highlighted the benefits of members’ youth and energy in helping to foster relationship 

with students and in infusing fresh outlooks and approaches in the school climate.23 While training gaps 

can be addressed, the challenge member youth and inexperience highlights an inherent tension in the 

program model: over 80 percent of members were in their late teens to late 20s, and over 50 percent were 

between 22 and 24 years old when they enrolled in AmeriCorps. Though people of any age can become 

Members as Student Role 

Models

“Even if they don't necessarily 

get the academics right away, 

they have something to strive for 

and they have role models to 

look up to. That's really big."

- Member Interview

nationalservice.gov 27

 

19 Sources: member and grantee interviews, case studies. 

20 Sources: school leader and school staff surveys, principal and grantee interviews, case studies. 

21 Sources: principal interviews, member interviews, case studies. 

22 Source: principal interviews. 

23 Sources: parent interviews, case studies. 
AmeriCorps members (and indeed, a handful of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members are in their 

60s and 70s), the program tends to attract youth and young adults.24

Member training. Both members and principals discussed the needfor training that sufficiently addresses 

the breadth of content and behavioral knowledge and skills that 

members need once placed in a school. The long list of topics 

included both broader educational topics as well as topics 

specific to school contexts, such as establishing appropriate 

professional boundaries for interactions with students, 

developing sensitivity to cultural and economic differences, and 

learning strategies for managing student behavior issues with a 

heavier focus on the day-to-day challenges they are likely to face. 

On-site coordinator. Having an on-site coordinator helped strengthen relationships between program 

and school stakeholders; on-site coordinators also served as professional mentors and resources for 

members. For example, a coordinator could engage members in peer support activities, serve as the onsite point person, and address member-specific questions, concerns and/or issues, including tracking 

member availability and level of service provided.

Individual, personalized attention. One widely used approach to delivery of direct services was tightly 

interrelated with the relationship-building mechanism: provision of individual, personalized attention. 

Members noted the close ties between mentorship, academic support, and attendance coaching. Building 

relationships with students was a key aspect of member-student interaction and also a core component of 

mentoring. Principals described mentoring as being embedded within other services members provided. 

They also reported that members leveraged their academic and personal relationships with students to 

understand students’ lives more holistically, through 

outreach to parents via attendance coaching, parent 

nights, socials, and parent-teacher conferences where 

members served as translators and helped involve 

parents in their children’s academic lives. The 

demographic composition of student populations in 

schools served in this sample, with large populations of 

English language learners (ELLs) or students with 

disabilities (SWDs), highlights the additional academic 

supports some students in turnaround schools need and 

might explain why this strategy is particularly effective. 

Member Roles and Behavior 

Management

“I would recommend they 

expand the roles we are in. How 

much behavior management is 

part of our job is huge."

- Member Focus Group

nationalservice.gov 28

 

Personalized Attention and 

Differentiated Instruction

“[AmeriCorps members improved the 

effectiveness of classroom instruction] by 

providing supplemental help to my 

students, providing differentiated 

instruction...They need small group help, 

and [AmeriCorps members] provide that."

-Principal interview

Schools’ Capacity to Manage External Resources and School Leader Attitudes, Behaviors, and 

Leadership

Schools’ capacity to manage external resources and leverage external partner resources was a major 

precondition for effective program implementation, a requirement that grantees may overlook or 

underestimate at the outset of partnerships with a school. Several components of school capacity emerged 

from the first-year findings, including having an on-site coordinator and supporting and freeing up staff 

time to focus on other activities and school leaders’ attitudes, behaviors, and leadership.

On-site coordinator role. The on-site coordinator enhanced schools’ capacity to integrate members into 

the school culture, target students in need of AmeriCorps services, and manage members’ day-to-day 

24 Corporation for National and Community Service. e-Grants service location and member data as of 2014-15 for 

the 2014-2015 school year.
work and relationships with the school. Moreover, having this role in place could greatly influence school 

leaders' perception of whether external resources are useful. Using school staff in program administration 

roles increases the school’s capacity to manage external partners and volunteers. Enlisting school leaders 

in planning how to best use AmeriCorps services to support turnaround efforts, through interviewing 

members and selecting them for placement at the school, is another promising practice for building 

school capacity to make good use of external partner resources. These practices were all observed in some 

form in participating schools.

Supporting and freeing up staff time to focus on other activities. Organizing and managing volunteering 

efforts effectively clearly helps schools capitalize on all outside resources more effectively. In some cases, 

AmeriCorps members built schools’ capacity to implement their turnaround strategies by supporting

school faculty and staff in enhancing their skills. For example, members’ participation in planning 

meetings—working with school leaders and teachers to identify and monitor student needs and progress 

(academic and non-academic)—supported teachers’ capacity to plan, analyze, reflect on, and adjust their 

instructional approaches accordingly. To the extent that teacher effectiveness is a mediator of student 

outcomes, supporting teachers should presumably contribute to enhancing the school’s capacity.

School leaders’ attitudes, behaviors, and leadership: program restrictions and requirements. Principals’ 

evolving understanding of the program rules from the first to the second year appeared to influence their 

perceptions about the value of AmeriCorps resources and how they could usefully deploy them to 

support their turnaround efforts. Some principals welcomed the second year’s new emphasis on 

collaboration and co-planning with the program; others reported feeling constrained by the rules and 

desired greater flexibility in deciding how to use AmeriCorps resources in their schools. 

School leaders’ attitudes, behaviors, and leadership: member role confusion. Both grantee staff and 

members described challenges with clarifying members’ roles with school administrators and staff 

members. The confusion over members’ roles in the schools appeared to reflect several types of 

miscommunication, the most prevalent of which was miscommunication between the school partner 

(usually the administration) and the program and its members. As noted above, members perceived that

school administrators too often were unaware of what AmeriCorps members could and could not do 

within their schools under program rules. This miscommunication was compounded by insufficient 

communication within the school, between school leadership and school staff. In some cases, teachers had 

not participated in planning or decision-making discussions, which meant that teachers did not 

understand members’ roles or the substantive contributions members could make to the school. In other 

cases, members reported that the school had misconceptions about their role, assuming they could be 

pulled away from their regular responsibilities to serve as substitute teachers or test proctors or be 

deployed for other miscellaneous tasks. 

School leaders’ attitudes, behaviors, and leadership: pipeline for future staff. Tensions between programs 

and schools may also have reflected a mismatch between schools’ needs and what services members 

could legitimately provide. The tensions may also have reflected that some principals perceived the 

AmeriCorps service as a pipeline for identifying future staff members. Unlike regular school personnel, 

schools’ significant human capital investments in the AmeriCorps members are typically shorter term 

and not intended to be sustained in future years. Resources allocated to AmeriCorps members can help 

build schools’ capacity to implement turnaround goals in the short term but cannot build human resource 

capacity over the longer term, particularly when a new group of inexperienced members enters lowperforming schools at the start of each year. Furthermore, AmeriCorps member turnover can add to the 

instability such schools already face due to high student and teacher turnover. This issue, to some degree, 

is a matter of perspective: school leaders understandably think about capacity in terms of building 

human capital over the longer term, whereas the underlying premise of the AmeriCorps program model 

nationalservice.gov 29
is that grantees establish partnerships and work with schools throughout their three-year funding period 

to effectively deploy and manage short-term infusions of human capital that typically serve in schools for 

one-year terms. 

School leaders’ attitudes, behaviors, and leadership: receptivity toward using external resources.

Effective deployment of AmeriCorps members to accomplish short-term goals (within a single year) 

while supporting schools’ longer-term turnaround goals is clearly a challenge. In some cases, schools’ 

limited understanding of the AmeriCorps program has resulted in a perception that the program 

represents a greater burden than benefit to schools. However, improving school leaders’ understanding 

of the AmeriCorps program model would not change the crucial benefit of students’ building strong 

relationships with caring, trusted adults and near-peers who bridge the gap between students’ 

perspectives and experiences and the goals, needs, and pressures on schools to improve student academic 

performance. Indeed, the unequivocal importance of member relationship building and bonding with 

students surfaced as an inherent limitation of the AmeriCorps one-year term of service and resourceinfusion program model when implemented in schools challenged by instability; faculty turnover; 

pressure to improve student academic performance; and student behavioral, attendance, behavioral 

health, and engagement issues. In fact, it points to how the limited term of member service can create 

tension with one of the most important mechanisms of the program, which is building strong

relationships with students.

Given the variations in context and the dynamic school environments in which members are placed, 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs are experiencing growing pains, as are the schools while in 

the process of using available resources to turn around. Although programs like School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps are providing additional resources, not all schools appear to be ready to use resources 

available to them when first introduced. The implication for programs that lack a strong communication 

and coordination strategy is that low-achieving schools do not have the capacity to capitalize on even the 

most talented and dedicated AmeriCorps resources.

Planning, Communication, and Collaboration of the Partners, Including Teacher Collaboration and 

Supports 

As the first three themes demonstrate, 

relationship building is foundational for 

service programs to successfully forge 

partnerships in schools; at the same time, 

grantees and schools must bring certain 

competencies and capacities to the 

partnership. In particular, AmeriCorps 

member qualifications and school leader 

buy-in appeared to strongly influence 

implementation effectiveness. With these 

conditions in place, grantees and schools 

were better positioned to conduct the work 

of the partnership, which is highly 

collaborative in nature. In fact, the findings 

related to this theme are consistent with 

CNCS program guidance on elements of strong partnerships that grantees should pursue with their 

school partners: managing collaboratively, sharing data, sharing resources, articulating specific roles and 

responsibilities, aligning in-school and out-of-school strategies, coordinating to promote student 

supports, and cooperating on family engagement (Corporation for National and Community Service, 

Building Relationships at the Local Level

“There really needs to be a planning term before 

School Turnaround programs can launch if they're 

brand new, and/or if they're embedded within a school 

district.... I think sometimes, at the federal level, this 

is a really unique partnership between [ED and 

CNCS], and that's great, but when you rush through a 

federal partnership, I think sometimes you end up 

rushing the end product, which is service programs. 

And it can jeopardize relationships with schools, 

school staff, school superintendents, [and] school 

principals, when you rush into the process before 

they're really ready to launch.”

-Grantee interview response

nationalservice.gov 30
Announcement of Federal Funding Opportunity, School Turnaround AmeriCorps FY13, Appendix B: 

Written Partnership Agreements). 

Program start-up and partnership agreements. Grantees and schools engaged in considerable planning, 

communication, and collaboration to start up School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs.25 Creating 

partnership agreements involved defining roles and responsibilities as well as describing how partners 

would manage collaboratively or their strategies for doing so. Though the level of detail varied, most 

partnership agreements specified resource-sharing expectations, such as work space and materials for 

members and site supervisors, access to the students themselves, and involvement with stakeholders, 

particularly teachers and counselors.

Communication, planning and coordination. Both grantees and school leaders characterized their 

interactions as highly collaborative, with regular communication and collaboration. Grantees and schools 

planned and collaborated with varying degrees of success to clearly define members’ roles, create staffing 

structures for on-site supervision, align interventions with school needs, and schedule AmeriCorps 

services to align with school and classroom schedules. The strategies used included participation in 

planning meetings during the summer months, frequent communication during the school year, and 

participation in district- or school-based meetings or regular meetings for teachers and members to 

discuss students’ academic progress. To varying degrees, grantee and school partners also collaborated to 

recruit and place members in schools, organize member activities, and collect data for monitoring 

program success. There were clear benefits when programs and schools had strong and regular 

communication—and clear downsides when they did not. 

Teacher collaboration and supports. Strategies involving collaboration between teachers and members 

were particularly important for effectively providing services to students, as well as for providing 

supports to teachers. Members reported that they most frequently collaborated with teachers, identifying 

students for tutoring, supporting differentiated instruction, or discussing student progress based on 

student data to help tailor instruction.26 The importance of collaboration also resonated in both School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps and comparison schools where school leaders and staff perceived partners’ 

activities as more effective when closely aligned with the school’s curriculum, teaching techniques, and 

specific school goals. Interventions not well-aligned were perceived not only as less effective but 

sometimes even as detrimental. In addition, AmeriCorps members who served in classrooms provided 

helpful supports to teachers by making classroom management easier and providing wider and more 

services than school staff were able to provide on their own. 

External Factors Beyond Program Scope and/or Member Control

External factors also affected the success of program services in improving student outcomes and school 

climate. These included students’ home environments and the broader context of the school district—

factors that were generally beyond the school’s control, the program scope, and member control. For the 

most part, nearly all of the external factors stakeholders described were perceived as barriers and 

challenges to program implementation and success.27

These challenges were associated with working in fluid school contexts that experienced frequent churn 

of staff and students. The large majority of schools in the study sample were implementing the 

“turnaround” or “transformation” school improvement model, both of which typically require 

25 Sources: grantee and member interviews, principal interviews, case studies, partnership agreements. 

26 Source: member interviews. 

27 Sources: surveys, grantee and member focus groups and interviews, principal interviews, case studies. 

nationalservice.gov 31

 
substantial changes in school leadership and staff. The school contexts were also characterized by 

relatively high rates of principal turnover and limited instructional staff experience, patterns consistent 

with national trends. Thus, change is a consistent feature of schools in turnaround status, and turnover in 

both administrative and instructional roles meant that some grantees had no choice but to reintroduce 

their programs repeatedly to incoming school leaders and staff.

While turnover is built into some turnaround models, it presented challenges to grantees attempting to 

build new relationships and earn buy-in from leaders and/or staff not present earlier in the program’s 

history. Each year’s new teachers needed to be on-boarded to the program so they could understand the 

role(s) members were to play in their classrooms and schools, what members could and could not 

legitimately offer teachers and students, and how to effectively work with members. One grantee 

reported decreased engagement from new school leadership who had not participated in bringing the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program to the school.

While members can play a big difference in students’ lives, their sphere of influence within host schools

may be quite limited. One grantee emphasized the importance of conveying to members that they must 

accept their host schools’ structure and hierarchy: “That's something else that you have to really instill in 

the members ...you're going to see things done in the schools and you might not agree with them, but 

we're not there to change policy or we're not there—we can't—we don't have the capability to do that, but 

we focus on our kids. We're there for those kids ... And we have to think about what we can change.”

This sentiment was also echoed by a principal who observed that while members may react strongly to 

aspects of school life and culture they perceive as unfair, they (the members) also need to learn that 

districts and schools have policies and procedures in place that cannot arbitrarily be changed by an 

AmeriCorps member. 

Perceived Impacts of AmeriCorps Services in Supporting School Turnaround Efforts: Summary

This section addresses the broad research question, “What are the perceived impacts of the program in 

supporting a school’s turnaround plan and achieving its desired outcomes?” It draws from interviews 

and/or surveys of multiple respondents, including school leaders, school staff, grantees, members, and 

parents, and also pulls from such existing data sources as grantee progress reports and student level 

administrative data.28

Overall, primary source respondents indicated that the School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program had

positive impacts, both broadly, in terms of its perceived impact on the schools as a whole, and more 

specifically, in terms of influencing key aspects of schools’ turnaround efforts, such as student academic 

performance, school climate and students’ attendance, behavior, and socio-emotional well-being. 

Multiple respondents—both those who work in turnaround schools and those whose children attend 

such schools—expressed perceptions that the program overall is somewhat or very successful. Not 

surprisingly, school leaders and staff focused on the program’s success in helping schools overall, as well 

as the program’s contributions to improving school climate, students’ socio-emotional health, and 

student achievement. Parents, also not surprisingly, focused on the program’s contributions to helping 

their children, and a majority of parents noted that they had observed changes in their children after they 

began to receive services from the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program (see Exhibit II-4). 

28 Analysis of the last two data sources is subject to the limitations of grantee progress reports and administrative 

data described in the section titled “Potential Uses and Challenges of Administrative Data.”

nationalservice.gov 32

 
Exhibit II-4: Vignette of Parent’s Perceived Impact of Program

“I think the program has been great for her. She’s an only child so for her it’s been great. I think it’s 

helped a lot in her social skills because she’s exposed [to] more than just the kids in her classroom. And it 

allows her to interact with different people and college students and other parents and get the help she 

needs with her homework. So I think she’s become more sociable. She needs help with her reading and all 

that kinds of stuff, but the school’s great with that, with—they have a program for that that she’s in. So 

that’s wonderful, and she likes the fact that there’s other adults there to help or other kids, older kids to 

help her with let’s say math problems or some writing assignment. So I think it’s been great. I think it’s 

been positive for her.”

nationalservice.gov 33

The overwhelming majority of school leaders reported that School Turnaround efforts–including the 

contributions of AmeriCorps members—had led to improved student outcomes. School leaders ranked 

academic achievement as the highest priority among their turnaround goals, followed by increased 

motivation and increased attendance. School staff ranked goals similarly, listing academic achievement 

first, and then increased attendance, followed by improved grades. However, some staff also indicated 

that they did not know which specific students were actually served by the program. Grantees also 

ranked school turnaround goals, and their priorities differed slightly; while grantees also listed academic 

achievement as the most important turnaround goal, they ranked improved grades second, whereas 

school leaders and staff prioritized motivation over grades (see Exhibit II-5 below).

Exhibit II-5: Grantee, School Leader, and School Staff Perceptions of Most Important Student 

Outcomes in Next Two Years (2014–15) 

School Turnaround Outcomes

Rank of Importance

Grantees School Leaders School Staff

Mean Rankings 

(Standard 

Deviations)

Mean Rankings 

(Standard Errors)

Mean Rankings 

(Standard Errors)

Enhanced academic achievement 2.8 (2.7) 1.5 (0.3) 2.6 (0.2)

Improved grades 3.5 (2.4) 4.1 (0.7) 4.3 (0.2)

Improved attendance 4.1 (1.9) 4.4 (0.8) 4.5 (0.2)

Increased motivation 4.3 (2.0) 3.5 (0.4) 3.4 (0.2)

Improved behavior 4.6 (1.7) 6.4 (0.6) 4.4 (0.2)

Improved completion of assignments 5.4 (1.9) 5.8 (0.7) 4.8 (0.2)

Improved socio-emotional health 5.5 (2.5) 5.0 (0.5) 4.1 (0.2)

Increased self-esteem 5.8 (2.0) 4.5 (0.4) 4.2 (0.2)

NOTES: Ranks range from 1–9, with 1 as the most important; not all responses were necessarily ranked by 

respondents. Means are calculated based on responses only from those who ranked the option. One grantee noted 

that responses to this item would differ across that grantee’s schools and nonetheless ranked the outcomes’ 

importance across all schools.

Three school leader respondents and seven school staff respondents listed and ranked an "other" outcome.

Grantees (N=13, Missing=0)

No school leader respondents indicated that this question was not applicable. (N=38, Missing=0)

Ten school staff respondents indicated that this question was not applicable. (N=205, Missing=0)

Table rows are sorted according to outcomes rated highest first—recall that the highest ranking is a “1” on this scale--

so rankings are in ascending order, sorted by grantees’ mean rankings.

Exhibit reads: Grantees ranked "enhanced academic achievement" as the most important student outcome, with a 

mean ranking of 2.8 on a 9-point scale. School leaders and school staff ranked “enhanced academic achievement” as 

the most important student outcome, with a mean ranking of 1.5 and 2.6, respectively, on a 9-point scale.
SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q10, School Leader Survey Q10, Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q11 (“What do 

you consider to be the most important school turnaround outcomes for students over the next two years?”) 

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program on Student Outcomes

Stakeholders’ perceptions of the specific student outcomes influenced by the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program were largely similar, although the rankings differed modestly. While school leaders 

answered questions about how the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program had affected student 

outcomes for the prior (2013–14) school year, school staff and grantees answered similar questions about 

the current (2014–15) school year.29 Despite the fact that respondents were answering questions about 

different time periods, there are some interesting patterns and similarities across stakeholder groups. 

Specifically, two distinct patterns emerged from the survey findings. One, school-based respondents—

both school administrators and staff—were either unaware of whether the program had led to 

improvements in certain areas, such as motivation or self-esteem, or did not know which students had 

been served by the program and therefore could not assess whether there had been improvement on 

student outcomes (see Exhibits III-6 and III-7, and also see Appendix Exhibits A-27 and A-47). Two, 

stakeholders’ perceptions of improvement track closely with their rankings of the most important student 

outcomes shown in Exhibit II-4 above (i.e., the program has contributed to improvement in students’ 

academic achievement). Improved socio-emotional health and behavior were generally rated lower on 

the list of improved outcomes by both grantees and school staff.

Understanding how improvement in student outcomes translates into students’ day-to-day behaviors can 

best be described by school staff who know which students participate in School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps activities. These staff reported significant or moderate improvements in participating 

students’ classroom or classwork behaviors—measured by students who are attentive in class, participate 

in class, get along well with other students, and come to school motivated to learn (see Exhibit II-6). 

Generally, about twice as many staff reported moderate rather than significant levels of improvement for 

students.

29 Across respondent types, the data collection protocols focused on implementation during the current school year 

(2014-15) except in several cases where it was more appropriate to reflect on the prior school year. To explain the 

discrepancy described here, grantees were asked about the current year’s student outcomes because they were 

surveyed toward the end of the school year (spring of 2015) whereas school leaders were surveyed much earlier 

in the school year (early winter of 2014). The school staff survey was fielded slightly later than school leaders so 

school staff were also asked about student outcomes for the current year.

nationalservice.gov 34

 
Exhibit II-6: School Staff Perceptions of Changes in Student Behavior (2014–15)

nationalservice.gov 35

NOTES: See Appendix Exhibits A-57 and A-58 for tables with all response options.

Ninety-five percent confidence intervals (represented by black capped lines) may not be symmetric because the 

upper bound is limited to 100 percent and the lower bound is limited to 0 percent.

Responses were limited to individual school staff who had worked with at least one student in the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Each respondent was asked about one students whose last name starts with a 

letter closest to “A” and one student whose last name starts with a letter closest to “Z.” Each student is counted 

separately in this graph. (N=190, Missing=6–9)

Bars are sorted in descending order by the proportion of students for whom school staff reported significant 

improvement.

Exhibit reads: School staff perceived observing significant and moderate improvement in an estimated 28 percent and 

51 percent of students, respectively. With 95 percent confidence, the proportion of all participating students 

perceived to have improved significantly or moderately in their class participation falls between 70 and 90 percent. 

SOURCE: Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q20 (“Since beginning to work with a School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps member(s), to the best of your knowledge, to what extent has student with the last name closest to the 

beginning of the alphabet changed his or her behavior in terms of ... ”) - Q21 (“To the best of your knowledge, to 

what extent has student with the last name closest to the end of the alphabet changed his or her behavior in terms of 

... “) 

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program on School Climate and Community 

Involvement

Across multiple stakeholders, findings point to several ways in which School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs have had positive impacts on the host schools. These include contributions to school 

improvement generally, contributions to school culture, and both general and targeted contributions to 

improvements for participating students. While perceptions from school administrators and staff are all 

generally positive, schools leaders’ perceptions are consistently (albeit moderately) more positive than 

their school staff colleagues. Members and grantee staff reported that their efforts, and those of previous 
School Turnaround AmeriCorps cohorts, have effectively 

allowed their schools to turn around pervasive behavioral 

problems so that schools can then focus more on 

academics. A majority of parents reported that School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps interventions have improved 

their children’s academic performance and 

simultaneously improved their students’ engagement and 

enthusiasm about school. One mother of a special needs 

student noted members’ positive effect on her child’s 

socio-emotional health (see textbox). Some parents also 

reported becoming more aware of or involved with events at their child’s school as a result of the 

program. The case study schools also reported that the partnership with School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

contributed to improvements in school climate and community engagement,

The sections above synthesize stakeholder perceptions from survey and interview data. The findings are 

remarkably consistent and positive overall. While there are some modest variations in priority rankings 

of the outcomes most influenced by School Turnaround AmeriCorps, for example, the different 

stakeholders all agree that the program has had an impact on schools’ capacity to implement their 

turnaround plans. That perceived overall program impact then translates into positive perceptions of 

impact on the various targeted goals.

Members’ Positive Effects on 

Students

“Even when she feels bad she 

wants to go to school, so that lets 

me know that they are doing 

something to make her want to 

come back.”

- Parent interview

Comparing Stakeholder Perceptions to Administrative Outcomes Data

This section summarizes insights from analyses of grantees’ performance reports and of the quality and 

completeness of grantees’ student-level outcomes data. 

None of the grantees planned to report on all performance measures. Grantees had indicated that they 

planned to report on anywhere from two to four performance targets. Where available, analysis drew 

from explanations provided in the GPRs as well, although grantees were required only to provide 

explanations for not meeting their targets; they were not required to report any additional information 

when they met or exceeded a target. 

The major findings from the GPR analyses indicated that grantees varied widely in whether they met 

performance targets. Three grantees met all of their performance measure targets (four, two, and two 

targets, respectively). Three other grantees met none of their performance measure targets (four, three, 

and two targets, respectively). Each of the remaining seven grantees met at least one performance target, 

and also failed to meet at least one target.

The analyses of student-level data quality aid in assessing changes in grantees’ capacity to collect and 

process such data and, when data quality is good or usable, can also be used to gauge programs’ success 

in achieving desired program outcomes. Comparative cohort analyses for student-level achievement, 

attendance, and behavior outcomes, which permit comparison of outcomes from different groups of 

students in the same grades from different school years, could be performed only for grantees whose data 

met predetermined data thresholds. However, only two grantees’ data met these criteria; therefore, crossprogram cohort analysis of student-level outcomes data was not possible. 

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Case Study Findings: Comparative Analysis, Lessons Learned, and Implications about Using 

Partners

Case Studies Overview

This section presents the findings of case studies of six pairs of schools—six schools with School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program members and six similar and nearby schools without program 

members. All case studies describe schools’ efforts to meet their respective turnaround plan goals during 

the 2014–15 school year, focusing specifically on the roles of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members, 

other volunteers, external support staff, and other external partners who helped to support school 

turnaround activities in the 2014–15 year.

By comparing treatment schools to otherwise similar schools with little to no AmeriCorps support, the 

comparative case studies describe a broad range of turnaround efforts across all SIG schools and help 

identify the unique contributions of School Turnaround AmeriCorps. Case study comparisons 

specifically examined how partnerships contributed to schools’ improvement efforts, what strategies 

were used by external partners, the range of strategies used across case study schools, and school 

stakeholders’ perceptions of the impact of these additional resources on key turnaround outcomes. Case 

studies also documented common challenges and best practices that could be replicated by other 

turnaround schools. 

School leaders, administrators, support staff, and teachers were interviewed by phone at four pairs of 

case study schools (eight schools) and in person at two pairs of schools (four schools). For telephone case 

studies, the research team interviewed the principal or vice principal and three to four staff members who 

were most familiar with AmeriCorps members’ work. Depending on the program’s design and members’ 

activities, the staff members interviewed included teachers—particularly for programs focused on 

academic support—and guidance counselors, for programs focused on attendance or socioemotional 

support. At site-visit schools, researchers interviewed school administrators and staff and convened a 

focus group with teachers about the roles of partners in the school. Finally, researchers used a structured 

observation protocol to note the physical condition of each school; signs of student and parental 

engagement; and interactions among staff, students, and members, as applicable.

School Turnaround AmeriCorps schools were chosen purposively to represent a range of grantees, 

geographic locations, and intervention types. Program schools served a range of grade levels (two 

elementary and four high schools), school size (e.g., high schools ranging from 338 to 1,489 students), and 

locations (one each rural and suburban, four urban, and four regions of the country). Program schools 

also varied in the types of interventions provided, which included attendance support, literacy tutoring, 

college preparation, and mentoring. The number of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members ranged 

from one in a suburban high school to 22 members providing mentoring to every student in a rural high 

school. These variations illustrate the wide variety of School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs based on 

differing school needs, district and school partnerships, and grantee capacity.

Comparison schools were chosen based on several criteria:

• Comparable SIG status

• Similar grade levels served

• Similar student demographic and enrollment characteristics

• Same district, or at a minimum, same urbanicity in the same state

• Having little to no AmeriCorps presence

Comparative case studies identified the partnership strategies used at a sample of schools with and 

without School Turnaround AmeriCorps members. There are, however, several limitations of the 

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comparison group selection. Notably, comparison schools were not selected on the basis of having 

external partners. Half of comparison schools made use of external partners, ranging from periodic visits 

from volunteers to a large number of fully curriculum-integrated partners present for the full year. Half 

the comparison schools either had no partners or only received additional support from parents, such as 

through the parent-teacher organization. In two cases, comparison schools provided additional academic 

support to students through teachers offering after-school and weekend tutoring; in one school, the 

school leader expressed a strong preference for providing these supports internally. In the other case, the 

school’s remote rural location adversely affected its ability to develop external partnerships. One 

comparison school and two program schools had support from an AmeriCorps program other than 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps. This range of partnership strategies, while not a representative sample, 

illustrates the considerable variation in the approaches and composition of resources available to SIG 

schools as they attempt to improve their performance.

The next section presents a synthesis of learnings from across the sample of case studies, followed by 

specific lessons learned about working with partners. Lessons are drawn from all program and 

comparison schools that identified common challenges and best practices about working with partners 

generally and with School Turnaround AmeriCorps specifically. Individual case studies are presented in 

Chapter III, Part 2, Case Study Findings. 

Case Study Comparative Analysis

There was considerable variation in case study schools’ School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs, 

reflecting the real-world variation of programs and schools. For example, the size of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps cohorts ranged from one member (in School 6A) whose responsibility was tracking student 

truancy, to 22 members responsible for mentoring all students in the high school where they served

(School 5A).30 School Turnaround AmeriCorps served as an external partner to each of the case study 

program schools, and were one of multiple partners in five of six program schools, where there were 

between four and 20 other partners, including two schools with other AmeriCorps programs. The 

partners provided supports on a range of issues, from tutoring to parental engagement, social support 

services, wellness, and mentoring. Generally, the non-AmeriCorps programs (School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps and other AmeriCorps models) offered services that occurred less frequently and were less 

intensive than the year-long (often full-time) service of AmeriCorps members. Based on the small number 

of case studies, it is unclear whether hosting a School Turnaround AmeriCorps program builds school 

capacity to manage partners and volunteers, or whether schools with pre-existing capacity for managing 

such resources are predisposed to host AmeriCorps programs. Given that the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program was in its second year, and partnerships at many of the schools were longerstanding, it may be that higher-capacity schools were better able to manage new AmeriCorps programs. 

How School Turnaround AmeriCorps members supported schools’ goals and augmented other resources 

(in-house and external) varied based on how the schools defined needs and then matched those needs to 

the number of AmeriCorps members. One program school in the Midwest (School 6A), for example, had 

only one AmeriCorps member in the 2014–15 school year (down from two in the previous year), and 

assigned that member to narrowly defined responsibilities: monitoring truancy among 30 at-risk 

students. Another school, in the West (School 3A), used its six members to provide math tutoring to all

third and fourth grade (and some fifth grade) students. Only at one school did members serve all 

students—a high school (School 5A) with the largest cohort of members (22) who were able to divide up 

30 All schools are referred to by identifiers to preserve respondents’ and schools’ confidentiality. All program 

schools are School “A” and all comparison schools are School “B,” with numbers indicating different sites.

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the student body into manageable caseloads for mentoring (albeit larger caseloads than intended because 

of difficulty recruiting and member turnover).

Geography and urbanicity appeared to influence schools’ capacity to leverage external partners for their 

turnaround goals. Urban areas offered more partnership opportunities and a broader range of services 

than rural schools that had few (or no) partnerships. One district, for example, a large eastern city (the 

largest district in the case study sample), had the two schools—one program and one comparison school 

(2A and 2B)—with the largest number of partnerships. Both these schools noted, however, that the 

breadth and intensity of their partnerships meant that the school relied on external resources for many 

core functions. That situation can impose a heavy burden on schools when partnerships are not working 

well, because it means core needs are not being met—whether because of weak performance by a partner 

or because the school is not able to provide adequate support and coordination to all of its many partners. 

This program school (2A) and another in a Midwestern city (School 6A) both characterized themselves as 

“community schools” and each one brought in a wide variety of resources for students and their 

families—not only academic support but access to healthy food; psychiatric, medical, and dental care; 

youth development programs; and more. The rural schools in the sample had few (or no) partnerships, in 

one case because the school (School 6B) did not have structures for managing volunteers. One other 

school (School 1B) indicated its structural barriers prevented it from bringing in external partners; 

however, the school leader’s strong preference for addressing issues through internal initiatives may 

have been more relevant than structural barriers.

Case study findings corroborated findings from other data sources that relationship building between 

members and other external partners was viewed as a fundamental mechanism for delivering successful 

interventions. Having students build positive relationships with more adults was a positive outcome for 

all six program schools, and for partnerships at two comparison schools. In these schools, students were 

perceived to become more academically engaged and have fewer behavioral needs when engaging in 

positive relationships with partners.

Another major avenue through which the program created benefits was in enhancing the capacity of 

school staff (three programs) by, for example, easing classroom management and providing wider and 

more services than school staff were able to provide on their own. Several schools also emphasized the 

importance of parent and community engagement to their turnaround efforts. Two program schools had 

members participate in parent engagement. In one case (School 2A), members participated in home visits 

led by another school partner and supported parent nights at school. In the other case (School 3A), 

members’ outreach to parents was less structured and appeared to depend on individual members’ 

motivations to provide these services rather than a coherent outreach strategy. Three comparison schools 

also described parent engagement; two schools used parent-teacher organizations (PTOs) as a significant 

source of external support (Schools 3B and 6B), and one school (School 2B) employed an external partner 

to lead a robust parent engagement strategy.

Few schools overall described strong formal channels for using data monitoring to plan and tailor 

interventions. Two program schools (1A and 2A) described specific ways that members and teachers 

collaborated regularly to review data and plan for upcoming interventions. One program school (4A) had 

used a formal data monitoring system but discontinued it; instead, the coordinator—not members—met 

with teachers periodically to plan for members’ interventions with specific students. However, teachers at 

this school reported that these planning sessions were too infrequent. Two comparison schools also 

described tracking data generated by partners’ interventions and using it to tailor instruction. One school 

(2B) tracked data with partners at different intervals for different partners but less frequently than 

desired by the administration. Two comparison schools (Schools 2B and 4B) employed consultants to 

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train teachers on how to incorporate data assessment into their teaching practice; in one case (4B), the 

intensity of the training was perceived as insufficient to make the desired impact at the school.

Four comparison schools placed significant emphasis on professional development supports, which may 

highlight the importance of internal initiatives when a turnaround school is not receiving much external 

support to achieve its goals. Administrators and teachers at two of these schools observed that teachers 

can more effectively provide additional supports than volunteers or outside organizations because of 

their mastery of content and experience with managing student behavior (teachers at one additional 

comparison school also shared this sentiment). Note that these comparison schools’ emphasis on 

professional development does not mean that program schools ignored professional development, but 

rather that program school respondents spent more time describing School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs in greater detail.

The perceived impacts of having external partners were most pronounced for socioemotional health, 

followed by academic engagement and academic achievement. All six program schools remarked on the 

positive socio-emotional benefits to students of AmeriCorps members’ service. One comparison school 

(School 5B) acknowledged the positive effect of sustained, supporting relationships between caring adults 

and students—in this case, teachers who provided extra tutoring and got to know students personally. 

Further, four program schools noted that students’ positive relationships with School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members made them more motivated and academically engaged. In turn, schools were 

anticipating they might see improved academic achievement, but this had not been substantiated yet by 

data.31 Four program schools also described their AmeriCorps members as contributing positively to the 

school’s culture (Schools 1A, 2A, 3A and, to a lesser extent, 4A). This occurred primarily through 

members serving as positive role models, which made the school a more fun, engaging place for students. 

At two schools, members explicitly supported the school’s values: in one school (School 2A) by making 

behavioral interventions based on the school’s set of values and in the other (School 4A) by supporting 

that high school’s recent focus on developing a college-going culture.

In conclusion, partnerships with AmeriCorps and other outside organizations appeared more successful 

when there were organized strategies and planning about goals as well as coordination between the 

program and school. More details on specific lessons learned about working with partners are presented 

in the next section.

Lessons Learned and Implications about Using Partners

This section presents key lessons learned at both program and comparison schools about working with 

partners, based on challenges and best practices identified through the case studies. Primary lessons 

learned, shared by most schools in the sample, were the importance of effective communication with 

partners, including about schedules; the need to offer adequate supervision of partners; the importance of 

providing clear and frequent opportunities for school staff and partners to collaborate; and the 

imperative to align partners’ roles with school needs and priorities. Less prominent themes included the 

high value placed on interventions that support teachers and the positive impact of relationship building 

on both socio-emotional and academic outcomes.

Maintain Effective Communication with Partners

In most schools that relied on external partners (six program schools and one comparison school), there 

were clear benefits when programs and schools had strong and regular communication—and clear 

31 Teachers’ resistance to claim improved academic outcomes without achievement data indicates how seriously 

teachers and schools take the use of data.

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downsides when they did not. Effective communication flowed both between the school and partners

and within the school about the role of partners and how to collaborate with them. Sub-themes related to 

effective communication were clearly defining partner roles, having on-site supervision, and 

coordinating members’ and other partners’ services with school activities. The importance of effective 

communication was expressed in relation to the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program as well as for 

other partnerships at program and comparison schools.

Teachers at four program schools described a need for schools to provide communication that helps 

members be more effective. At three schools, teachers wanted more information—for example, from their 

departments—about activities members could and could not do. In one extreme case, members worked 

with guidance counselors on college prep activities, yet teachers had little or no information about 

members’ activities, which school leaders and administrators wanted to change. Teachers at another

school reflected on the importance of teachers mentoring members in their classrooms to model the skills 

needed for effective behavior management, lesson planning, and more.

Strategies and suggested improvements at program schools included having designated meeting times 

between members (or coordinators) and teachers to communicate about individual student needs and 

coordinate supports. Another strategy that was used consistently by two schools and inconsistently by 

two others was integrating members into the school community through active participation in faculty 

meetings, trainings, and other activities to help members learn as much about the school and students as 

possible; when well-used, this strategy helped members strengthen relationships with faculty as well as 

students. Two program schools explicitly emphasized that strong communication between members and 

teachers facilitated impact. At one school (School 1A), for example, having members participate in faculty 

meetings enabled teachers to identify members’ individual strengths and effectively use them. This 

strong collaboration was perceived to make the program more effective and ultimately of more benefit to 

the students.

Clearly Defining Members’ Roles Was a Challenge for School Turnaround AmeriCorps Programs

Unlike other partners who come in for targeted amounts of time to do a single specific activity, 

AmeriCorps members (especially full time members) are in schools all day. The intensity of their service 

can help them have impacts on students and schools overall turnaround goals; however, their steady 

presence on site can also lead to confusion about how they can and cannot contribute at the school. Staff 

at several program schools described needing more information about AmeriCorps members’ roles and 

responsibilities. In one program school (School 1A), administrators and school staff had frequent 

structured communication with members. Still, staff spoke of needing further clarification about 

members’ roles and responsibilities and of ensuring systems were in place so that teachers could lodge a 

complaint, express a concern, or ask a question.

One AmeriCorps school (School 6A) had one member serving whose role was to focus on identifying 

students with attendance troubles, intervening with those students through outreach, and 

communicating with the school staff about truant students. This narrowly defined role helped the 

member address a clear school need and staff were pleased with how his/her work supported the school. 

However, when the same member engaged in less well-defined activities, especially mentoring to 

potentially truant students, that posed a problem, as clear guidelines had not been established about 

when issues needed to be escalated to school staff, or about when and for how long the member could 

pull students from classes.

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Scheduling of Services to Align with School and Classroom Schedules

Scheduling was a concern for teachers at both program and comparison schools. At program schools, 

leaders and teachers reported inconsistency in knowing when members would be present, both because 

of professional development activities and occasionally because members simply did not appear. It was a 

concern when members’ schedules did not follow the school’s schedule, both for professional 

development and when members’ year of service ended before the school year ended. 

As indicated above, and as reflected in individual case studies, teachers faced another challenge when 

members’ activities disrupted instructional time, as occurred when members pulled students from classes 

at unexpected times or for unexpected lengths of time (Schools 5A and 6A), or when members arrived to 

give unannounced presentations in teachers’ classrooms (School 4A). Teachers also expressed frustration 

with receiving last-minute information about when students would be pulled from class. The same issue 

with disruption to instruction time was reported at a comparison school with many external partners. 

Adequate Supervision and Training Are Essential

Program and comparison schools alike described challenges with adequately supervising partners and 

having partners with the training needed to deliver content and manage student behavior.

Five of six program schools noted using a coordinator to supervise members. The supervisory structure

varied, ranging from a coordinator split among sites to a team of three supervisors for one school with 18 

members on site. In the latter case, this intensive supervision was part of a long-standing relationship 

with the grantee that also transcended the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, such as having 

regular communication with the grantee and hosting events at the school for the grantee organization. 

Two teachers noted that the performance of this year’s cohort was not as strong as that of the previous 

year—members struggled more to develop classroom skills and at least one member left partway through 

the year. However, the school’s history of effective partnership helped smooth out the school staff’s 

frustration with this particular cohort. The two schools where coordinators split their time across 

multiple schools (Schools 3A and 5A) discussed the negative effects of not having a dedicated 

coordinator. These two programs were perceived as less effective because the coordinator was neither 

readily available to communicate with school staff about members’ roles nor to coordinate with teachers 

about matching tutoring plans to teachers’ upcoming lesson plans. Having a dedicated coordinator on

site, whether from the grantee or school staff, could alleviate many of these issues. However, one school 

(School 4A) that used a teacher as an on-site coordinator struggled because of its difficulty retaining 

teachers (including the coordinator).

Additionally, teachers in one school (School 3A) lamented that members began the school year with 

insufficient knowledge of effective behavior management techniques. Teachers were concerned that 

members’ struggles to maintain orderly and engaging small group sessions, especially at the beginning of 

the year, detracted from the students’ learning time. Teachers noted that their primary interactions with 

members focused on managing specific students’ behavior, and they suggested that prioritizing behavior 

management strategies in members’ summer training might increase the amount of time available for 

tutoring and decrease the amount of time reacting to and trying to manage student behavior issues. 

Two comparison schools also struggled with the supervision and preparedness of external partners. One 

school (School 4B) hired external part-time tutors described as lacking necessary skills or knowledge 

needed to manage and deliver instruction effectively to a small group. At another comparison school 

(School 2B) with an extensive network of partners, three of five interviewed staff members emphatically 

observed that the school was not providing adequate supervision and coordination for external partners. 

A third comparison school’s experience echoed the struggle to manage partners, because this school 

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elected to limit its external partners to a parent-teacher organization, reflecting an insufficient capacity to 

manage other volunteer organizations. 

Sustained Student Relationships with Partners Lead to Better Student Outcomes

Staff at six schools (four program and two comparison) described the beneficial effects of partners’ socioemotional support on improving both student well-being and academic outcomes. In both program and 

comparison schools, respondents commented on the beneficial effects of additional, sustained 

relationships with caring adults, whether through tutoring, mentoring, college visits, career shadowing, 

or extracurricular activities. Notably, most respondents remarked on the social-emotional value of the 

relationships formed through these activities, regardless of the activities’ focus. At the same time, 

relationships with adults were perceived as improving students’ academic engagement and, in at least 

two cases, improved students’ relationships with teachers. By contrast, one comparison school noted that 

a 10-week tutoring intervention was insufficient to help raise student performance.

Align Interventions with School Needs

Alignment of School Turnaround AmeriCorps activities with a host school’s turnaround plan is a key 

program feature. In two sites, both the program and comparison schools (four schools) emphasized the 

importance of having external partners’ activities align with the school’s curriculum and needs—and the 

difficulty imposed on already-struggling schools when partners’ activities did not support school 

priorities. 

In one district (Schools 2A and 2B), partners’ activities in both schools were perceived as more effective 

when closely aligned with the school’s curriculum, teaching techniques, and specific school goals. 

Interventions not well-aligned were perceived not only as less effective, but sometimes even detrimental. 

Specifically, an academic intervention at the comparison school pulled students from their classrooms 

during literacy instruction and used different instructional strategies than teachers used. Administrators 

believed this created challenges, as students received contradictory messages about what was important 

to learn, and it also left students with gaps in their skills. By contrast, School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

and other AmeriCorps programs (in both schools) were said to use tutoring strategies that were effective 

and complementary to classroom teachers’ instruction. 

In one state, the program and comparison school each struggled to align external resources properly with 

school goals (Schools 4A and 4B). Program school administrators and staff perceived a discrepancy 

between the school and the AmeriCorps program’s goals. Specifically, program school staff offered 

examples of needing everyone available to support or assist with something, while the AmeriCorps 

members, for various reasons, emphatically focused only on the tasks designated for them by their 

program. This led to tensions with school counselors and administrators who characterized the program 

as “self-serving” rather than aligning with the school’s needs. The comparison school staff emphasized 

the importance of planning to integrate outside services with the school’s needs to effectively “use those 

bodies” that volunteer in the school system. This emphasis may have been an acknowledgment that their 

school did not do this well, given that school staff were unsure which partners were currently active in 

the school. 

Support for Teachers Is Highly Valued

Four schools ascribed the greatest value to interventions that supported teachers because the support

made teachers more effective and helped their students perform. Two program schools (Schools 1A and 

2A) described School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ activities as supporting teachers, in one case by 

making classroom management easier and in another by providing services to students when teachers 

could not. Two schools, one program and one comparison (Schools 2A and 2B) perceived a robust 

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parental engagement strategy as a major support for teachers. As explained by the principal of a school 

where School Turnaround AmeriCorps members engaged parents, “I think when kids know that their 

parents are involved at school, they do better. In that way, teachers are supported. Because if parents are 

in—it's one less thing the teacher has to worry about ...” Another school (School 1B), which purposefully 

does not use external partners, focused its investment in teachers on an intensified recruitment process 

that would identify the most qualified teachers. This school’s leadership decided that internal initiatives 

were the best way for the school to support teachers and thereby reach turnaround goals. 

In conclusion, most of the lessons learned from case studies about working with partners centered on 

provision of sufficient administrative support from both schools and partners to ensure that interventions 

support, instead of burden or distract from, core school functions. Designing interventions to align with 

school needs, providing adequate training, clearly defining roles, and establishing partner schedules with 

deference to school schedules were planning strategies that clearly laid the groundwork for more 

effective partnerships. The more effective partnerships were characterized by more frequent 

communication about partners; roles, scheduling changes, or tailoring of the intervention based on data 

analysis or emerging needs throughout the school year. 

Potential Uses and Challenges of Administrative Data

This section summarizes findings that address the research questions related to grantee data access and 

practices in the collection of secondary quantitative data, “Under their partnership or data use 

agreements with their affiliated schools, what quantitative data are grantees able to access? What 

quantitative secondary data are collected by grantees? What is the quality of these data? What research 

questions can be addressed via analyses of grantees’ quantitative student-level data?” Data sources 

include grantee progress reports, member activity tracking logs, and student level administrative data.

The Year 1 evaluation has collected data from multiple sources. Some data were collected by the study 

team and are referred to as primary data. These include data collected via interviews, surveys, and focus 

groups with grantee staff, principals, teachers, and parents. Additional data were collected by grantees in 

service of their School Turnaround AmeriCorps reporting requirements to CNCS and were subsequently 

shared with the study team. These are referred to as secondary data and include data reported in grantee 

progress reports, School Turnaround AmeriCorps member tracking sheets, and student-level 

achievement, attendance, and behavior data obtained from grantees’ schools. 

This section summarizes the main findings related to grantees’ access to data and current practices in 

collecting student-level secondary data. After discussing limitations in obtaining information relevant to 

grantee secondary data collection, four major topics are addressed. The first concerns grantee partnership 

and data-sharing agreements with their affiliated schools regarding access to student-level data. The 

second reviews the kinds and comprehensiveness of quantitative secondary data collected by grantees. 

The third considers the research questions that can be addressed via analysis of grantee-provided 

student-level outcome data. The fourth lists recommendations for improving future evaluations of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps.

Limitations

Information from grantees about data access and practices was collected on an opportunistic basis, as 

there was no OMB-approved standardized protocol for doing so, and follow-up conversations reflected 

individual grantees’ varied practices. As a result, data about grantees’ access and practices were not 

collected using a systematic structure, and the access and practices data are therefore incomplete and/or 

inconsistent across grantees.

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Grantees’ Access to Student-Level Data

In the AmeriCorps Notice of Funding Opportunity, CNCS required that grantees establish written 

partnership agreements that “articulate the alignment between the local School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program design and school and LEA turnaround plans, as well as the parties’ plan for ongoing 

collaboration” (Corporation for National and Community Service, Announcement of Federal Funding 

Opportunity, School Turnaround AmeriCorps FY13, p. 31). The Notice (p. 14) requires letters of support

from eligible partner schools and their corresponding LEAs, including evidence of the applicants’ 

consultation with school and LEA leadership. The 2014 Notice further strengthens that guidance by 

requiring letters of commitment from partner schools that “include a commitment from partner schools and 

the LEA to participate in the national evaluation, which will include sharing student and school outcomes 

data with the applicant and data collection from school and LEA staff as needed.” (Corporation for

National and Community Service, Announcement of Federal Funding Opportunity, School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps FY14, p. 23). The FY13 and FY14 Notices outline the requirements for the written partnership 

agreements and require grantees to collaborate with school partners: “Sharing data and evaluation. 

Sharing information, data, performance measures, and evaluation strategies that guide project 

management, resource allocation, and service delivery while maintaining data privacy requirements.” 

Thus, only the FY14 Notice indicates that letters of commitment should include evaluation-oriented 

permissions and neither Notice provides any specificity about how to share student outcome data in the 

written partnership agreements. One reason for these permissions is to allow CNCS to retain evaluatorconstructed public use and restricted use files containing student-level data, as mandated in Abt

Associates’ 2014 Statement of Work. 

All grantees but one established partnership agreements with their schools; two of the schools that 

established partnership agreements also established data-sharing agreements with their schools. There 

was one exception in which a grantee (“Grantee #4”) established a data-sharing agreement directly with 

Abt Associates.32 None of the grantees’ agreements gave CNCS permission to retain a permanent copy of 

student-level data, and aside from Grantee #4, at most one grantee’s agreement gave CNCS’s evaluator 

access to student-level data (the wording of one of the agreements is ambiguous). Establishing formal 

data-sharing agreements that explicitly specify data use permissions would also help to ensure that all 

grantees remain compliant with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law 

that protects the privacy of student education records.

Quantitative Secondary Data Collected by Grantees

CNCS-Defined Performance Measures

Grantee performance measures were reported in the mid-year and annual grantee progress reports 

(GPRs). The performance measures included CNCS-defined academic performance measures, such as 

“ED2” (number of students who completed K-12 education programs) and “ED5” (number of students 

with improved academic performance in literacy and/or math), as well as measures of the quantity and 

dosage of AmeriCorps services (number of full-time equivalent AmeriCorps members sponsored by a 

grantee).33 The GPRs compared the grantee-determined target for each measure (e.g., target number of 

students with improved academic performance in literacy and/or math) to what the grantees were 

actually able to accomplish, and they noted whether the target was met.

32 Grantees were assigned a random identifier to maintain confidentiality when referencing specific grantees.

33 According to the AmeriCorps State and National Grants FY2013 Announcement of Federal Funding Opportunity, p. 

9, full-time service requires at least 1,700 hours per year.

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None of the grantees reported all performance measures.34 Nearly all grantees reported on ED2 and ED5. 

When combined, these measures allow grantees to calculate the percentage of students who improved 

their academic performance out of all students who completed the program. Most grantees also reported

on output measure ED1, which provides a count of students who start participating in the program and, 

when combined with ED2, can be used to calculate program attrition rates. In terms of student social and 

emotional learning, more grantees reported on ED27 rather than ED6 and ED7, which includes a broader 

range of academic engagement behaviors and recommended methods for measuring them.35 Although 

multiple programs provided mentoring services, only two programs reported on the number of mentor 

matches that were sustained through the program (ED4A).

AmeriCorps Member Activity Tracking Data

Grantees used individualized forms to track member activity and service dosage information. Most of the 

tracking occurred on a daily or weekly basis, and occasionally on a monthly basis. All 13 grantees 

reported that they track some information about member activities, and the majority reported that they 

track this information in two common areas: ten grantees tracked which students they served and nine 

tracked the date/duration and/or frequency/dosage of services provided. 

Data were analyzed for the six grantees who submitted aggregated member activity tracking data for the 

2014-2015 program year. In general, grantees implemented a mixed combination of similar services in 

schools; however, there is considerable variation in how they labeled and categorized their services.

Inconsistencies in how grantees classify and track these data limit the usefulness of conducting program 

level analyses, and even calculating a total number of students served by the program or the total and 

average number of service hours provided per member would likely result in an inaccurate and 

misleading result. Moreover, because of the time lag between the performance measure data, which 

covers 2013-14, and the member activity data, which was collected for 2014-15, a grantee-level analysis of 

program performance using the member activity data and the GPR performance measure data offers 

questionable benefits for meaningful program learning.

Student-Level Data Collected by Grantees

All grantees except for one collected student-level data during the first two years of implementation, and 

four grantees additionally collected data on their 2013–14 service recipients from 2012–13, the year before 

their entry into the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program (even though this was not a requirement of 

the grant or an expectation of the grantees). All but two grantees obtained student-level achievement test 

data, eight obtained student-level attendance data, and four obtained student-level behavior outcome 

data. Five grantees collected student-level academic, attendance, and behavior outcomes, three collected

two of these outcomes, and four collected one kind of outcome.

34 Grantees were not required to report all performance measures. For instance, per the Notice of Federal Funding 

Opportunity Addendum: Definitions, Suggestions regarding Data Collection, and Additional Notes (2013, p. 3), tutoring 

and other education programs must report ED2 and then at least one of ED5, ED6, or ED27.

35 ED27 is the number of students in grades K-12 that participated in the mentoring or tutoring, or other education 

program including CNCS-supported service learning who demonstrated improved academic engagement.

ED6 is the number of students that improved their school attendance over the course of the CNCS-supported 

program’s involvement with the student.

ED7 is the number of students with no or decreased disciplinary referrals and suspensions over the course of the 

CNCS-supported programs' involvement.

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Nine of the eleven grantees that collected student-level academic data collected systematic standardized 

achievement test data from the respective districts/states in which their schools are located (Grantee #10

did not collect such data and Grantee #6 did not have student-level outcomes for 2013–14). Standardized 

test scores were of particular importance, because they are more appropriate than other academic data 

(e.g., grades) for cross-school and cross-grantee analyses of academic outcomes. One grantee with 

affiliated schools from multiple states collected test scores from multiple standardized tests.

In Chapter III, the section on Comparing Stakeholder Perceptions to Administrative Outcomes Data, Studentlevel Data Quality assesses the quality of the 2012–13, 2013–14, and 2014–15 data. For each type of outcome 

(achievement, attendance, and behavior), the study team determined if the student-level dataset the 

grantee shared with Abt included all schools affiliated with the grantee. Then, the quality of the data in 

the datasets was rated. The data quality was rated as good if there was less than 25 percent missing data, 

which meant that a full range of data analyses could be performed. Only three grantees provided data 

that both included all of their schools and was rated as good quality.

Research Questions That Can Be Addressed by Student-level Data

The assessment of student-level data quality considers how student-level data collected by grantees 

might be used to track students’ academic achievement, attendance, and behavior outcomes as a function 

of participation in School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ service activities (hereafter, treatment 

recipients) at individual schools and/or groups of schools. Groups of schools could be defined in various 

ways, ranging from all schools supported by a given grantee, to all elementary or high schools, or to all 

schools within which School Turnaround AmeriCorps members are providing a specific support or 

service (e.g., math tutoring). Recall that the student-level data collected by grantees are from treatment 

recipients. The discussion below also outlines how data collected in Year 1 of the evaluation might be 

used as well as how expanded datasets (should expanded available data be collected) might be used in 

the future. 

The analysis drew four main conclusions:

1. The data cannot be used to estimate treatment impacts, given the lack of comparison group data.

2. The data can be used to track outcome levels across cohorts (different groups of students in the 

same grade in different years) and longitudinally (the same students followed over several 

grades, assuming those students repeatedly participate in School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

services). If treatment recipients are followed pre and post treatment receipt, then interpretation 

of longitudinal analyses is somewhat more straightforward than interpretation of cohort 

analyses.

3. Examining the association of treatment dosage (from grantee activity logs) and student-level 

outcomes does not yield reliable assessments of the impact of different dosage levels on outcome.

4. Tracking achievement in groups of schools across grantees requires converting different states’ 

achievement test scores to a common metric, usually obtained by standardizing scores within 

state.

Recommendations for Future Evaluations of School Turnaround AmeriCorps

The following recommendations could enhance future evaluations of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

and education-related programming in the AmeriCorps portfolio of programs: 

1. Provide guidelines or templates for grantees’ partnership and data use agreements with their 

affiliated schools. Ideally, agreements would include detailed lists of student-level data (at the 

variable level, rather than the generic “student outcome” level) that schools would share with their 

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grantees. Further, it would be helpful if agreements explicitly acknowledge data sharing with CNCS 

or its designated evaluator for the purposes of the evaluation of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program. If CNCS desires to create public use or restricted use datasets that include student-level 

data, then the agreements should make it clear that it has permission from the partnering schools to 

do so.36 In general, it would be helpful for these agreements to be much more transparent about the 

sharing of student data for the purposes of the program-wide evaluation.

2. CNCS could encourage grantees to collect student-level reading and math achievement data 

separately. This would maximize the number of treatment schools whose outcome data could be 

used in analyses of groups of schools. While this step would likely increase the burden to grantees 

above and beyond their current reporting requirements, the increased value of those data elements to 

the evaluation would be tangible.

3. CNCS could encourage grantees to collect longitudinal outcome data from treatment recipients, 

including outcomes from the current and at least the prior year. This would make possible 

longitudinal as well as cohort analyses. Only four grantees currently collect any longitudinal data.

4. To facilitate analysis of the association of treatment dosage and student-level outcomes, CNCS would 

need to establish a common template for the collection of member activity log data and provide 

assistance to grantees in tracking and reporting those data to improve the completeness and quality 

of the member activity data. In addition, the following data would be needed to perform a robust 

analysis of the impact of treatment dosage on outcomes: 1) measures of academic standing (e.g.

achievement test scores) and demographics from the prior school year, and 2) multiple (e.g., 

bimonthly) measures of treatment dosage and academic standing. However, it may be challenging, in 

practice, to obtain such data. 

5. It may be useful to reassess the timing of the evaluation contractor’s receipt of student-level data and 

the performance and reporting of analyses of these data. Currently, student-level data from a given 

school year cannot be obtained by the evaluator until July of that year and, in Year 1 of the 

evaluation, much of these data were of poor quality. One strategy for improving data quality may be 

communication between grantees and the schools providing data to ascertain whether more complete 

data could be obtained. However, given the timing, grantees may not receive and then review data 

until after schools have closed for the year. It is possible, therefore, that any resubmission of more 

complete data would not occur until the beginning of the next school year. As a result, it may also be 

useful to reconsider the timing for analysis and reporting on student-level data, and shift any 

associated deadlines until mid-to-late fall. 

6. On a related note, the performance data are based on the prior school year, whereas any primary data 

collection is based on the current school year. Differences between school years may not be equally 

meaningful for all indicators, yet any reporting on either primary or secondary data collection efforts 

should explicitly acknowledge when data were collected, and further, should acknowledge the lag 

between administrative and primary data. 

36 This may require further research into the feasibility of doing so without obtaining active parent consent under 

the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law that protects the privacy of student 

education records.

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III. PART 2: DETAILED FINDINGS

Implementation Findings

This section addresses the following broad research questions: 

• “How and to what extent do School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs adapt to schools’ needs 

and local contexts?”

• “How do AmeriCorps members help schools implement their turnaround plans?”

• “Which activities pursued by AmeriCorps members are perceived as being more or less helpful, 

and why?”

Data sources include: case study research, school leader and staff surveys, grantee survey, grantee preand post-interviews, principal individual and small group interviews, parent interviews, member 

interviews, grantee and member focus groups, grantee partnership agreements, grantee progress reports, 

and member activity tracking logs. 

Summary of Implementation Findings

Key findings related to School Turnaround AmeriCorps program implementation include those broadly 

focused on relationship building and perceptions of program implementation.

Findings about relationships and participation include the following:

• A majority of grantees reported having had pre-existing relationships with partner schools of at 

least two years duration before implementation of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program.

• Schools varied considerably in the number and proportion of students served by the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program as well as in caseloads for AmeriCorps members. At most 

schools grantees reported that AmeriCorps members meet with school staff to review student 

progress at least monthly.

• Knowledge of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program was inconsistent among school 

leaders and school staff; some leaders and staff were deeply involved in day-to-day program 

elements and some have no or minimal knowledge of the program. For example, not all school 

staff knew which students participated in services provided by School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members. 

Findings about program implementation include the following: 

• A majority of school leaders reported that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members had some or 

substantial influence on schools’ capacity to achieve key school turnaround goals (e.g., improving 

academic performance, increasing graduation rates, and improving college readiness). Similarly, 

school leaders ranked academic achievement, school culture and environment, and increased 

learning time as the three strategies most influenced by AmeriCorps members.

• The School Turnaround AmeriCorps program provided value in multiple ways, according to 

school leaders, and did so by offering helpful supports, serving as partners in improving student 

outcomes, and providing activities frequently enough to be valuable to the school and students. 

Staff reported similar generally positive perceptions of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members

based on their efforts to provide helpful supports to students, serve as partners in improving 

student outcomes, and support teachers in the school. Parent perceptions were similarly positive.

• Among those school leaders and staff who were familiar with the program, satisfaction with 

program implementation was broad, reflecting an appreciation of the program’s structure, 

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supports, and alignment with key turnaround goals. Those respondents reported strong 

communication and collaboration between school staff and School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members.

Schools’ Background and Context 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps is one component of each host school’s broader school turnaround plan. 

Each host school has different student compositions, resources, and designs for its school turnaround 

plan. These factors, in turn, affect how a school deploys members and the uses the services they can 

provide to support the turnaround as a whole. This section discusses these topics, reflecting the national 

evaluation’s research goal to understand how local context affects program implementation and identify 

best practices in supporting schools’ ability to implement their turnaround plans.

This section begins by describing findings from interviews with principals in a sample of 25 schools; these 

schools generally serve economically disadvantaged and high minority student populations (25 and 18 

schools, respectively). Substantial proportions of students in these schools also require additional 

academic support. Over half of principals (16 of 25) 

noted that their schools serve large populations of 

English language learners (ELL) or students with 

disabilities (SWDs). About half the principals (13) 

discussed ELL student needs, reflecting large 

immigrant or refugee populations in their respective 

districts. About one-third of principals (8 of 25) 

specifically mentioned their population of students with 

disabilities, which ranged from 6 to 25 percent of the 

student body.37 The population of students with 

disabilities can vary more than ELL or other 

populations, as one principal noted, based on “testing 

demands [with more] students needing more accommodations depending on what the test requirements 

are.” Regardless of the number or proportion of SWDs, such students’ needs can vary more widely, as 

they are more likely to need additional learning supports and testing accommodations. The demographic 

composition of student populations in this sample highlights the additional academic support needed by 

some students in turnaround schools. 

All schools in the interview sample were receiving SIG funds at the time they applied to be School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps host sites. Most schools were pursuing turnaround models, a few were 

implementing transformation models, and a very few restart models; a few are no longer in turnaround 

status, including two schools that have received awards for performing near the top level statewide (as 

reported in principal interviews and surveys).38 By a large majority, the most common component of 

turnaround plans described by principals was professional development, followed by teacher evaluations 

at half as many schools. Other turnaround activities overlapped with the types of services provided by 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members in support of those plans.39 Specifically, tutoring, behavioral 

37 Note that six principals discussed both ELL and Special Education (SPED) populations. Across all public schools, 

an average of 13 percent of students have disabilities. (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for 

Education Statistics, 2013).

38 Two principals were unsure of their formal designation but they were “not a restart” and possibly a 

transformation model, respectively.

39 Six (of 36) principals responded to the survey question about their turnaround plan with only information about 

their AmeriCorps members’ daily activities. 

School Turnaround Context

“Unless the circumstances are just 

unbearable, you should stay with the 

work because it is important that kids 

have -- that they are able to build these 

relationships, and they should seek 

consistency. Schools that normally are 

going to Turnaround, one of the problems 

has been inconsistency... So I would say 

that the program should really screen 

why people are getting into AmeriCorps." 

- Principal Small Group Interview

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mentoring, after-school activities, attendance support, and parental and community engagement were 

components of turnaround plans for which AmeriCorps members provided direct support. While 

principals did not make this connection explicitly, it may be that members’ direct services eased the 

demands on teachers, and thereby gave teachers more time for professional development activities.

School Turnaround AmeriCorps Interventions

Characteristics of Program Activities

Grantees of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program organize, train, and place trained and 

dedicated AmeriCorps members in low-performing schools to support one or more of the six School 

Improvement Grant (SIG) strategies to improve student educational achievement. The six strategies are 

engaging families and communities; addressing non-academic factors that impact student achievement 

(school climate and students’ social, emotional, and health needs); supporting skill acquisition in reading 

and mathematics; increasing graduation rates; providing college preparation and increasing college 

enrollment; and increasing learning time. The specific combination of activities that grantees offer, and 

the implementation of these strategies in individual schools, varies tremendously, according to schools’ 

turnaround plans and each school’s student needs. 

This section describes the range of activities in which AmeriCorps members engaged with their school 

turnaround partners, based on interviews with grantees, principals, and members; focus groups with 

grantees and members; principal surveys; and grantee progress reports. The activities include tutoring, 

after-school and extracurricular programs, parental and community engagement, and mentoring services. 

The research team also examined the structure of services across the 25 schools where principals were 

interviewed. Activities were similar across the schools regardless of the turnaround model they were 

following—turnaround (16), transformation (4), and no longer in turnaround status (3). The primary 

difference appeared to be that members serving in turnaround and transformation schools offered a 

broader range of services than members in schools that had exited turnaround status (although the 

sample included only three schools in the latter category, so this difference should be interpreted with 

considerable caution).40 Beyond direct services, several programs also described deploying members in 

supportive activities intended to expand others’ (e.g., school administrators and teaching staff) capacity 

to engage in school turnaround efforts, and programs described the overall positive effect members had 

on the school climate by building relationships with students. 

Exhibit III-1 summarizes the prevalence of activities and interventions offered in School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps schools, as described by grantee staff. 

Tutoring was the most common program activity, according to information from grantees (11 of 13

referenced tutoring), and members concurred that it was the activity that represented the most significant 

use of members’ time (18 of 26). Tutoring was provided in classrooms (seven programs), as well as oneon-one (three programs), in small-group sessions (two programs), and in one instance, students were 

tutored outside the classroom. Tutoring services were generally offered during the school day; four 

programs also offered tutoring services before school, during lunch, and/or after school. Principals and 

members offered additional detail about tutoring services in their interviews. One principal explained 

40 Specifically, mentoring and behavioral support, organized lunch-time roles, and extracurricular activities were 

not reported in any of the schools that have exited turnaround status. Services were largely similar across grade 

levels served. Attendance support appeared more common at elementary and middle schools (four at each) than 

at high schools (two). (These results include one school that serves both elementary and middle school students 

and another that serves middle and high school students.) Logically, college readiness was only provided in high 

schools.

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that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members improved the effectiveness of classroom instruction “by 

providing supplemental help to my students, providing differentiated instruction ...They need small 

group help, and [AmeriCorps members] provide that.” Members described additional responsibilities 

related to their tutoring and instruction. These include in-classroom assistance and instruction (eight

members), lesson planning (four members), and grading (one member). 

Exhibit III-1: Prevalence of Activities and Interventions Offered in School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

Schools

Activities and Interventions Proportion of Programs

Tutoring (11) Majority of programs

After-school programs and extracurricular services (9) Majority of programs

Parental and community engagement (8) Majority of programs

Mentoring (7) About half of programs

Behavior support and school attendance coaching (7) About half of programs

Supportive services to build school capacity (5) Several programs

College and test prep (3) Several programs

Teaching (1) Few programs

Wraparound services (1) Few programs

Source: Grantee pre-interviews (n=13).

A majority of programs (nine) programs offered after-school programs and extracurricular services, 

including homework help sessions and electives to promote student academic engagement (e.g. baking, 

cosmetics, Girls on the Run, photography). At interviewed schools, about half of members were 

responsible for after-school activities, most of which were tutoring. In no cases were after-school or 

extracurricular activities a member’s primary responsibility; such activities were a second- or third-order 

responsibility for five (of 26) members interviewed. Four programs offering extracurricular activities 

provided students with opportunities for service learning and volunteerism. Members led the afterschool electives offered, organized field trips, events, and service days. Two programs provided 

extracurricular services related to college and career readiness, such as job shadowing and professional 

learning. 

Through grantee interviews, eight programs reported activities related specifically to parent and 

community engagement, both to complement activities that directly engage students and to reach out to 

the broader community. When engaging parents, members leverage their academic and personal 

relationships with students to understand students’ lives more holistically. Members kept parents 

informed and aware of events in the school (11 parents, 7 members); updated them about their children’s 

behavior or academic performance (according to five members), occasionally called parents about 

attendance (three members), and in one case served as a graduation assistant. Parents reported that they 

used information communicated by members about their child’s performance to reinforce the members’ 

feedback at home. Parent engagement also included such events as parent nights, socials, and parentteacher conferences where members served as translators to help involve parents in their children’s 

academic lives.

Three programs reported broader community-level engagement activities that supplemented the direct 

services to students and parents in school settings. Examples include partnering with the local Chamber 

of Commerce to organize community events, engaging students in service-learning opportunities in their 

communities, and leveraging members’ service to recruit more volunteers to the school. Five members 

(across interviews and focus groups) described community projects as a way to contribute to their 

respective school’s capacity to implement its school turnaround plan. Principals in small group 

interviews emphasized the importance of member involvement in the community—through attending 

extracurricular and community events—so they would be accepted by community member. Involvement 

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in the community was noted as a prerequisite for members’ activities to be successful in their placement 

schools, as discussed further below. 

About half of programs offered students mentoring or behavior and/or attendance coaching (seven

programs). Mentoring models varied considerably but, as with parental and community engagement, 

principals often described mentoring as embedded in other services members provided. Three programs 

included one-on-one time with students during lunch and after-school programs; three other programs

offered small-group counseling sessions for specific groups of students. These small groups worked with 

students needing help for specific issues, such as pregnancy, anger management, trauma, academic goal

achievement, gang involvement, sexual identity, and LGBTQ students’ safety at school. In one unique 

case, program members served as academic coaches on teams with school counselors. Members, in 

particular, noted the interrelatedness of mentorship, academics, and attendance, because building 

relationships was key to getting students to open up and begin to address other issues. One member 

commented that, “Even if they don’t necessarily get the academics right away, they have something to 

strive for and they have role models to look up to. That’s really big.” 

School attendance coaching, as a distinct activity from behavior coaching, was reported by five of the 

seven programs that provided this support; in three programs, attendance coaching was a stand-alone 

intervention. In two of these cases, attendance coaching was a component of the program’s parent 

engagement activities, with members calling home to discuss attendance records of truant students and 

engage parents in their children’s daily attendance. In many of these seven programs described by 

principals, members supported the school office to do outreach to any student whose attendance record 

was poor; in this way, members were buoying the capacity of the school’s administrative staff to 

accomplish more outreach than would otherwise have been possible. In several (four) cases, principals 

emphasized that members framed their attendance outreach to students in terms of their positive 

relationships with students rather than in terms of punishment for truancy. One middle school principal, 

for example, explained that the School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ approach to a student’s 

absence was “to touch base with them, let them know it's important to us that they're here, and ask if 

there are any things that we can do to support them so they continue to come to school.” 

Three programs had activities and interventions 

focused on college readiness and/or college 

entrance test preparation, chiefly helping students 

prepare for the ACT and for college readiness. One 

college readiness program partnered with local 

postsecondary institutions to plan in-depth 

introductions to college experiences for students; 

students visited college campuses, met professors, 

and sat in on college classes. Another program also 

worked with students and their families on the Free 

Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), a 

form prepared annually by current and prospective 

college students to determine eligibility for student 

financial aid.

Two programs offered unique services. One provided wraparound services, addressing student needs 

that may have had a negative impact on school experience. Wraparound services included providing 

uniforms and transportation to students in need. The other provided teaching services: their members are 

the teachers. The program (Teach for America) is a national teacher corps consisting of recent college 

graduates from highly selective colleges who commit to work in urban and rural schools for two years.

College Readiness Activities

“One of the things that definitely worked well 

is working with the teachers to help facilitate 

the completion of college applications in the 

classes that all of the seniors had to go 

through. As it provided an opportunity for us 

to touch every senior that was in school on 

those days, designated for us to work 

specifically with students around college 

applications, FAFSA, and the required things 

for a senior to move on to postsecondary 

education. That absolutely worked." 

- Grantee Pre-Interview

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Adding School Turnaround AmeriCorps members to support the school’s existing resources also built 

school capacity in ways other than direct work with students (15 members/five programs). Three 

programs enlisted school leaders in planning how to best 

use member services to support turnaround efforts, such as 

having them interview candidates and select members for 

placement at the school, having them train members on 

performance measures, or having them manage member

caseloads. A majority of schools also made use of an on-site 

coordinator from the school staff who was responsible for 

managing members’ day-to-day work and relationships 

with the school. Having program administration roles taken 

on by school staff buoyed the school’s capacity to manage 

external partners and volunteers.

Perceptions of School Culture

“This project has not only flourished 

but has refined the culture of the 

school. You know the work you’re 

doing is good, when the 

administration plans to sustain it and 

share it with other districts. Kudos, my 

friends. Thank you for letting me be 

part of your celebration."

- Neighborhood project director at 

community-based organization, 

Grantee End-of-Year Progress Report 

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Mechanisms for Targeting Students

Students were generally identified by school staff for services and matched with members on the basis of 

test scores, grades, or behavior, according to member interviews and grantee interviews, although some 

services were targeted to specific grade levels. In a few cases, the students who were targeted were those 

who had approached the members directly for help. Two principals reported wishing that members did 

not have to maintain the same caseload of students throughout the year but could, instead, adjust their 

caseloads to reflect changes when students no longer need AmeriCorps support.41 

The majority of programs, however, also reported challenges in managing and/or matching members to 

placements, including tutoring/mentoring groups that exceeded the target ratios, members’ inability to 

access students during the school day, and slow build-up of caseloads. The most prominent strategy 

reported by grantees for dealing with such issues was to engage school leaders, administrators, and/or 

teachers, although several programs reported that they addressed caseload/management issues by 

relying on supervisory staff who worked closely with members and used data to manage caseloads and 

match students to members.

Members’ Roles in Supporting School Turnaround AmeriCorps Schools 

The core of School Turnaround AmeriCorps members’ work is serving as tutors, mentors, and 

instructional and administrative supports for turnaround schools. Members’ duties are defined by 

Partnership Agreements between the grantee and school. Members reported that they most frequently 

collaborated on their activities with teachers, whether in identifying students for tutoring; supporting 

differentiated instruction for small groups in classrooms; or discussing student progress based on 

assessment, behavior, or attendance data. 

Members promoted a positive school climate by building supportive relationship with students,

according to 12 of 25 principals and, interestingly, two members who said their primary responsibility 

was “relationships with students.” These positive relationships were cited, explicitly and implicitly, as 

examples of how members support turnaround goals for the school climate and culture, improve student 

engagement, and thereby improve students’ academic achievement. As discussed below, members’ 

efforts to establish these relationships translated into positive benefits throughout members’ work and 

presence at the schools, whether by the direct academic or behavioral coaching they provided, through 

formal outreach, or through informal check-ins. Principals described such contributions as members 

41 The policy to have members maintain the same caseload throughout the year is a program-level decision and not 

a requirement of the grant from CNCS.
learning about students’ home lives so they could offer them emotional or academic support, or connect 

their families to community resources (five interviews). In several (four) instances, principals noted that 

AmeriCorps members are relatable as “near peers” and role models to students in ways that permanent 

school staff are not, which can help members support both students and the staff’s capacity—for example, 

by being able to intervene in situations before disciplinary action needs to be taken. 

Grantees and principals emphasized the importance of members being integrated into the school staff 

and into the school culture so the relationship is “seamless.” This suggests both that members should 

extend themselves to become part of the community during the school day and at extracurricular events 

and also to understand they are present to support the school’s goals, policies, and structures—even if, as 

a principal and grantee emphasized, there are things with which the member disagrees. Three principals 

described AmeriCorps members as part of the school “family” considered co-equal members of the 

school staff. One principal mentioned that his school had made a concerted effort in the 2014–15 school 

year to make members feel like a part of the staff. Several principals emphasized the strong relationships 

between members and school staff through comments about wanting to hire members at the school or 

district level; one said explicitly “I would like to hire them to stay here and teach. That's how confident I 

am with their ability.” 

Members’ work also supported teachers through an array of mechanisms. For members who served in 

classrooms, simply being present in the room throughout the day helped with classroom management, 

preventing disruptive behavior and differentiating instruction in small groups. Members also supported

teachers in the use of assessments and interpreting assessment data to help tailor instruction. Two 

programs described member participation in planning meetings, working with school leaders and 

teachers to identify and track student responses to interventions. One program supports Response to 

Intervention (RTI), a multi-tiered approach to early identification and support of students with learning 

and behavior needs. Members focused on RTI services participated in weekly RTI meetings with school 

leaders and faculty, sharing information and updates from their work with students. Similarly, another 

program instituted biweekly Early Warning Indicator meetings for teachers and members to discuss 

students’ academic progress, ensuring that teachers are aware of student growth and can adjust their 

instructional approaches based on student success. One of these programs also collaborated with teachers 

to provide them with additional planning time during the work day by running two assemblies for the 

entire student body every week.

Analysis of Member Tracking Data

In addition to stakeholder perspectives on program implementation, administrative data on School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps member activities were collected from grantees. During Program Year 2, 

grantees and/or members used varied methods to track members’ activities in their host schools. Data 

regularly tracked by grantees include information about the number and grade levels of students served, 

the number of hours members served in each school, the frequency and amount of time members spent 

with students, the types of activities members performed in schools (e.g., tutoring in math and literacy, 

attendance and behavior coaching, family engagement, mentoring, college preparation and advising), 

and the nature of direct services members provided to students and families (e.g., one-on-one services, 

classroom supports or small group work, after-school or extended learning time opportunities). 

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps grant did not require that grantees track member activities or 

service dosage data, and grantees were not asked to use a standardized template or form or to adhere to 

any guidelines specifying what data to track or how to track these data. Not surprisingly, each grantee 

uses an individualized form to track member activity and service dosage information. Most tracking 

occurs on a daily or weekly basis, although in some cases it is done monthly. 

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Administrative records on member activity and service dosage can complement primary data sources to 

document how AmeriCorps members support schools in implementing their turnaround efforts. 

However, the member activity data collected during Program Year 2 offer limited usefulness for 

conducting program level analyses because the data are incomplete, inconsistent, and with one exception, 

not linkable to student-level outcome data. 

Exhibit III-2 presents the information collected by different grantees regarding their AmeriCorps member 

service delivery. All 13 grantees reported that they track some information about member activities, and 

the majority reported that they track this information in two common areas: ten grantees track which 

students they serve and nine track the date/duration and/or frequency/dosage of services provided. Most 

grantees also have their members record a description of the activities they engage in with students. 

Exhibit III-3 presents the member activity data that grantees submitted for the 2014-2015 program year. 

Six grantees submitted aggregated member activity tracking data. Five grantees did not submit these data 

because they do not compile the data they track at an aggregate level, e.g. monthly, bi-annually, or yearly.

The other two grantees did not confirm whether they track aggregated member activity data or did not 

respond to the data request in time to include their data in this analysis. Grantees who did not provide 

these data are represented by shaded rows in Exhibit III-3. The remaining findings thus pertain to the six 

grantees who submitted aggregated member activity data.

Because each grantee’s activity tracking sheet is unique, variables that share the same name are not 

necessarily comparable. For example, of the six grantees who regularly track and submitted aggregated 

data for the number of students served, four grantees provided unduplicated counts of students served, 

whereas two grantees provided totals for students served that likely contain duplicate counts of students 

served (and/or of service hours) across service areas. Therefore, the total number and average number of 

unique students served per member shown in Exhibit III-3 is likely accurate for only four grantees. 

Among these four grantees, the total number of students served per grantee in 2014-15 ranged from 534 

to 1,468, and the average number of unique students served per individual grantee AmeriCorps member 

ranged from 13 to 65. The variability in the quantity of students served is a function of the number of 

schools partnering with the grantee, the number of members serving in each school, the target service 

population within each school, and the types of activities offered at each school, as intensive one-on-one 

services might require more members than group or school-level activities, all else being equal. In 

addition, for one grantee, the number of students served was not included with the member activity data; 

consequently, this information had to be calculated from the grantee’s student-level attendance data 

submission. Given these inconsistencies in the source data, calculating a total number of students served 

by the program in 2014-15 would likely result in an inaccurate and misleading result.

Four of the six grantees who submitted member activity data included the number of service hours. 

These data were also variable; the number ranged from 106 to 34,578 total service hours per grantee, or 

3.21 to 910 average service hours provided per member (equivalent to roughly half a day to 114 full work 

days, on average, per member). Two grantees provided data that may duplicate the number of service 

hours across service areas. Inconsistencies in how grantees classify and track these data likely explain the 

wide variation in service dosage levels. For example, some grantees may only have counted direct 

services hours for this metric, whereas other grantees may have included hours members spent engaged 

in other, non-direct service activities, such as member orientation and training. There may be other less 

immediately apparent explanations for the large discrepancy in hours that would require follow up 

discussions with grantees.

Grantees also varied in the level of detail provided about the number and types of service activities 

provided by their members (see Exhibit III-4). Four of the six grantees who submitted member activity 

nationalservice.gov 56
data included service activity details. In some cases, they provided the number of students served and/or 

the number of service hours per each service category, and sometimes they also provided these data for 

service subcategories. For example, one grantee listed 12 service categories, including one service 

category “supportive services” that itself included four subcategories: assistance with testing, computer 

assisted lab, test preparation skills, and tutoring. Another grantee provided service dosage information in 

only four indicator areas (ELA/literacy, math, attendance coaching, and behavior coaching). Yet another 

grantee identified nine service types, each with one to four service subtypes. A fourth grantee provided 

data mapping to 10 service types, all of which involve different variations of one-on-one tutoring or 

academic support, which other grantees might lump into one service type. Some grantees also broke out 

the number of services provided at each partner school while others did not. In general, grantees 

implemented a mixed combination of similar services in schools; however, there is considerable variation 

in how they labeled and categorized their services. 

Two grantees provided student identifiers (study-assigned IDs) with their member activity data, and in 

one case those data could be linked to student level outcome data for the purpose of examining the 

association of treatment dosage (from grantee activity logs) and student-level outcomes. This analysis 

was not performed for a single grantee, however; as explained in Chapter II, Part 1, Potential Uses and 

Challenges of Administrative Data, such analysis does not yield reliable assessments of the impact of 

different dosage levels on outcomes, and could in fact result in misleading findings.

For grantee-level analyses of program performance, the member activity data might conceivably be 

paired with the GPR performance measure data. However, the lag between the performance measure 

data, which covers 2013-14, and the member activity data, which was collected for 2014-15, diminishes 

the potential value of such an analysis. 

Recommendations

Improving the completeness and quality of the member activity data would involve establishing a 

common form or template for the data variables to be tracked, establishing common definitions for the 

data variables, communicating data collection and reporting guidelines, and providing some level of 

technical assistance to grantees as well as ample back and forth time for data review and clarification 

between the evaluator and the grantees. Because the full program year data do not become available until 

July for most grantees, the timing does not permit sufficient time for clarifying and correcting data issues 

for analysis and reporting within existing contractual constraints. Expectations should also be set with 

respect to the data collection burden on grantees and the possible need for data resubmissions to ensure 

completeness and consistency across the cohort. These considerations would best be addressed by 

establishing detailed data sharing agreements between the evaluator, the grantees, and their partnering 

districts and/or schools. 

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Exhibit III-2: Member Activity Tracking Information

Grantee Names

Members Class 

Schedule / Timesheet

Activity/ 

Tutor Logs

Name of 

Student

Date and time of 

activity, 

Duration, or 

Frequency/ 

Dosage

Description of 

Activity

Follow up 

Actions/ 

Next steps

Number of 

Students 

served/ 

Caseload

Member 

Training, 

Performance 

Review & 

Evaluation

Grantee #1 -  (OTS) - - - - - -

Grantee #2  (OTS) - - - - -  

Grantee #3* -  (MO, OTS)      -

Grantee #4* -  (MO)     - -

Grantee #5  (MO)  (GD)    - - -

Grantee #6*  (MO, OTS) -    -  -

Grantee #7  (MO) - - - - - - -

Grantee #8* -  (MO, OTS)     - -

Grantee #9 -  (MO)      -

Grantee #10 -  (OTS)    - - -

Grantee #11  (GD, MO) -    - - -

Grantee #12*  (OTS -    - - -

Grantee #13  (MO) -   - - - 

Notes: MO = Microsoft Office; GD = Google Documents; OTS = Online Tracking System.

Using Grantee #1 as an example, the exhibit reads “Grantee #1 uses an Online Tracking System to implement AmeriCorps member activity and tutoring logs.” No further 

information was available about the types of information the system tracks. 

All AmeriCorps members are evaluated by the grantees. However, only Grantee #13 and Grantee #2 appear to formally track member performance review and evaluation (this is 

subject to limitations in the collection of this information from grantees, which was done on an opportunistic basis, as there was no OMB-approved standardized protocol for doing 

so). 

*Although, frequency and dosage is not tracked independently by these grantees, it can be calculated based on other information being tracked, such as name of student, date and 

time of activity, and duration of activity. Similarly, student caseloads can also be determined using the information collected by the grantees.

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Exhibit III-3: School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Service and Activity Tracking Information for 2014-15, by Grantee

Grantee Names 

(a) 

AmeriCorps State & 

National experience 

prior to 2013-2014

Total Number 

of Partner 

Schools (b)

Total Number 

of Members 

Serving (c)

Average 

Number of 

Members per 

All Schools 

Served (c)

Number of 

Students 

Served in 

2014-15

Average Number 

of Unique 

Students Served 

per Member

Total Number 

of Service 

Hours (d) 

Average Number 

of Hours per 

Member (d) 

Grantee #1 Yes 8 120 15 2044 (f) 17 19330 (f) 161

Grantee #2 Yes 11 37 3 [did not respond to the data request in time for the analysis]

Grantee #3 Yes 2 11 6 [does not have these data at an aggregate level]

Grantee #4 No 2 18 9 1177 65 NA NA

Grantee #5 No 6 24 4 [does not have these data at an aggregate level]

Grantee #6 No 4 55 14 1157 21 NA NA

Grantee #7 No 1 10 10 [extra burden to provide aggregate files]

Grantee #8 No 2 38 19 1468 (e) 39 34578 910

Grantee #9 Yes 5 33 7 8233 (f) 249 106 (f) 3.21

Grantee #10 Yes 5 18 4 [does not have these data at an aggregate level]

Grantee #11 Yes 10 40 4 534 13 14154 354

Grantee #12 Yes 5 30 6 [does not have these data at an aggregate level]

Grantee #13 No 6 20 3 [did not respond to the data request in time for the analysis]

Grantee Total Yes=7, No=6 67 454 6.8 [not calculated due to data inconsistencies]

Notes:

(a) The shaded grantees do not compile the data they track at an aggregate level or did not respond to the data request in time to confirm whether they track aggregated member 

activity data. 

(b) This total indicates each grantee's total number of partner schools in the 2014-15 program year. For two grantees this total is greater than the number of schools participating in 

the Year 1 national evaluation. One grantee included member activity data for all of its partner schools, including several schools that were not eligible to participate in the Year 1 

national evaluation because they were not in the second year of implementing the program. For the other grantee, only a representative sample of 5 schools was purposively 

selected to participate in the evaluation because of its distinctive intervention.

(c) Service term is unknown. These counts may include members serving full-time, part-time, and/or minimal-time terms.

(d) These data likely do not count member service hours in the same way; some totals may or may not include time spent on other member service activities in addition to time 

spent in providing direct services.

(e) This grantee did not include the number of students served with the member activity data submission; therefore this information was calculated from the student-level 

attendance data submission.

(f) These totals likely contain duplicate counts of students served and/or of service hours across service areas.

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Exhibit III-4: Number and Types of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Member Service Activities for 

2014-15, by Grantee

Grantee Names (a) Number of Activity or 

Service Types

Services Provided 

(Students Served per Service Type)

Grantee #1 4 

ELA/literacy (600)

Math (496)

Attendance coaching (363)

Behavior coaching (585)

Grantee #2 3 (g)

After-school and extended learning 

Behavioral and mentorship

Teaching

Grantee #3 4 (g)

After-school and extended learning 

Behavioral and mentorship

Community and parental engagement

Tutoring

Grantee #4 6 (g)

After-school and extended learning 

Attendance

Behavioral and mentorship

College readiness

Community and parental engagement

Tutoring

Grantee #5 4 (g)

After-school and extended learning 

Behavioral and mentorship

Community and parental engagement

Tutoring

Grantee #6 10

After school academic tutoring support (8)

Credit recover programs (27)

Intensive one-on-one academic support during AmeriCorps 

lead “Vacation school” and summer schools (10)

One-on-one academic support on an as-needed basis (10)

One-one-one, small group and/or general in-classroom 

support (g) (891)

One-on-one academic tutoring (32)

One-on-one student support (h) (162)

Tutoring during the school day (16)

Student support in teacher classrooms (in addition to above 

services)

Grantee #7 4 (g)

After-school and extended learning 

Behavioral and mentorship

Community and parental engagement

Tutoring

Grantee #8 12

College visit/college student shadowing

Comprehensive Mentoring

Counseling/ advising/ academic planning/career counseling

Educational field trips

Family/cultural events

Financial aid counseling/ advising

Job site visit/job shadowing

Other (Information Dissemination)

Rigorous academic curricula

Summer programs

Supportive Services

Workshops

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Grantee Names (a) Number of Activity or 

Service Types

Services Provided 

(Students Served per Service Type)

Grantee #9 9 

Academic Assistance (35)

Basic Needs/Resources (305)

Behavior Intervention/Modification (315)

College/Career Preparation (1200)

Community Service/Service Learning (1715)

Enrichment/Motivation (1581)

Family Engagement (306)

Life/Social Skills (2388)

Physical Fitness/Health (388)

Grantee #10 5 (g) 

After-school and extended learning 

Attendance

Behavioral and mentorship

Community and parental engagement

Tutoring

Grantee #11 5 (g)

After-school and extended learning 

Behavioral and mentorship

College readiness

Community and parental engagement

Tutoring

Grantee #12 4 (g)

After-school and extended learning 

Behavioral and mentorship

Community and parental engagement

Tutoring

Grantee #13 5 (g)

After-school and extended learning 

Behavioral and mentorship

College readiness

Community and parental engagement

Tutoring

Notes:

(a) The shaded grantees do not compile the data they track at an aggregate level or did not respond to the data 

request in time to confirm whether they track aggregated member activity data. 

(g) The number and types of services provided were not included with the grantee's member activity data 

submission. Information on the number and types of service activities provided by this grantee was obtained through 

the primary data collection. 

(h) Service type - multiple: including one-one-one, small group and general in-classroom support. AmeriCorps 

member placements were primarily in classrooms serving all students and one-on-one student support assignments 

are set daily at the discretion of individual teachers

(i) Service type - one-on-one student support, including both push in and pull-out, primarily in classrooms serving all 

students in the school, with the exception of three classrooms, throughout the academic year.

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Grantee-School Partnerships

Engaging Partner Districts and Schools

Establishing and operating effective turnaround models requires schools to make strategic use of 

relationships with partners. Programs reported that their school turnaround activities and interventions 

would not be successful without the active engagement of partner districts, schools (primarily school 

leaders), and teachers. Perhaps not surprisingly, the same philosophy seems to be evident from the 

grantees’ perspective, as all but one of the grantees had relationships with at least some of their target 

schools before implementation of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, but the length of these 

relationships varied (see Exhibit III-5).42 Most of the grantees reported having had pre-existing 

relationships with partner schools of at least two years duration before implementation.

Exhibit III-5: Relationship with Target School Prior to School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program

Statement N

Any prior relationship (N=13)

Yes, with some schools 8

Yes, with all schools 4

No 1

Duration of prior relationship (N=12)

One year or less 1

Two years 3

Three or more years 4

Varies by school 4

NOTES: (N=12–13, Missing=0)

Duration question limited to grantees whose relationship with the school(s) existed before the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps partnership agreement.

Exhibit reads: Eight grantees had a relationship with some of their target schools before the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program. One of the grantees with any prior school relationships indicated that those prior relationships 

had existed for a year or less.

SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q1 (“Did your organization’s relationship with the school(s) your grant is operating in 

exist before you established a partnership agreement for the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program?”) 

Grantee Survey Q1a (“If yes, how long has your organization been collaborating with the school(s)?)” 

The large majority of grantees (11 of 13) and school leaders (74 percent) were aware of which specific 

students were served by School Turnaround AmeriCorps members (see Appendix Exhibit A-62). The 

number of students expected to be served and to complete services varied markedly by grantee, though 

the proportion of students expected to complete services was often high, sometimes over 100 percent (as 

occurred when grantees served more students than had been expected) (see Exhibit III-6 and Appendix 

Exhibit A-7). On average, grantees had 28 students receiving services for every AmeriCorps member.

42 Because there are only 13 grantees, results from the grantee surveys are presented in absolute numbers instead of 

percentages. 

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Exhibit III-6: Target Number of Students Expected to be Served by School Turnaround AmeriCorps

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NOTES: (N=13, Missing=0)

In this box-and-whisker plot, minimum and maximum values are represented by gray-capped lines; first quartile, 

median, and third quartile are demarcated by gray rectangles, and mean is noted with red diamonds. See Appendix

Exhibit A-7 for a tabular presentation of these data.

Exhibit reads: The minimum number of students per school expected to be served across all 13 grantees was 46, while 

the maximum was 540. The median number of students per school expected to be served was 160, while the mean 

was 210.

SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q5 (“Please review the list below to confirm the schools to which your organization 

assigned School Turnaround AmeriCorps members. Fill in the number of members who serve at each school during 

2014–15, and the targeted number of students that you expect to serve and complete the program this school year. If 

you don’t know, please write in ’DK.’”)) 

According to the grantees, the frequency of student progress meetings between School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members and school staff varied, sometimes by school within grantee (see Exhibit III-7). 

Grantees reported that at most schools, members met with school staff to review student progress on a 

monthly or more frequent basis.
Exhibit III-7: Frequency of Student Progress Meetings between School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

Members and School Staff

Occurrences n

More than twice per month 5

Once per month 3

Once per year 1

Very different from school to school 3

NOTES: One grantee did not know how often School Turnaround AmeriCorps members met with school staff to 

discuss student progress data, and therefore that grantee’s response is not shown. (N=12, Missing=0)

Exhibit reads: Five of 13 grantees indicated that meetings between School Turnaround AmeriCorps members and 

school staff were held more than twice per month. Three grantees indicated that it frequency varied from school to 

school.

SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q7 (“On average, how often do the School Turnaround AmeriCorps members meet with 

school staff to discuss data on the progress of all students? Please select the option that is closest to your members’ 

experience.”) 

Of the 13 grantees, the large majority characterized their interactions with schools as highly 

communicative, with regular communication and collaboration; although a few grantees noted that their 

interactions varied across schools (see Exhibit III-8). For example, most grantees reported frequent 

communication between their organizations and schools, and that they could easily reach school 

personnel (11 and 10 strongly agreed or agreed, respectively), while the remainder indicated that such 

communication varied across schools. This finding corroborates the positive satisfaction levels of 

communication and collaboration reported by school leaders (School Turnaround AmeriCorps National 

Evaluation: Interim Report, June 2015, Exhibit 3-11). 

Exhibit III-8: Grantee Opinions about Communication and Collaboration with Partner Schools

Statement

Strongly 

Agree

(n)

Agree

(N)

Total

(N)

Very Different

by School

(n)

There is frequent communication between my 

organization and the school(s) (e.g., visits to each 

other’s offices, meetings, written information and 

telephone communications)

8 3 11 2 

It is easy for me to get in touch with someone from 

the school(s) 8 2 10 3 

The school(s) responds, if needed, when I make 

contact 7 4 11 2 

The school(s) is (are) committed to making our 

collaboration a success 7 3 10 3 

The school(s) has (have) the ability to accomplish 

set goals 6 5 11 2 

The school(s) puts forth effort to maintain

relationship(s) with my organization 6 3 9 4 

NOTES: (N=13, Missing=0)

Exhibit reads: Eleven of 13 grantees strongly agree or agree that "There is frequent communication between my 

organization and the school(s)." Two grantees believed that this varied greatly from school to school. SOURCE: 

Grantee Survey Q12 (“Please indicate your level of agreement/disagreement about your organization’s collaboration 

with your school partner(s) for each statement listed below. Please try to respond in reference to the typical school, if 

you work with more than one.”)

The importance of partnerships was roundly emphasized. The majority of programs characterized

relationship building and effective collaboration and communication activities as essential, whether 

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between teachers and program staff (12 programs), district and grantee staff (11 programs), or between 

schools and grantees (8 programs). The strategies used included participating in planning meetings 

during the summer months, communicating 

frequently by email and telephone during the school 

year, participating in district- or school-based 

meetings, participating in biweekly meetings for 

teachers and members to discuss students’ academic 

progress, and scheduling site visits by the program 

coordinator or director to maintain relationships and 

address concerns. At the school level, support from 

principals and on-site coordinators was vital to 

programs’ successful implementation. 

The most commonly reported challenges were due to 

insufficient coordination and a lack of engagement in 

these same aspects, while a few programs experienced challenges in balancing district- and school-level 

needs. For example, programs noted that conveying information to the district did not necessarily result 

in that information being relayed to schools, school leaders, and teachers, which created tensions for 

program administration. Strategies grantees used to address this tension include efforts reported by two 

programs to work more closely with district partners and begin conversations earlier in the next school 

year to communicate information about the program structure and understand their resource needs. 

A related challenge was balancing school and district needs in deciding which schools would receive 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members when the district and its schools disagreed about which 

schools should receive member placements. One member, for example, noted that the school principal 

did not want School Turnaround AmeriCorps members in the building, saying “We sat down in a 

meeting with my supervisors, and the assistant principal, and the principal, and they were polite, and 

friendly, but the general message was that, ‘We did not ask for you to be here,’ this was a program that 

was sort of pushed upon them.” One strategy two programs reported using for resolving conflicts was to 

engage principals in resolving disputes that arose in schools, which appeared to reduce distrust between 

teachers and members. 

Collaboration with School Leaders

“... We discussed with several different 

superintendents and principals who would be 

interested in having this program, who this 

program could best serve ... and after we 

went out to the schools and looked at which 

counties could best be served by this and 

the ones that met the criteria, those were the 

two we chose to go with that we thought we 

could make the biggest impact.”

- Grantee pre-interview response

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Partnership Agreements

In the Notice of Funding Opportunity, CNCS required 

grantees to establish written partnership agreements that 

“articulate the alignment between the local School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program design and school and 

LEA turnaround plans, as well as the parties’ plan for 

ongoing collaboration” (Corporation for National and 

Community Service, Announcement of Federal Funding 

Opportunity, School Turnaround AmeriCorps FY13, p. 

31). Twelve of 13 programs provided written partnership agreements to the research team for analysis. 

Most grantees (9 out of 12) used a single partnership agreement with standard language for all school 

partners, including one grantee that included all of its school partners in a single partnership 

agreement.43 Three grantees customized agreements to reflect specific school goals, member 

responsibilities, curricula, and for one program, differences in how its various offices support their 

43 This includes one grantee that only works with one school.

Member Role Confusion

“Many of our members indicated that 

not everyone in the school understood 

the role of the AmeriCorps members 

and the School Turnaround program. It 

took some time for the members to build 

relationships with and educate other 

staff members who were not directly 

supervising them, including teachers.”

-Grantee end-of-year progress report
members. Two of these programs that tailor partnership agreements are run by experienced grantees 

operating across multiple districts, which may mean it is helpful to acknowledge differences between 

sites more formally. 

CNCS guidance further described several elements of strong partnerships that grantees should pursue 

with their school partners: managing collaboratively, sharing data, sharing resources, and articulating 

specific roles and responsibilities. The majority of grantees explicitly described their strategies for 

addressing these elements in their partnership agreements with schools. The level of detail and length of 

partnership agreements varied from a single page outlining the principles of partnership to 15- to 20-page 

documents with specific elements called out in considerable detail (e.g., a separate data use agreement). 

Eleven of 12 agreements described how the programs were to be managed collaboratively, and 10 of 12 

described strategies for sharing data, sharing resources, and defining roles and responsibilities (not 

necessarily the same 10 grantees described each of those components). Five agreements specifically 

articulated a theory of change in the document. 

Few grantees updated their partnership agreements; those who made changes did so based on revisions 

of responsibilities or resource allocations following annual program review. Generally, grantees 

perceived partnership agreements as documents that outlined partners’ roles and responsibilities, not as 

tools for program implementation. Five grantees specifically described the agreement as recourse if and 

when a partner was not meeting its obligations. These same five grantees also reported they had very 

strong collaborations with their school partners and had not “needed to” refer back to the partnership 

agreements. 

Grant Administration and Program Operations

Representatives from each of the 13 grantee organizations were interviewed in fall 2014 (“preinterviews”) and again in spring 2015 (“post-interviews”). Their responses from both periods suggest that 

grantees faced an initial learning curve with the new program but that start-up challenges abated. By the 

end of the second year of the grant (in post-interviews), grantees were discussing topics such as ongoing 

communication and relationship-building needs, challenges posed by external circumstances, and 

changes to implementation—all of which reflect a maturation in program implementation.

Twelve programs were successful in engaging districts, school leaders, and/or teachers by building 

relationships and communication channels that fostered local buy-in and collaboration between members 

and schools. About half of the programs (six) indicated that they had tailored their approach in schools 

by monitoring the effectiveness of their strategies in meeting student needs. Eight programs also 

experienced implementation challenges related to insufficient coordination, which contributed to a lack 

of buy-in from districts and schools; issues related to caseload management or matching members to 

students; and managing and tracking program data. 

Launching and Operating a New Program 

Eleven programs reported one or more start-up issues that adversely affected their ability to operate the 

program in its first year. Start-up issues were most prevalent among programs without prior AmeriCorps 

experience. These issues, discussed in grantee interviews and focus groups, include late starts (eight

programs, five of which were new) due to having limited time to recruit, train, and place members in 

schools between award notification and the beginning of the school year. Two grantees in focus groups 

explained that the funding cycle made it difficult to recruit and effectively train members before the 

school year started—though many grantee staff (six) discussed wishing they could have engaged 

members earlier for more training. One grantee also noted how difficult it was to “put an effective 

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program together” without the “clashing of the bureaucracy at the beginning,” specifically noting the 

challenge posed by getting district buy-in.

Other start-up issues reported were technical difficulties with enrolling or exiting members and/or 

tracking requirements in eGrants (five programs, four of which were new); and misunderstanding of 

program requirements (three programs, two of which were new). A majority of programs reported 

specific issues related to managing resources, both financial and other resources, such as finding 

appropriate space to house members in schools (or decreasing the number of members if insufficient 

space was available), or obtaining access to 

technology. One program had to reduce the 

number of members assigned to one school that 

had need for and interest in members because of 

space constraints at the school. 

Two examples of actions taken by programs to 

overcome start-up issues are (1) beginning 

recruitment for the following school year as early 

as January and (2) offering peer-to-peer learning 

between programs having issues with obtaining 

matching funds and programs reporting success 

with leveraging additional resources. With 

program start-up challenges largely resolved, grantees’ ongoing challenges with operating School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps appeared to be the timing of recruiting members, deepening relationships with 

districts and schools, responding to school-level changes, and data analysis (see next section).

In their post-interviews, two new grantees continued to express frustration with not having as much 

peer-to-peer contact and mentoring as they felt would have been helpful. Specifically, one grantee 

suggested that new grantees be paired with experienced grantees to help them understand how to set 

realistic program goals, while another grantee noted that the grantee conference calls were too formal for 

grantees to comfortably disclose their errors and meaningfully share lessons learned. 

Start-Up Issues

“[O]ne school turnaround site ... changed 

leadership during the summer. New 

leadership could not commit to hosting the 

number of members they had agreed to with 

the prior leadership. The program worked to 

raise funds to offset the cost of the school to 

host additional members, but they were 

unable to raise all the necessary funds in the 

short period of time.”

-Grantee end-of-year progress report 

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Use of Data to Manage and Monitor Programs for Continuous Improvement

Data use is an integral element in many schools’ turnaround efforts, including efforts to monitor program 

performance and adjust activities accordingly; six principals described their respective school or district 

as “data-driven” or motivated by a “culture of data.” Inside the school, school staff use data to track 

student performance and tailor instruction. Outside the school, school staff members use data to report 

to partners or the state to keep the school accountable. These six principals’ data sources included data 

on students’ attendance and behavior, on state and interim assessments, on outcomes for the schools’ 

alumni, on parental engagement, and on the transition to Common Core standards. 

AmeriCorps members reported (17 of 19 members) that they routinely handled data at host schools, 

worked alongside teachers and administration to help manage data responsibilities, and/or participated 

in discussions with teachers about student performance based on interim assessment data or student 

grades. In three schools, on-site coordinators, supervisors, and liaisons played a substantial role in School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps data collection; one of these on-site coordinators “100 percent ran the data 

analysis” for the school’s turnaround program, which influenced how the school worked with its 

members. 

About half of programs (6 of 13) reported on the beneficial role of data for monitoring the effectiveness of 

their strategies and tailoring their efforts to better meet student needs. Many programs and a large 
majority of interviewed members described members working with teachers to interpret assessment data 

to improve targeted services. One program replicated an especially effective data strategy at multiple 

schools where it operates School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs. Biweekly “early warning indicator” 

meetings between members and students identified a focus list of students to target more intensively. The 

result was a nearly 70 percent increase in students’ scores, who were often several grade levels behind 

when they were identified for additional help. 

Grantees’ access to and use of data depended upon a positive relationships with host schools, both to 

track whether the programs were meeting their performance measures and to help members evaluate 

and effectively target their interventions in real time. Data-sharing agreements proved helpful in 

outlining how grantees could access data, as were such collaborative structures as training sessions and 

regular meetings between members and teachers about student data—a strategy specifically mentioned 

by two grantees and almost all interviewed members. 

The majority of grantees and a small number of members reported a number of challenges with data. 

Grantees experienced challenges related primarily to data accessibility and capacity to analyze the 

volume of data. When schools or districts were unwilling to share their data, usually out of concern for 

student privacy, it was extremely problematic for the grantee. Keeping up with data entry and other 

responsibilities was described as challenging for three members (all affiliated with the same program)

who reported being overwhelmed by the volume of data and conflicted by the time-consuming work of 

data entry, which one member characterized as entering information already in one system into another. 

She explained that the data were used to support grant applications and other purposes but that entering 

the data affected her capacity to spend time with her students.

Data Issues Due to Staff Capacity

“To be honest with you, we only have two staff members. It's me and we have an assistant director and 

we run two AmeriCorps programs ... Something that would be really helpful would be more support 

around—training us on how, why this data—and giving us access to people who might be able to help 

us analyze the data. That's really cumbersome. It's overwhelming. It's a lot of data ... I'm mostly looking 

at the impact data [has] as far as the attendance, disciplinary issues, all that because I have to report 

on performance measures. But I really want to take all this stuff that I have on which interventions our 

members are using and compare it to which is better ... But I simply just don't have the resources to do 

that. It’s a capacity issue. Yeah, we definitely have a capacity issue.”

-Grantee interview 

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The most common data issue grantees faced was having limited capacity and/or resources to process, 

analyze, and interpret data (four programs) (see textbox for an example); two grantees specifically noted 

that they struggled to turn data into thoughtful presentations of student success, as noteworthy student 

successes got lost in number-crunching and quantitative reports. Three grantees reported a related 

challenge, due to the use of proficiency levels that mask students’ improvement within the category of 

“Far Below Basic”; even a full grade level improvement would not register as a change in performance 

level. A small number of grantees also reported challenges arising from data entry errors (three

programs) and missing data (e.g., student activity participation in interventions is not systematically 

recorded) (two programs).

Three programs reported implementing changes to data management and use to address such challenges. 

One program established a corrective action plan to align data tracking to the grading period, which was 

more meaningful than a semester system. Another program hired a staff member with expertise in data 

monitoring and analysis, and a third program focused on empowering members to collect and analyze 

data, among their other responsibilities. 
Effects of School Changes on Program Implementation

Grantees’ post-interviews indicate that grantees were settling into routines and working to create 

stronger, more efficient programming. Several grantees (three) described how their programs were 

maturing; one noted that changes were more noticeable at the beginning than the end of the year. This 

grantee emphasized the importance of continuing to build a strong relationship with districts and schools 

to effectively navigate challenges as they arise. As the program and the partnership matured, the district 

and schools were beginning to support the grantee in program success and the grantee was beginning to 

support the schools’ turnaround goals (see textbox). 

Yet change is constant in turnaround schools, 

and the turnover in both principals and teachers 

meant that grantees were in some cases 

continually reintroducing their programs. While 

turnover is a feature of some turnaround models, 

it imposed a challenge for grantees that had to 

establish relationships with new personnel, 

including both principals and teachers who 

might have been unfamiliar with School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps and/or less supportive 

of the program goals than their predecessors. 

Three grantees noted (in post-interviews) that 

they had begun to think about next steps for their 

schools after grant funding ends, whether 

because principals had already asked questions, 

or because program staff were anticipating how 

best to transfer responsibilities from members to 

school staff and/or volunteers. 

Collaboration with School Leaders

“I think that making it a priority to work with 

these schools that have a particular status has 

been a good learning curve, I think, for us, to 

partner with other [school districts] ...[it’s] been 

important to have a strong partner from the 

district who can help us navigate that. 

Especially if their [turnaround] statuses do 

change, or you hear rumbling about a particular 

school’s potentially closing, or changing, or 

changing the ages they work with. It's just really

important for us to have that solid partner at this 

level, who can help us navigate that. It's just 

that over time, with any partners, when you 

grow more comfortable, you're able to, I think, 

rely on each other in new ways that you can't 

initially.”

-Grantee post-interview 

Member Recruitment, Matching, Retention, and Management

Member Recruitment and Retention 

Finding the right individuals to serve as members was an 

important element of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program implementation; however, the majority (11 of 13) of 

programs reported challenges with recruitment and/or 

retention. Grantees generally perceived that they could 

improve their retention by improving their screening, 

recruitment, and training strategies, and a majority of 

grantees (10 of 13) reported adopting some changes regarding 

recruitment from year to year. Several programs reported that 

they offered members specific and presumably desirable 

responsibilities and positions in an effort to help retain 

qualified candidates, and several had also developed 

recruitment screening and communication strategies customized to their local program needs. Two noted 

that they planned to revisit their screening processes to emphasize elements that might improve their 

recruitment efforts, including highlighting the required length of service and ensuring that candidates’ 

reading and math skills are strong enough for them to be effective tutors. Other strategies grantees used 

for improving retention included providing members with detailed financial compensation information 

Coordinating AmeriCorps 

Resources

“We have all learned that it is critical 

that the school, AmeriCorps 

members, and Program Director be 

directly involved in the collaborative. 

Recruitment, retention, and member 

management suffered due to the 

lack of coordination between the 

District, Program Director and 

School Sites.” 

-Grantee pre-interview 

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up front; providing budget management trainings, with realistic sample budgets to convey constraints; 

and providing details on the scope of member responsibilities and obligations, including sample 

schedules to convey the level of commitment based on realistic caseload levels. Grantees also tried 

structuring positions to create as many member-preferred opportunities as possible—such as full-time 

rather than part-time positions, roles with both tutoring and non-tutoring responsibilities—and offering 

members opportunities to develop their own skills and take on greater responsibilities in their respective 

school and program contexts.

Member Training and Professional Development

Once selected for service, all members received training that included typical AmeriCorps orientation 

and training activities. Few programs (three) reported providing specialized training on topics such as 

behavioral coaching training (e.g., Real Time Coaching and Respect 360) and student data management. 

Data from principals and several members (in focus groups) offer suggestions for improvement, 

including having training for members address a broader range of topics than had occurred to date. 

Suggested topics were customizing training to specific school contexts, establishing appropriate 

professional boundaries for interactions with students, developing sensitivity to cultural and economic 

differences, learning strategies for managing student behavior issues, and describing both “best and 

worst case” scenarios to prepare members more realistically for the experiences they are likely to face. 

Members offered various suggestions for improving their training, including using program alumni to 

speak with and train new members, individualizing training to specifically fit the program and school, 

incorporating behavior management techniques in trainings, and training members with a more realistic 

version of their likely work in mind and with a heavier focus on the day-to-day challenges they are likely 

to face. Another specific suggestion for content is de-escalation techniques for working with student 

behavior problems. 

Some principals discussed providing school-specific 

trainings to increase members’ capacity to support 

permanent school staff more effectively. These school-based 

trainings for members appeared to be one method schools 

could use to strengthen their communication and 

coordination with the grantee offices. The training and professional development members continued to 

receive once placed in the schools was characterized as having mixed value from some focus group 

members’ perspectives. These focus group members said that the in-school ongoing training was a 

double-edged sword because it came with confusion and sometimes tension about members’ roles and 

responsibilities, as discussed further in the section on challenges later in the report. 

Insufficient Member Training

“The training I got wasn’t bad but it 

wasn’t very accurate”

-Member focus group

Member Management and Supervision

Programs described using different reporting and supervisory structures to oversee members in their 

placements, summarized in Exhibit III-9; whether they were called site supervisors, program or project 

director, or site coordinator (5, 4, and 3 programs, respectively), these supervisory structures were 

characterized as useful–if not essential–by various stakeholders. Ten (of 12) partnership agreements 

specify that each partner school is responsible for appointing a primary school-based liaison or 

coordinator to help organize and assist program members. A majority of principals interviewed (15 of 25) 

reported that they use on-site coordinators, usually school staff members, typically from the attendance, 

guidance, or administrative offices, to manage AmeriCorps members’ work and program-school 

communication. 

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Exhibit III-9: On-Site Coordinator Roles and Responsibilities 

Role Responsibilities 

Site Supervisor (5 

programs)

Handles on-site issues as they arise; serves as first point of contact for AmeriCorps team; serves as 

liaison between teachers and members; updates grantees on program’s progress; daily activity and 

attendance monitoring for members; matches students and members; manages logistics (members’ 

caseloads and schedules); acts as professional mentor and resource to members; advocates to the 

school for members; tries to integrate members into the school community. These responsibilities 

may involve a teacher within the school or professionals to identify struggling students more easily.

Program/Project

Director (4 programs)

Meets monthly with members, provides member feedback; mentors members to meet professional 

goals; maintains presence in the schools; manages caseload, logistics, recruitment and selection, 

retention; weekly contact with schools, program management.

Site Coordinator (3 

programs)

Provides on-site support for members and school staff; provides wraparound services; oversees 

parental involvement; oversees day-to-day program operations; ensures members are meeting 

student needs; provides presence/support/supervision in absence of the program director. These 

responsibilities enable more frequent check-ins with members and teachers, allow for presence at 

multiple campuses, assistance with recruitment and retention, and supervision in absence of the 

program director

Across grantee, principal, and member perspectives, there was agreement about the benefits of having an 

on-site coordinator to manage members’ work and act as a liaison between the school and grantee. Such 

supervisors (especially on site) were described as “the glue 

that helps members work through issues and gives them 

the support they need” in schools. One principal 

emphasized that her site coordinator provided “... the 

most bang for her buck,” and helped ameliorate challenges 

arising from members’ immaturity, which led another 

principal to express interest in the site coordinator 

position, as she too found that School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members required higher levels of 

supervision and monitoring than she had expected. 

Members were also overwhelmingly positive about the 

support they received from their coordinators. 

Those grantees who relied upon on-site supervisors 

adjusted their roles throughout the year. One grantee 

explained that they had already hired their coordinators 

for 2015–16 as of spring 2015, so that they would be 

available to plan, prepare, and forge connections during 

the summer months. Two grantees reported difficulties 

with their on-site coordinators. One program using 

teachers as site supervisors lost them due to teacher 

turnover in the schools. Another grantee that operates across multiple schools explained that it was 

difficult to coordinate the schedules of guidance counselors who served as coordinators to have a full 

program meeting. 

Coordination Improving Yearover-Year

“The school is working very 

closely with the site coordinator 

for [School Turnaround]

AmeriCorps in setting schedules, 

assigning responsibilities to the 

AmeriCorps [members] and also 

for training and doing more 

training using our teachers and 

our teachers are working more 

closely with the AmeriCorps

[members] in terms of the 

organization within the school as 

opposed to last year it was all 

driven through AmeriCorps. It's a 

much more coordinated effort and 

there's a higher degree of 

collaboration.”

- Principal interview

Perceived Effectiveness of Implementation Strategies

The school leader and school staff surveys explored communication and collaboration between school 

staff and School Turnaround AmeriCorps members, a topic not covered by the grantee survey. Findings 

from these survey items were first reported in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps National Evaluation 

Interim Report and are reproduced here for ease of reference.

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The majority of school leaders strongly agreed or agreed that the school communicates about school 

turnaround efforts in general, teachers are supportive of the AmeriCorps program, and that the school 

uses several means to integrate and communicate with members (see Appendix Exhibit A-65).

School staff perceptions were generally similar to those of school leaders, both about teachers’ support of 

the AmeriCorps program and in terms of the specific means by which the schools integrate and 

communicate with AmeriCorps members; for all items, at least three-quarters of staff strongly agreed or 

agreed. School staff responses were moderately less positive than those of school leaders (see Appendix 

Exhibit A-66). 

The majority of all stakeholders (grantees, school leaders, and staff) reported being very satisfied or 

satisfied with all elements of School Turnaround AmeriCorps program operations (see Exhibit III-10). 

Note that the exhibit has two panels; the first panel displays results for questions asked of only one or 

two stakeholder groups whereas the second panel displays results for all three. Generally, grantees 

indicated being very satisfied with school-level communication and collaboration (sharing data, 

alignment with school turnaround plans, referral of students, and matching and placement of members); 

they indicated they were satisfied with member communication and collaboration within schools and 

implementation of roles and responsibilities outlined in partnership agreements.

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Exhibit III-10: Grantee, School Leader, and School Staff Satisfaction with Elements of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Program Operations (2014–15)

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NOTES: Number of grantees who did not know ranged from 0–1. Number of grantees who indicated the question 

was not applicable ranged from 0–2. (N=13, Missing=0)
Number of school leaders who indicated this question was not applicable ranged from 0–3. (N=38, Missing=0–1)

School staff responses limited to school staff who worked with at least one student in the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program. Number of school staff who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 7–17. 

(N=155, Missing=2–5)

1 Question asked of grantees only. 

 2 Question asked of grantees and school leaders only.

3 Question asked of school leaders only.

4 Question asked of grantees and school leaders only. In the school leader survey, this row was labeled 

"communication between school leadership and grantee staff"

5 Question asked of school leaders and school staff only.

Exhibit reads: Twelve of 13 grantees are very satisfied or satisfied with the "sharing of outcome data by the 

school/district." This item was not asked on the school leader or school staff surveys.

SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q14 (“For this school year, please indicate how satisfied you are with each of the 

statements below”) 

School Leader Survey Q16, Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q18 ("For this school year (2014–15), please 

indicate your level of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with each of the elements listed below. Mark one response in each 

row.”) 

The large majority of grantees and school leaders indicated that all seven elements of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps programs listed in Exhibit III-11 were very important or important. Both the grantees and 

school leaders characterized orientation and training of AmeriCorps members before they serve, 

supervisory structure to ensure fidelity of program implementation, recruitment process that identifies 

members with skills corresponding to program objectives, and comprehensive trainings of members as 

very important or important.

Exhibit III-11: Grantee and School Leader Perceptions of Important Elements of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Implementation (2014-2015)

Element

Grantees School Leaders

Very 

Important Important Total

Very 

Important Important Total

n n n (%) (%) (%)

Orientation and training of AmeriCorps 

members before they serve at the school 12 1 13 65 33 98

Supervisory structure to ensure fidelity of 

program implementation a 10 2 12 67 33 100

Recruitment and selection process that 

identifies members with skills that correspond 

with the program objectives b

9 4 13 74 26 100

Comprehensive trainings of AmeriCorps 

members and program support staff during 

their year(s) of service

8 5 13 57 41 98

Defined framework (e.g., RTI) to guide 

instructional choices and allow for the 

assessment of program effectiveness 

6 5 11 56 44 100

Research-based interventions to improve

desired student-level outcomes c 4 4 8 64 32 96

Alignment of AmeriCorps activities to the 

strategies outlined in the school’s turnaround 

plan d

N/A N/A N/A 69 29 98

NOTES: Grantee (N=13, Missing=0–1)

School Leader (N=38, Missing=0–1)

The wording of several elements differed across the Grantee and School Leader surveys:

a Grantee: "Multi-layered supervisory structure to ensure fidelity of program implementation"

 School Leader: "Clearly defined supervisory structure to ensure fidelity of program implementation"

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b Grantee: "Recruitment and selection process that effectively identifies members with characteristics/skills that 

correspond with the program objectives"

 School Leader: "AmeriCorps member recruitment and selection process that identifies and selects members with 

skills aligned with the program's objectives"

c Grantee: "Limited set of highly scripted interventions that have been shown to be effective (i.e., research based) in 

achieving desired student-level outcomes"

 School Leader: "Highly defined set of research-based interventions to improve desired student-level outcomes"

d This element only appeared in the School Leader survey.

Exhibit reads: All 13 grantees and 98 percent of school leaders perceived that "Orientation and training of 

AmeriCorps members before they serve at the school" is very important or important.

SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q16 (“How important are the following characteristics to successfully implementing your 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program at a typical school?”) 

School Leader Survey Q9 (“How important are the following to the successful implementation of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program in your school(s)?)”

Exhibit III-12: School Improvement Grant Strategy Most Influenced by School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps (2014-2015)

Rank of Influence

School Improvement Strategy (SIG)

Mean Rankings 

(Standard Errors) Percent Ranked

Academic achievement 1.8 (0.4) 90

School culture and environment 2.5 (0.3) 85

Increased learning time 2.7 (0.5) 91

Family and community engagement 3.6 (0.3) 91

Graduation rates 4.2 (0.3) 59

College enrollment rates 4.7 (0.5) 69

NOTES: See Appendix Exhibit A-35. 

Ranks range from 1–6, with 1 being the most important; not all responses were given a ranking.

Seven respondents (23 percent) indicated that this question was not applicable. (N=31, Missing=3)

Table rows are sorted in ascending order by the mean ranking of school leaders.

Exhibit reads: School leaders ranked “academic achievement” as the most important school improvement strategy, 

with a mean ranking of 1.8 on a 6-point scale; 90 percent of school leaders ranked this particular outcome. 

SOURCE: School Leader Survey Q19 (“Which School Improvement Grant (SIG) strategies are influenced the most by 

the School Turnaround AmeriCorps members this school year?”) 

Synthesis and Comparisons of Stakeholder Views of Program Implementation

Grantees were generally in agreement with school leaders and school staff about how students receive 

services from School Turnaround AmeriCorps members. A majority of all stakeholders reported that 

AmeriCorps members provided direct services to individual students. A slight majority of grantees (7 of 

13) reported that whole classrooms participated in direct service, whereas smaller proportions of school 

leaders and staff did so (45 and 33 percent, respectively) (see Exhibit III-13). Note, however, that members 

could provide services at all three levels, and that these categories of direct service provision are not 

mutually exclusive.

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Exhibit III-13: How Students Received School Turnaround AmeriCorps Direct Services (2014–15)

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NOTES: Grantee (N=13, Missing=0)

School Leaders (N=38, Missing=0)

Twenty-three school staff did not know the target unit of service of School Turnaround AmeriCorps programming. 

(N=132, Missing=0)

Percentages do not sum to 100 because multiple responses were permitted.

Exhibit reads: Eleven of 13 grantees, 74 percent of school leaders and 80 percent of school staff reported that School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps members served individual students. 

SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q2 (“To the best of your knowledge, did School Turnaround AmeriCorps members 

provide direct services to individual students, to the whole classroom, or to all students in the school during the 

2014-15 school year?”) 

School Leader Survey Q6, Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q9 (“To the best of your knowledge, to whom 

do School Turnaround AmeriCorps members provide direct services this school year? Check all that apply.”) 

Turning now to members’ workload, a large majority of AmeriCorps members generally served at least 

30 hours a week, based on responses from grantees and school leaders. A majority of grantees (7 of 11) 

reported that AmeriCorps members spent 40 or more hours a week in the school; a smaller proportion (39 

percent) of school leaders did so. According to grantees (and school leaders), the large majority of 

members served for 30 or more weeks during the school year, roughly corresponding to the average 

duration of a school year. A higher proportion of grantees than school leaders reported that AmeriCorps 

members served 30–40 weeks per year (see Exhibit III-14).
Exhibit III-14: Average Hours per Week and Weeks per Year Members Served in School (2014–15)

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NOTES: One grantee reported an impossibly high number of hours per week, so the grantee’s response to hours per 

week and weeks per year was set to missing. (N=13, Missing=1)

School Leader (N=38, Missing=0)

Exhibit reads: Zero of 12 grantees report that members serve less than 20 hours per week and less than 30 weeks per 

year on average. Four percent of school leaders report that members serve less than 20 hours per week on average, 

and 14 percent of school leaders report that members serve less than 30 weeks per year on average.
SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q6 (“Please fill in the following information on the characteristics of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps programming at each school served by your organization this school year (2014–15). If you don’t know, 

please write in ’DK.’”)

School Leader Survey Q5_3 (“On average, how many hours per week does each of these AmeriCorps members serve 

this school year (2014–15)?”) 

School Leader Survey Q5_4 (“On average, how many weeks do these AmeriCorps members spend in your school 

this school year (2014–15)?)” 

Staff familiarity with the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program and knowledge about the number of 

students served varied. Over a quarter of staff respondents were unfamiliar with the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program, and almost a third were unaware of how many of their own students were served 

by the program. However, staff knowledgeable of the program indicated that it served considerable 

proportions of their students: nearly two-thirds of respondents knowledgeable of the program noted that 

at least 25 percent of their students were served by AmeriCorps (see Appendix Exhibit A-64). About 40 

percent of respondents noted that 75 percent or more of their students were served by AmeriCorps.

Grantees and school staff generally concurred about the specific mechanisms most often used to identify 

students for AmeriCorps services as well as the reasons students were identified to participate (see 

Exhibit III-15). Teacher recommendations were the most important mechanism, followed by grades and 

counselor recommendation. Grantees and school staff also concurred that improving academic 

achievement and engagement were the most common reasons students are identified to participate in the 

program.

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Exhibit III-15: Mechanisms to Identify and Reason Students Identified to Participate in School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps Activities (2014–15) 

Mechanism to identify students 

Reason students identified to participate

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NOTES: Grantees (N=13, Missing=0)

Fifty-one school staff did not know which mechanisms were most frequently used. (N=104, Missing=3)
Forty-one school staff did not know the reasons students were identified. (N=114, Missing=1)

Exhibit reads: Nine of 13 grantees and 89 percent of school staff chose "teacher recommendation" as a mechanism to 

identify students for participation in School Turnaround AmeriCorps. Twelve of 13 grantees and 88 percent of school 

staff indicated that students were identified to participate to "improve academic achievement."

SOURCE: Grantee Survey Q8 (“To the best of your knowledge, which mechanisms did the school(s) use to identify 

students to participate in activities led by School Turnaround AmeriCorps members?”) 

Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q7 (“To the best of your knowledge, which of the following mechanisms 

are most frequently used in your school to identify students for activities led by School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members?”) 

Grantee Survey Q9 (“To the best of your knowledge, what are the reasons that students were identified to participate 

in School Turnaround AmeriCorps programming?”) 

Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q8 (“To the best of your knowledge, what are the reasons that students 

were identified to participate in School Turnaround AmeriCorps programming this school year?”) 

Exhibit III-16 shows the estimated proportion of school leader, school staff, and parent respondents who 

“strongly agree” and/or “agree” with statements about the perceived value of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps.44 Large majorities of school leaders agreed or strongly agreed that the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program provides value in multiple ways, through offering helpful supports, serving as 

partners in improving student outcomes, and providing activities frequently enough to be valuable. Staff 

reported generally positive perceptions of AmeriCorps members. The majority of staff (80 percent or 

more) perceive that AmeriCorps members provide helpful supports to students, members are important 

partners in improving student outcomes, and members offer supports benefiting teachers in the school. 

Interviewed parents also have strongly positive perceptions of AmeriCorps members, and were more 

likely than school staff to report that AmeriCorps activities occur frequently enough to be valuable.

44 Grantees were not asked their perceptions of the value of School Turnaround AmeriCorps.

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Exhibit III-16: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions of Value of School Turnaround AmeriCorps (2014–15) 

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NOTES: See Appendix Exhibit A-34 for a table with all response options for school leaders, Appendix Exhibit A-54

for a table with all response options for school staff, and Appendix Exhibit A-60 for a table with all response options 

for parents.

* Question asked of school leaders and school staff only.

† Question asked of school leaders only.

Black capped lines are 95 percent confidence intervals (see Section 7.2.2 for details on how they were calculated).

Number of school leader respondents who responded “not applicable” ranged from 0 to 3. (N=38, Missing=0)

School staff responses limited to respondents who worked with at least one student in the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program. (N=155, Missing=1-5)

Parent responses limited to those familiar with children in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Number of 

respondents who did not know ranged from 2 to 3. (N=38, Missing=0)

Bars are sorted in descending order by the proportion of school leaders who selected strongly agree.

Exhibit reads: An estimated 45 percent of all school leaders strongly agree and 55 percent agree that “AmeriCorps 

members provide helpful support to the students in this school; the proportions for school staff and parents are 31

percent, 77 percent (strongly agree) and 63 percent, 19 percent (agree), respectively.

SOURCE: School Leader Survey Q18, Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q17 (“Please indicate the level of 

agreement/disagreement with the following statements about your school this school year (2014–15). (Mark one 

response in each row.”) 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps Parent Interviews Q10 (“Now I will read several statements about your child’s 

school. For each statement, please tell me whether you strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree, or don’t 

know.”)

Exhibit III-16 and other similar exhibits that follow also display information about the confidence 

intervals (the black bars shown at the end of each bar on the chart) for each item. These exhibits help 

convey information both about the study sample and the variability of responses. Generally, the narrower 

the interval, the greater the confidence in the findings. In these exhibits, intervals are narrower for the 

school leader than staff survey responses because nearly all leaders sampled actually responded, and a 

substantially smaller proportion of sampled school staff did so.45

Exhibit III-17 presents stakeholder perspectives on factors that facilitate program implementation 

progress, factors that present barriers and challenges, and suggested improvements.

45 The horizontal black “T” lines in Exhibit III-12 and similar exhibits represent a 95 percent confidence interval in 

the estimated proportion of population members who either strongly agree or agree with a given item. The 

estimated proportions are derived from survey responses, and because no sample of respondents perfectly 

represents the population from which it is drawn, sample-based estimates of population-wide proportions rarely 

recreate the true population proportion. A 95 percent confidence interval (95 percent CI) is a common way to 

characterize the lack of certainty in an estimated proportion. A statement like “A 95 percent CI for the 

population proportion of agreement is (70percent, 90 percent)” effectively makes two claims. The first is an 

inclusion claim: that the population-wide proportion of agreement is contained within the specified range of 70

percent to 90 percent. The second is a reliability claim: that the computational procedure producing the specified 

inclusion range works correctly 95 percent of the time. The width of confidence intervals is determined by a 

number of factors, including absolute sample size and sample size relative to population size, which is why 

samples approximating the population size are generally more likely to have narrower confidence intervals.

nationalservice.gov 82

 
Exhibit III-17: Factors that Facilitate Progress and Factors That Present Barriers and Challenges by Program Stakeholder

Program 

Stakeholder Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

Grantee Staff

• Urban areas and community schools offer more partnership opportunities 

and a broader range of services

• Having prior relationships and history of effective partnerships with 

partner schools

• Strong relationships and strong communication with school and district 

partners, especially school administrators

• Establishing partnership agreements with schools to define roles and 

responsibilities, articulate the scope of activities and interventions, and 

facilitate programs access to school and student data

• Grantees engaging partner districts and schools in planning, 

communication, and coordination of activities

• Close collaboration with school partners to recruit and place members in 

school

• Ongoing collaboration with school partners and other stakeholders about 

proactive use of data 

• Data sharing and trainings about data

• Data teams that regularly review data to assess the connections between 

program services and interventions and instructional outcomes 

• Grantees manage and use data to improve program operations, through 

quality control measures, using an external evaluator, or adjusting 

program activities in response to student needs

• On-Site Coordinators/Supervisors promote interaction among school 

staff, members, and Grantee staff; assist member integration into school 

culture, work closely with members and school staff to manage member 

caseloads and match students to members, and serve as a professional 

mentor and resource to members

• Dynamic and unstable environment in the schools in which grantees

implement their programs including school and district leadership 

changes

• Rural areas lack external partners

• Know-how and capacity to manage the structures and processes required 

to launch a new program (e.g., manage grants, complete member 

recruitment and set up technology, access data, and obtain matching 

funding)

• Ongoing grant management issues (e.g. funding cycle limits recruitment 

and training of members before the school year starts)

• Establishing partnership agreements between grantees and schools 

takes time

• Insufficient coordination and lack of engagement between grantees and 

school leaders

• Recruiting, managing and retaining members

• Inadequate training of members for their service in low-performing 

schools; training is not sufficient or realistic enough to prepare members 

for their work in the schools

• Monitoring program performance and managing large volumes of 

program data; accessing data from the district, tracking student data, and 

having limited resources to analyze data and present information about 

student success

• Lack of communication and coordination strategy for placing AmeriCorps 

resources in positions that effectively support schools’ turnaround efforts

• Partnership agreements are not consistently used as working documents 

to redefine roles and responsibilities as the program changes during the 

course of implementation or as a means of enforcing partner 

accountability

• Lack of a dedicated coordinator and splitting time across multiple schools 

hinders communication with school staff about members’ roles and 

coordination with teachers

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Program 

Stakeholder Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

AmeriCorps 

Members

• Having an on-site coordinator (communication, organization, collaboration) to 

maintain frequent, accessible, and open communication channels with school 

leaders and provide real-time peer support at host schools

• Integration of member roles with school culture and operations

• Building trust and positive and supportive relationships with teachers, students 

and families

• Serving as a bridge between students and teacher relationships (i.e., intervening 

in situations before disciplinary action is needed)

• Having mission focus and commitment to the program

• Having the background knowledge and skillsets needed by schools in sufficient 

quantities

• Participation in school-wide professional development activities to integrate 

members into the school culture

• Participation in school functions to increase buy-in from school leaders, staff, 

students, and parents

• Communication with parents about their child’s absences to improve their child’s 

attendance

• Members are viewed as “near peers” and role models to students (e.g., by 

providing insight into college life, and contributing positively to school culture)

• Routinely reviewing data to assess their intervention’s effectiveness

• Members’ youth and energy helps to engage school staff and parents, and 

motivate students to engage in learning and academics 

• Providing supports for school staff (i.e. helping teachers identify students’ needs 

and progress, helping with classroom management, or freeing up time for teacher 

professional development) 

• Frequent collaboration with teachers (e.g. identifying students for tutoring) when 

serving in classrooms facilitates classroom management

• Providing specialized attention and one-on-one support, e.g. by giving students 

extra time on subjects with which they struggle and tutoring directly to the 

students’ interests

• Checking in on students regularly and make them feel accountable for their 

attendance

• Coupling college preparation with mentoring

• Leveraging their positive relationships and similar ages with students they serve 

to make them more enthusiastic about attending college

• Helping to craft the school’s behavioral culture by developing positive 

relationships with students and encouraging them to become more engaged in 

their schools

• Members help rebrand school reputation as a visible intervention in an ineffective 

or unpopular school system

• Providing after school activities that combine tutoring/homework help with 

recreational activities (e.g. cooking, crafts)

• Encouraging students to be more motivated and academically engaged

• Keeping parents and community members informed about school functions and 

activities to promote their involvement in the community

• Insufficient staffing and resources at host schools (e.g. members do not 

have private and/or quiet space to work with students)

• High teacher turnover makes it difficult for students to build enduring 

relationships with teachers

• Lack of discipline in school environments 

• Lack of resources, staff, volunteers and funding for some activities 

impede after-school activities

• Minimal-time service terms (e.g. members who come in once a week for a 

couple of hours to provide tutoring or credit recovery support) do not allow 

enough time for members to forge relationships in their time-limited 

interactions with students

• Members’ one-year service terms limit positive relationship building 

between students and a trusted and caring adult, and mean that, typically, 

inexperienced members are placed in schools each year

• Mismatch between members’ backgrounds and the skills schools need 

most and/or in subject areas needed for supporting students academically 

(e.g. science and math)

• Lack of practical experience in schools and knowledge of behavior 

management, de-escalation, and conflict resolution techniques

• Training that is not sufficient or realistic enough to prepare members for 

their work in the schools

• Lack of clarity and tension about members’ roles and responsibilities, e.g. 

member participation in school-wide professional development activities

• Member perceptions of lack of respect from school staff

• Member responsibilities for time-consuming data collection and data entry 

that takes away from direct services

• Inability to access students during school day and slow build-up of 

caseloads 

• Inconsistent service hours or presence at program schools 

• Member activities that disrupt classroom instructional time, e.g., pull-out 

tutoring

• Mandatory tutoring can be off-putting to students

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Program 

Stakeholder Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

Principals

• Involving school leaders and/or teachers in member recruitment, 

placement, and/or supervision to help build school capacity to manage 

external partners supporting turnaround efforts 

• School leaders’ prior experience with other AmeriCorps programs

• Leadership buy-in to the School Turnaround AmeriCorps partnership

• Leadership that supports and facilitates teacher cooperation and 

collaboration with members 

• Service activities that are closely aligned with the school’s curriculum

• Disagreement between districts and schools about member placements 

• Miscommunication and inconsistent communication between the 

programs and schools

• Lack of communication between the school administration and their staff, 

e.g. not inviting teachers to the discussions and not involving them in the 

decision process about the program

• Viewing program rules as limiting flexibility in deciding how to use 

AmeriCorps resources in their schools

• Lack clarity or misunderstanding of program rules, especially of restricted 

activities for members within their schools 

• Mismatch between the school’s needs and services offered by School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps

• School leadership use of the AmeriCorps service as a pipeline to identify 

future staff members

• Insufficient coordination and lack of engagement between grantees and 

school leaders

• Perceived diminished autonomy and lack of buy-in to the program, 

stemming from disagreement between districts and schools about 

member placements

• School leaders’ lack of knowledge, experience, or receptivity toward using

external partner resources 

• Schools’ lack of preparation to use external partner resources when 

program is first introduced, such as lack of a communication and 

coordination strategy

• Activities that are not well-aligned with the school’s curriculum

• High principal and school staff turnover reduces buy-in and increases

relationship-building work

• School policy changes that conflict with student attendance interventions 

(e.g. more suspensions to address behavioral issues)

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Program 

Stakeholder Factors that Facilitate Progress Barriers and Challenges

School Staff

• Recruiting and designating a teacher for the program coordination role to 

increase teacher interest and investment in the program 

• Member participation in planning meetings to identify and monitor student 

needs and progress (academic and non-academic) and to help promote 

teacher effectiveness

• Members provide supports for school staff (i.e. helping teachers identify 

students’ needs and progress, helping with classroom management, or 

freeing up time for teacher professional development)

• Frequent member collaboration with teachers (e.g. identifying students for 

tutoring) when serving in classrooms facilitates classroom management

• Teachers serving as on-site liaisons increases investment in the program

• Designating meeting times with members to communicate student needs 

and combine supports

• Lack of communication between the school administration and their staff, 

e.g. not inviting teachers to the discussions and not involving them in the 

decision process about the program

• School leaders’ lack of communication with school staff about the 

program contributes to teachers’ lack of understanding of members’ roles 

and responsibilities, such as members’ data entry and administrative 

responsibilities

• Lack of buy-in from teachers on a program’s intervention strategy—e.g., a 

program offering an online credit recovery program teachers did not want

Parents/ 

Guardians

• Program parents who value school and make their child’s attendance a 

priority

• Family engagement activities that improve families’ knowledge and 

awareness of the school itself

• Member communication with parents about academic progress and 

attendance via letters about the program and in-person contact

• Active parent involvement in parent-teacher organization, school and 

program activities

• Lack of a “home environment that is supportive of doing homework.”

• Lack of parent response to member outreach 

• Families who prioritize other family needs over student attendance e.g.,

keeping older siblings home to care for other children

• Inadequate advertising of program services at the school and to families

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Perceived Challenges and Areas for Improving Program Implementation

The challenges described by that focus group and interview respondents about implementing School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps in 2014–15 are challenges commonly associated with operating programs in 

dynamic school environments undergoing major school reform.. Challenges noted by grantee staff, 

principals, members, and parents clustered into challenges posed by school conditions, grant

administration and partnerships,46 member training, confusion over members’ roles and program rules, 

and direct service provision. 

Challenges with School Conditions

Both lack of resources and instability in schools were noted as challenges by members, grantees, and 

principals. Principals and members described general challenges with the school environment that

hampered AmeriCorps members’ efforts to work effectively. These included high levels of teacher and 

principal turnover; unsafe school environments; and a lack of resources—particularly staff resources, 

such as behavior specialists, subject matter specialists, and resources for after-school programs. 

Additionally, the academic and behavioral issues members sought to address were entrenched and 

complex. Students living in poverty or in unstable housing, families without resources or capacity to 

support homework or learning growth, and chronic absenteeism caused by students’ family obligations 

(e.g., needing to care for younger siblings or their own children), and chronic un- or underemployment in 

the surrounding community were a few examples of the difficult issues faced by students in turnaround 

schools. 

Challenges for Program Administration and Partnerships

Change is a consistent feature of schools in turnaround status, and the turnover in both principals and 

teachers meant that grantees, in some cases, were continually reintroducing their programs. School leader

turnover, which is an element of some turnaround models, meant that grantees had to frequently start 

over building crucial relationships and earning buy-in from the principal. In at least one case, a grantee 

reported that new school leadership was not as actively involved with the program because they were 

not involved with bringing to the school. Furthermore, new teachers come to the school each year and 

need to be oriented to the program and learn about the role members could play in their classrooms, 

including limitations on their activities, and how to effectively work with members. 

Member Preparation for Service

“I have these four very young 

AmeriCorps members that are trying 

to address these issues and barriers 

that are really beyond their scope. 

They haven't been able to figure out 

how to refer or where to refer, so 

they end up leaning on my social 

workers and then we just are kind of 

spinning at that point.”

- Principal Small Group Interview

Member Training Issues and Areas for Improvement

In all focus groups with grantees and members and two

(of three) principal small group interviews, participants 

discussed difficulties with training members for service in 

low-performing schools. The issues that were highlighted 

included both gaps in training and sometimes a mismatch 

between members’ backgrounds and the skills schools 

most needed and desired. Both types of issues pose 

challenges for members in supporting schools’ turnaround 

goals, especially early on in members’ service before they 

have gained practical in-school experience. In one grantee 

focus group, four of the six participating grantee staff 

46 Parent interviewees were not usually directly involved in implementing activities, and therefore did not have 

first-hand knowledge about the activities that members and programs implemented. Their limited 

understanding of program challenges and issues was reflected in the interviews.

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noted that they wished they could train members earlier, before the school year starts, so they could “be 

up to speed” on the first day of school, but their experience is that the grant timeline does not make it 

possible to do so. 

Members, grantees, and principals also agreed that members, who are generally recent college graduates, 

lack familiarity with working in schools, and especially with managing behavior issues. A few principals 

and one parent noted problems with members’ immaturity or unprofessional behavior, such as not 

showing up to work or not maintaining appropriate boundaries with students. Members’ lack of behavior 

management skills was especially a problem at the beginning of the year, but members most often were 

said to have learned effective strategies by the end of the year. Some principals considered it a burden to 

host inexperienced members and then lose them after their one-year term of service just as the members 

gained these skills and became helpful to the school.

Confusion and Tension in the Schools over Members’ Roles and Program Rules

A strong theme described by grantee staff, members, and principals was confusion about members’ roles 

and responsibilities. The lack of clarity about members’ roles in the schools appears to come from several 

sources. First, programs and schools miscommunicated about members’ roles and responsibilities; 

second, school leaders misunderstood program rules; and third, the services offered by School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps were not matched with schools’ needs. A minority of principals expressed 

frustration with program rules they felt made the program less effective—specifically, members having to 

do a community service project and maintain the same caseload of students throughout the year.

The most prevalent communication issue, evident in all three member focus groups, was 

miscommunication between the school partner (usually the administration) and the program and its 

members (four members) (see textbox). Grantees reported continuing to work with schools throughout 

the year to mitigate misunderstanding about members’ roles and appropriate tasks (three grantees), 

address teachers distrust of members and the program in general (two grantees), and persuade principals 

to take an active role in working with members (one grantee). 

Members in two focus groups discussed how school 

administrators often did not know what AmeriCorps 

members are and are not allowed to do within their schools. 

As a result, members feel like they have to say “I can’t do 

that” more often than they liked. To make members’ 

experiences successful, grantees worked to ensure the 

members felt like valued contributors to the school 

community, set and organized members’ schedules, and 

helped members work within schools where inconsistency 

was the norm. One grantee helped members hone an 

“elevator speech” about their roles in the school so that staff 

members could learn why the members were there and how they could be helpful.

Two member focus groups reported that miscommunication between programs and schools was

compounded by a lack of communication between school administrators and their staffs. Two members 

in the group noted that teachers in their schools had not been invited to participate in discussions nor 

were they involved in the decision process as much as they should have been, such that teachers had “no 

warning” about the program coming but “were told they had to sign off on it.” For another member, the 

impact of having had the program “forced” on the school by the district the previous year still resonated. 

In each of these cases, the decision had led to teachers not understand members’ roles and the substantive 

contribution they could make to the school. 

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Miscommunication between 

Programs and Schools

“What my coordinator is telling me 

is that they’ve had every 

communication necessary with 

administrators. Clearly something 

is missing, though.”

- Member focus group
Three members reported that school administration and staff were unclear about their roles and thought

members could be used as substitute teachers, borrowed as test proctors, or used for miscellaneous tasks. 

Another member noted that she was required to attend school-level professional development on 

proctoring standardized tests even though proctoring was not among her assigned program 

responsibilities.47 Principals admitted in interviews that 

they did not always understand the program rules and 

activity restrictions or found the restrictions a hindrance to 

productivity. In the small group interviews, principals also 

noted that their AmeriCorps members had more restrictions 

and guidelines to adhere to than their other school partners, 

a sentiment shared by other principals and a few grantees. 

Tension between programs and schools about members’ roles appeared to not only be a case of 

miscommunication but a mismatch, to some degree, between schools’ needs and what members are 

allowed to offer. It is also, potentially, a misunderstanding based on the school leadership’s desire to use 

the AmeriCorps service as a pipeline to identify future staff members.

Several members revealed that they do not feel respected by the school staff. Two different members 

found their inclusion as part of school staff to be beneficial, although one emphasized that members 

deserve the same respect as teachers even though their roles were different—suggesting that she did not 

feel members received as much respect as teachers. One member wondered if her school did not 

communicate as much with members because members were relatively young college graduates. One 

grantee staff person said that while the teachers treated the members like school staff, the students 

treated members less respectfully, as if they were volunteers. This program struggled with helping

ensure that members were accorded the respect they deserve.

Tensions about Member’s Role in 

the School

“They just want more teachers at 

the end of the day.”

-Member focus group

Challenges with Direct Service Provision

There were notably few challenges with either the delivery or quality of members’ tutoring—the primary 

responsibility of most members. Challenges with tutoring were generally overshadowed by challenges 

with bigger-picture issues, such as members needing more training and confusion and tension in the 

schools over members’ roles, as described above. However, two concerns raised by members, principals, 

and (to a lesser extent) grantees were school staff not trusting members (especially early in the year) to 

engage parents, and teachers having doubts about allowing members to be responsible for student 

progress. Teachers’ jobs are contingent on their students’ performance and they did not want to yield 

control of this issue to individuals whose skills were untested. A minority of members and principals also 

pointed out that members’ skills did not match students’ areas of need (e.g., a cohort of literacy-focused 

tutors in a school with higher need for math and science tutoring).

Perceived Changes in Program Implementation in Schools over Time

Principals reported a diverse array of changes from the first to second year of implementation in the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs at their respective schools. Overall, 22 principals—affiliated 

47 Another member in her focus group countered that in his program, members are fully expected and allowed to 

proctor for national exams.

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with each of the programs represented in the interviews—spoke about changes to implementation.48

These changes are outlined below. 

About half of principals described improvements (11 of 21) with their School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs in the second year. Eight principals reported an improvement in communication between 

schools, programs, and/or members. As the quote below illustrates, schools perceived their programs to 

be becoming more effective over time as the schools learned how to collaborate with the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program and refine their processes for assigning work to their members. One 

principal, who had hosted a different AmeriCorps program before School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

began, described how the school’s relationship with the grantee matured as collaboration continued: 

“This is their third year with us. I guess just over time, we just continue to get better. They [members] are 

more active in our grade-level team meetings, they’re assigned to work with specific students ... I feel 

like we're off to a tighter alignment. And what the grant helps us to do is really, really continue to foster 

the relationship between us and [program name] leads.” This principal’s comments emphasize both that 

the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program improves over time and also that the School Turnaround 

program’s specific activities are not necessarily distinguished from other AmeriCorps 

activities/partnerships in principals’ minds.

Six principals reported having either larger or smaller School Turnaround AmeriCorps cohorts in the 

second year (three apiece) and four discussed the effects of turnover among members on their schools. 

Among the three principals who had larger cohorts, one attributed the increase to an improvement over 

the late start they experienced the prior year, a delay that interfered with the program recruiting 

members. Another principal obtained more members by being a strong advocate for the program, both to 

increase the number of members and obtain the most highly-skilled members. 

The three principals who reported having a smaller member cohort at their school in the second year

attributed the loss to the school’s strong performance. These principals noted with some frustration that 

as their schools improved, it seemed AmeriCorps support was withdrawn—a potential disincentive since 

the schools highly valued their members’ service. In one instance, a principal reflected that she wished 

that School Turnaround AmeriCorps could be a more proactive solution and intervention in every school 

instead of only introduced when serious performance problems already exist. As she put it, “If 

AmeriCorps students were in buildings that were struggling, they wouldn’t end up in the category of 

being level 4 ... It should be proactive; you know what I'm saying? It shouldn’t be a Band-Aid.” The 

implication in these three principals’ comments was that AmeriCorps members’ service was a key 

component of helping their schools improve. They perceive that their schools lose valuable supports as a 

consequence of doing well, and the schools risk returning to poor performance without School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps support. 

Member turnover is a built-in part of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps model. Members agree to serve 

in their host schools for one year but may renew their service.49 In any given year, a school could have all 

experienced members, all new members, or a mixture of experienced and new members. Four principals 

explicitly mentioned simply having new members in their schools as a change from their first year of 

implementation, perhaps indicating that the program design itself did not change in any substantive way. 

These principals differed in their perceptions of what having new members in the second year meant for 

48 The research team compared changes in implementation at schools with new principals (one year or less at their 

school) and principals with multiple years at their school. No substantial differences were found in the types of 

changes made.

49 Local programs may have an explicit desire or expectation that members renew for an additional year of service.

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their schools. Three of the principals said it was positive (e.g., the new members were well matched by 

the program coordinator and they were able to place members in the school earlier in the second year) 

and one was neutral. 

Five principals reported making changes to their programs based on their evolving understanding of the 

program rules. Principals were split on what their current knowledge meant for their programs, with 

three feeling more empowered and two feeling more constrained in their programs. One of the three 

principals who felt positively about her understanding of program rules commented that the message 

sent by the program to school administration had changed. This year “the message is [to] collaborate, coplan much more.” By contrast, both principals who came to understand the program as more restrictive 

indicated that in the second year they could not maximize the time that members had available to 

provide services to more students. One principal observed that monitoring members’ work hours and 

caseload was an issue; she explained that she felt that the “handcuffs or the limitations that I have on how 

we can be involved is challenging and often makes me wonder if it's worth even the small bit of money 

that I do have to contribute from my budget ... I 

unfortunately can't deploy these folks and maximize every 

single minute because we don't want to break the rules.” 

This year, the school is more attuned to limits on members’ 

hours and the number of students they can serve.

Four principals reported an overall change in strategy in 

using the program. One principal elaborated on his school’s 

new strategy to place and support low-performing students, 

including greater emphasis on formative assessments 

throughout the year to identify students to participate in 

AmeriCorps math tutoring. Another principal noted that his 

school’s focus on behavior paid off. As a result of that prior 

effort, the school is now able to focus more on conflict 

resolution and social skills than on reprimanding and 

discouraging violent outbursts (see textbox). 

Perceived Improvements in 

Students’ Socio-emotional 

Health

“In the past, there's been a 

heavy focus on behavior and we 

have pretty much turned around 

the behavior issues in this 

school since last year, and so 

now it's just increasing social 

skills and how to deal with 

conflict and those types of things 

rather than putting out fires 

where students need to be 

removed from class because of 

explosive behaviors or defiance 

or disruption.”

-Principal interview

Change for Members

Twelve of 26 members reported no change in their activities over their time at the school. Of the 14 

members that reported changes, seven reported minor changes to their activities, such as more time 

allowed for lesson planning, increased responsibility for leading other members, and increased afterschool activities. 

Four members identified one major change: being able to implement their interventions more effectively. 

This change was described as a direct result of developing and strengthening relationships with students 

and becoming more comfortable in school environments. One member explained that he/she originally 

focused on developing relationships with students. Feeling that the relationship development had been 

accomplished, the member planned to focus more on tutoring. Another spoke specifically about gaining 

more confidence in his/her ability to tutor students, making greater connections with school staff, and 

becoming more comfortable in the program and school environment, all of which helped to increase the 

efficacy of the member’s role at the school. 

Two members identified structural changes to their activities over time. One member explained that 

his/her coaching conversations developed, and that they diversified small groups to incorporate multiple 

learning styles. The second member said his/her tutoring changed from a pullout model to tutoring in the

classroom. The member explained, 

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“Toward the beginning of the year we were doing pullout groups of the fourth graders that needed 

extra-extra help ... But we were doing it on the fourth-grade level, and we realized they still 

weren't really accessing it because they ... couldn't do subtraction effectively; how were they 

going to start with division yet? So we changed our plan to have them self-contained in the 

classroom... but I would just provide like feedback with those little packets that they work on and 

that they can access better.”

Change for Grantee Programs 

Grantees also reported mostly minor changes to their programs in both their pre- and post-interviews. 

In the pre-interviews, several programs reported implementing changes to management and data use. 

One program established a corrective action plan to ensure data quality by changing data tracking to a 

grading period system rather than a semester system, which allowed program staff to track student data 

that corresponded to more meaningful time periods. Another program hired a staff member with 

expertise in data monitoring and analysis, and a third program focused on empowering members to 

collect and analyze data in addition to their other responsibilities. 

Six programs reported monitoring the effectiveness of their strategies to inform and tailor efforts to meet 

student needs in their respective school settings. Examples of program changes included incorporating 

extracurricular activities or electives (i.e., cosmetology, cooking, and sewing) in response to students’ 

expressed interests, providing personalized attention to students’ needs within the context of tutoring

and mentoring activities, and providing intensive interventions to incoming ninth graders by conducting 

home visits to meet with students and parents in response to the school administration’s requests. One 

other program identified an effective strategy for collaborating with teachers at one of its schools, which 

was replicated in two other schools.

In post-interviews, grantees discussed changes that reflected their 

desire to deepen and strengthen their programs and the services 

that their members offer to schools and students. This desire to 

improve existing relationships and establish more relationships was 

reflected throughout the interviews (see textbox), and such changes 

specifically focused on increased communication and monitoring, 

additional staff positions, and better training for members and 

school personnel. 

Other grantees noted that they would need to accommodate district and school-level changes into their 

programs. Such changes included shifts in district or school leadership and, in one instance, a switch 

from a typical high school to an early college high school program. The grantee noted that they were 

having conversations with school leadership to figure out “how to shift community resources” to better 

support the school and students as they transition. 

Another grantee specifically noted getting together with other school partners and outside organizations 

to make sure they were not “duplicating services and we’re really utilizing members.” The grantee also 

maintained that their broad reach throughout the district and collaboration with other programs created 

a more sustainable relationship between program and school, saying, 

“These grants can get on people's nerves sometimes when you have turnover members or when 

you have a member that may not be the most effective. Seeing that this is just a small piece of a 

bigger partnership, I think, makes the school more tolerant and understanding that there will be 

hiccups. I think if this was the only project we had in these schools it wouldn't be as successful 

because the school wouldn't be as bought-into the program.”

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Deepen Existing 

Relationships in Year 3

“Now that we've got the 

foundation laid down, we 

want to go deeper, which is 

relationships.”

-Grantee post-interview
Two other grantees also were anticipating and preparing for a more sustainable future. One grantee 

noted that it would be putting together a “start-up kit” for schools to smooth the transition process and 

increase understanding and awareness of their AmeriCorps program. A second grantee reported that its 

last year of the funding cycle was fast approaching, and, as a result, it was including staff in its training 

that they received from another partner so that they could provide similar interventions in the future: 

“We're hoping to continue the members there but if we [don’t] at least then the capacity would be built 

for the work to continue.”

Grantees also noted that programs were aligning better with school curriculum, and one grantee noted 

that teachers were tailoring their curriculum to fit a credit recovery program run by AmeriCorps

members. One grantee also mentioned that it was taking its “brand off of things” to integrate more 

smoothly into the community. 

Effects of School Changes on Program Implementation

Grantees’ post-interviews indicated that grantees were settling into routines and working to create 

stronger, more efficient programming. Three grantees described ways that their programs were

maturing, including one that noted that the changes were subtler at the end of the year than the larger 

changes early in the year. This grantee emphasized the importance of continuing to build a strong 

relationship with districts and schools to effectively navigate challenges as they arise. As the program 

and the partnership matured, the district and schools were beginning to support the grantee in program 

success and the grantee was supporting the schools’ turnaround goals. 

In their post-interviews, three grantees described that they were beginning to think ahead to when the 

grant ends, and the effects that may have on the schools with which they work. In one case, the grantee 

was fielding concerns from principals of its partner schools about the grant expiring at the end of the 

third year. Two grantees were anticipating the effect of removing their members from the schools, 

including one grantee that was training teachers to do the attendance intervention provided by members. 

A third grantee, worried about what would happen to its schools when the grant money runs out, was 

shifting its focus in its third year toward recruiting “outside volunteers that may be able to continue some 

of the services” that the grantee had been providing. The grantee also was working to create a full-time 

position for the fall that would focus solely on volunteer recruitment.

Changes Reported by Principals

Principals, in small group interviews, also noted the ways in which their School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs changed throughout the year. Overall, they indicated that members became more involved and 

integrated into their communities with time. One principal, who felt that the program was forced on her 

school, also noted that the program had given her a bit more leeway over time.

In addition, another principal likened the experience of having a School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program to having someone tell her the best route to drive in her own neighborhood. She explained, 

“When somebody tells you the right way to get somewhere and you know, because it's your 

neighborhood, you know there's an easier way. You try to tell them and they don't believe you until they 

actually ride in the car with you.” Over time however, she felt that the AmeriCorps program had begun 

to listen to her when she said something would work better differently, and that some of the restrictions 

on members’ roles in her school had been lifted.

Perceived Impacts of AmeriCorps Services in Supporting School Turnaround Efforts

This section addresses the broad research question, “What are the perceived impacts of the program in 

supporting a school’s turnaround plan and achieving its desired outcomes?” Data sources include: case 

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study research, school leader and staff surveys, grantee 

surveys,50 principal individual and small group interviews, 

parent interviews, member interviews, grantee and member 

focus groups, grantee progress reports, and student level 

administrative data. 

AmeriCorps Members Are an 

Asset to the School

“We have four full time AmeriCorps 

here that are -- they are just like 

part of the staff...To see them, they 

are a tremendous asset to our 

school. They contribute in so many 

different ways...it's seamless.” 

-Principal Small Group Interview

Summary of Perceived Impact Findings

Key findings related to perceived impacts of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps services that help to support 

turnaround efforts include:

• Surveyed school leaders and staff and interviewed parents reported that the program overall is 

successful and valuable.

• Nearly all school leaders reported improvement in student outcomes, with the greatest degree of 

improvement reported in academic achievement, followed by increased motivation and 

increased attendance. Staff perceptions were broadly similar; although some staff reported not 

necessarily knowing which students were served by the program, the outcomes they ranked as 

showing the greatest improvements included attendance, academic achievement, and improved 

grades. 

• Staff also reported significant or moderate improvements in participating students’ classroom or 

classwork behaviors in terms of being regularly attentive in class, participating in class, getting

along well with other students, and coming to school motivated to learn. 

• Information collected from members and parents suggests that School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

programs have positive impacts on schools overall, as well as on specific student outcomes, such 

as helping more students complete college applications, improving student attendance, and 

improving the school climate. 

• The case studies highlighted the importance of program schools’ purposeful selection, alignment, 

and deployment of external partnerships to support key school turnaround goals; in particular, 

the role of partners’ contributions in the area of students’ socio-emotional health. 

• Review of administrative data from GPRs indicated substantial variability in grantees’ selfreported progress toward meeting performance targets; three grantees met all their targets , three 

other grantees met none, and the other seven grantees met one or more targets yet also failed to 

meet one or more targets. 

• Analysis of student-level outcomes data for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 cohorts from the two 

grantees whose data could support such analyses indicated considerable fluctuation from year to 

year, and no clear pattern of results, not surprisingly, as the number of grantees (and schools 

served by grantees’ programs) was very small. 

Perceived Overall Success of School Turnaround AmeriCorps

The vast majority (over 90 percent) of surveyed school leaders and staff reported that the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program was somewhat or very successful as a whole, and similar proportions 

noted the program’s success in improving school capacity to implement the turnaround plan and 

50 Grantee surveys asked about outcomes, and their relative importance, but not ask about perceived impact. 

Grantee interviews also did not include questions about perceived impact.

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improve school climate (see Exhibit III-18). The exhibit also presents responses from interviewed parents 

along the same dimensions. Interviewed parents were generally familiar with and had overwhelmingly

positive impressions of the success of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, although a sizeable 

fraction of parents did not know enough about program details to answer questions about specific areas 

of program success.

Exhibit III-18: School Leader, Staff, and Parent Perceptions of Success of School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps (2014-2015)

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NOTES: See Appendix Exhibit A-33 for a table with all response options for School Leaders, Appendix Exhibit A-56

for a table with all response options for school staff, and Appendix Exhibit A-61 for a table with all response options 

for Parents.

Number of school leader respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 0–1. (N=38, 

Missing=0–1)

Number of school staff respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 6–11. (N=155, 

Missing=3–5)

Responses limited to those parents familiar with the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program (N=38, Missing=0).

Table rows are sorted in descending order by the proportion of school leaders who selected “very successful.” 

Exhibit reads: 47 percent of school leaders perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps to be very successful and 43

percent perceived it to be somewhat successful in improving the school’s capacity to implement its turnaround 

model. Forty-two percent of school staff perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps to be very successful and 37

percent perceived it to be somewhat successful in improving the school’s capacity to implement its turnaround 

model. Fifty-seven percent of parents perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps to be very successful and 43 percent

perceived it to be somewhat successful in improving the school’s capacity to implement its turnaround model.

SOURCE: School Leader Survey Q17, Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q19 (“In your opinion, how

successful is the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program in the following areas this school year (2014–15? Mark one 

response in each row.”) 
School Turnaround AmeriCorps Parent Interviews Q11–Q15 (“On a scale of 1–4, what is your perception of the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps program's success in terms of ...”) 

Thirty-eight (of 50) parents interviewed were familiar with the School AmeriCorps program in their 

child’s school and reported overwhelmingly positive views of it. Four parents offered no feedback, and 

one parent reported overall negative feedback; she noted that her son “hated” the program because a 

member placed in his high school behaved unprofessionally. Parents’ positive feedback included general 

statements about the program being helpful along with more detailed feedback about personal 

connections members had forged with students and how members had increased student engagement, 

reminded parents to have students participate in college admissions testing, and provided tools for 

parents to become more engaged in their children’s college preparation. 

Parent interviewees were asked whether they had noticed changes in their child since participating in the 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps intervention. Twenty-nine of 38 parents interviewed familiar with the 

program reported noticing positive differences in their children after the AmeriCorps program began. In 

about half of those cases (15 of 29), positive improvements were reported in academic performance, 

followed by college readiness (7), homework completion (6), and behavioral and social skills (5). 

Eight parents said they had not noticed any changes in their respective children. However, two of these 

parents explicitly mentioned that their high-school-aged children were already straight-A students, so 

there was not much for members to improve on.51

School Turnaround Goals for Student Outcomes

On average, enhanced achievement was ranked as the most important student outcome for school 

turnaround efforts by all stakeholders (grantees, school leaders, and school staff) (see Exhibit II-4 in 

Section II of this report). Grantees considered improved grades as the next-highest-ranked important 

outcome, whereas school leaders and staff prioritized motivation over grades. In general, grantees, 

principals and staff reported slightly different priorities.

Among survey respondents, only school leaders were asked about the level of influence of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps on their school turnaround goals. Across applicable school turnaround goals 

(e.g., improving academic performance and increasing graduation rates and college readiness), a majority 

of school leaders reported that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members had either substantial or some 

influence (see Exhibit III-19). Leaders were more likely to characterize the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program as exerting some rather than substantial influence on all goals. Additionally, not all 

the goals listed below were applicable to all schools; for example, high school graduation and college 

readiness goals were not applicable to elementary or middle schools.

51 These students both attend a high school that has exited SIG/Priority status. The major components of the 

grantee’s program in that school were mentoring and college preparation.

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Exhibit III-19: School Leader Perceptions of Level of Influence of School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

on School Turnaround Goals (2014–15)

Substantial 

Influence

(%)

Some 

Influence

(%)

Minimal 

Influence

(%)

No 

Influence

Element of School's Turnaround Goals (%)

Establishing a school culture and environment that 

fosters school safety, attendance, and discipline 24 62 14 0 

Improving academic performance in ELA and/or math 24 61 6 9

Increasing rates of high school graduation † 15 59 15 11

Increasing college readiness and enrollment rates † 10 72 5 13

Providing ongoing mechanisms for family and 

community engagement 10 53 31 6 

NOTES: See Appendix Exhibit A-36 for a table with all response options.

† Many school leaders indicated that these turnaround goals are not applicable to their schools.

Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.

Number of respondents who indicated the question was not applicable ranged from 1–16.

(N=22-37, Missing=0-1)

Table rows are sorted in descending order by the proportion of school leaders who selected “Substantial Influence.”

Exhibit reads: 24 percent of school leaders perceived that School Turnaround AmeriCorps members had substantial 

influence on “establishing a school culture and environment that fosters school safety, attendance, and discipline.” 62

percent perceived they had some influence, 14 percent perceived they had minimal influence, and 0 percent

perceived they had no influence.

SOURCE: School Leader Survey Q20 (“Please indicate the level of influence School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members have over the following elements of your school’s turnaround goals? Mark one response in each row.”) 

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program on Student Outcomes

The exhibits below summarize perceptions of improvement in schools overall, as well as perceptions 

about which improvements had been influenced by the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program 

specifically. Exhibit III-20 presents school leaders’ perceptions of areas in which their schools had 

improved in 2013–14. The data on school leaders’ perceptions of overall improvements in the prior year 

provide a useful context within which to examine grantees’ and staff perceptions about the contributions 

of the program. 

Nearly all school leaders reported improvement in all student outcomes in 2013–14, the academic year

that had most recently been completed at the time of data collection, though around a quarter of school 

leaders did not know whether their school improved student motivation or self-esteem (see Exhibit III20). Of the school leaders who reported improvement in any student outcomes, the greatest degree of 

improvement was in academic achievement.

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Exhibit III-20: School Leader Perceptions of Improvement in Student Academic Achievement and 

Academic Engagement Outcomes (2013–14)

Any Improvement Degree of Improvement

Mean Rankings (Standard 

Area of Improvement Yes (%) Don't Know (%) Errors)

Enhanced academic achievement 100 0 1.7 (0.3)

Increased motivation 74 26 3.2 (0.3)

Improved attendance 96 4 3.5 (0.9)

Improved grades 92 8 3.7 (0.5)

Improved behavior 97 3 4.0 (1.1)

Increased self-esteem 70 30 4.3 (0.7)

Improved completion of assignments 91 9 4.3 (0.6)

Improved socio-emotional health 84 16 5.2 (0.6)

NOTES: See Appendix Exhibit A-27 for a table with all response options.

Ranks of improvement range from 1–9, with 1 being the greatest improvement; not all responses were given a 

ranking. Means are calculated for respondents who ranked the option.

Any improvement: (N=38, Missing=1)

Degree of improvement: (N=1-33, Missing=0)

Table rows sorted in ascending order by the mean ranking of school leaders.

Exhibit reads: One hundred percent of school leaders reported that there had been improvement in “enhanced 

academic achievement” in the prior school year. The average ranking of this outcome was 1.7 on a 9-point scale, 

which is the highest ranking for any outcome. 

SOURCE: School Leader Survey Q11 (“Please answer the following about school outcomes for students. Was there 

improvement in this area at your school(s) last year (2013–14)?”) 

Staff perceptions of the 2014-15 academic year reflected a moderately different ranking pattern than 

school leaders’ perceptions for the prior academic year. As reported in Section 2 (see also Appendix 

Exhibit A-45), not all staff necessarily knew which specific students were directly served by the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program, and, not surprisingly, between about one-third and nearly a half of 

staff did not know whether or how many participating students had demonstrated improvement in 

selected outcomes. However, those who were knowledgeable (about which students were served by the 

program) indicated that the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program had influenced improvement in 

such student outcomes as academic achievement, improved motivation, and increased assignment 

completion (see Exhibit III-21).

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Exhibit III-21: School Staff Perceptions of Improvement in Student Academic Achievement and 

Academic Engagement Outcomes (2014–15)

Quantity of Students Degree of 

Improvement

Mean 

Rankings 

(Standard 

Student Outcome Errors)

All or Most

(%)

Some

(%)

Few or 

None

(%)

Increased self-esteem 53 38 10 3.8 (0.4)

Enhanced academic achievement 51 36 12 2.6 (0.3)

Improved behavior 46 40 14 4.1 (0.5)

Improved socio-emotional health 45 38 17 4.6 (0.5)

Increased motivation 52 36 11 2.9 (0.2)

Improved grades 39 45 16 3.3 (0.3)

Improved completion of assignments 42 39 19 3.1 (0.3)

Improved attendance 41 38 21 5.1 (0.5)

NOTES: See Appendix Exhibits A-47 and A-48 for tables with all response options.

Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.

Ranks of improvement range from 1–9, with 1 being the greatest improvement; not all responses were given a 

ranking. Means are calculated for respondents who ranked the option.

Number of respondents who did not know ranged from 47–76. (N=79-99, Missing=2–5)

Table rows sorted in ascending order by the mean ranking of school staff.

Exhibit reads: Fourteen percent of school staff perceived that all students demonstrated enhanced academic 

achievement. 37 percent perceived enhanced academic achievement in most students, 36 percent in some students, 10

percent in few students, and 2 percent in no students. School staff ranked “enhanced academic achievement” as the 

most important student outcome, with a mean ranking of 2.6 on a 9-point scale; 74 percent of school leaders ranked 

this particular outcome. 

SOURCE: Instructional Staff and Counselors Survey Q12 (“For how many of the students served by School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps at your school this year (2014–15) are there improvements in the following areas?”) 

Grantees’ and staff reported perceptions of areas in which students in schools that had received School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps services improved this year (2014–15) (see Appendix Exhibits A-12, A-47, and A48). While the patterns are similar across the two stakeholder groups, there are some modest differences. 

Both grantees and staff rated academic achievement as the area with the greatest degree of improvement. 

Improved socio-emotional health and behavior was generally rated lower on the list of improved 

outcomes by both grantees and school staff. Stakeholders’ perceptions of improvement track closely with 

their rankings of the most important student outcomes shown in Exhibit II-4. 

A large majority of staff (of those who knew which specific students had participated in School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps activities) reported such improvements in participating students’ classroom or 

classwork behaviors as students’ attentiveness and participation in class, positive interactions with other 

students, and motivation to learn (see Exhibit II-5 earlier in this report). Generally, about twice as many 

staff reported moderate than significant levels of improvement for students.

Perceived Impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program on School Climate and Community 

Involvement

Across multiple data sources, stakeholders pointed to several ways in which School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps programs had positive impacts on the host schools. These include contributions to school 

improvement generally, contributions to school culture, and both general and targeted contributions to 

improvements for participating students. While perceptions from school administrators and staff were all 

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generally positive, schools leaders’ perceptions were consistently (albeit moderately) more positive than 

their school staff colleagues. Members and one grantee staff reported that their efforts, and those of 

previous AmeriCorps cohorts, had effectively allowed their schools to turn around pervasive behavioral 

problems so that the schools could then focus more on academics. A majority of parents reported that 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps interventions had improved their children’s academic performance and 

simultaneously improved their students’ engagement and enthusiasm about school. Some parents also 

reported becoming more aware of or involved with events at their child’s school as a result of the 

program.

Comparing Stakeholder Perceptions to Administrative Outcomes Data

In this section, CNCS-defined performance measures reported by grantees in their 2013–14 year-end 

GPRs are presented and discussed, and then the quality of the 2012–13, 2013–14, and 2014–15 studentlevel datasets is analyzed to assess changes in grantees’ capacity to collect and process student level data.

Data quality refers to the completeness of the student-level data, both in terms of whether all of a 

grantee’s schools are represented in its dataset and whether the data that do appear are largely free of 

missing values. 

Grantee Performance Reporting Results: 2013-14

The exhibits in this section present the CNCS-defined, education (ED) performance measure results 

reported in end-of-year 2013-14 grantee performance reviews (GPRs). Mid-year 2014-15 GPR results are 

not presented here, as they reflect an incomplete summary of data from the 2014-15 school year. End-ofyear 2014-15 results have not yet been reported by grantees. 

None of the grantees planned to report on all performance measures. Grantees had indicated that they 

planned to report on anywhere from two to four performance targets. Where available, the text below 

draws from explanations provided in the GPRs as well, although grantees are required only to provide 

explanations for not meeting their targets; they do not have to report any additional information when 

they do. Key findings from these analyses include the following:

• Three grantees met all of their performance measure targets (four, two, and two targets, 

respectively).

• Three grantees met none of their performance measure targets (four, three, and two targets, 

respectively).

• Each of the remaining seven grantees met at least one performance target, and also failed to meet 

at least one target. 

Exhibit III-23 presents the results for the seven grantees who reported performance on ED1 (number of 

students who start in a CNCS-supported education program); four of seven met their performance target.

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Exhibit III-22: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED1 Performance Measure 

Grantee Target Actual % of Target Met Target?

Grantee #1 1,111 1,260 113% Yes

Grantee #3 450 458 102% Yes

Grantee #4a 800 920 115% Yes

Grantee #5 2,048 1,593 78% No

Grantee #7 224 141 63% No

Grantee #11a 530 535 101% Yes

Grantee #13 6,000 1,808 30% No

Notes. ED1 = Number of students who start in a CNCS-supported education program. 

a The grantee did not provide any explanation about meeting or exceeding the target.

One grantee that exceeded the ED1 target worked with multiple schools, and indicated that the 

explanations varied across the multiple schools served by the program. The explanations included 

fluctuations in student class size and requests from school administrators to provide intensive 

interventions to all incoming 9th grade students, high student mobility rates, larger numbers of students 

than expected whose beginning-of-the–year performance merited intervention, and increases in the 

amount of time schools made available to members to work with students. 

Those grantees who explained why they had not met the targets described idiosyncratic explanations. 

One of the three grantees that did not meet the ED1 target explained that the age range associated with 

their intervention limited the amount of eligible students, causing them to not meet their target (the 7th 

grade classes were unable to participate in the program due to age requirements, thus only the 8th grade 

class was able to participate). Another grantee explained that their performance measures were entered 

incorrectly (their three-year goals were entered as one-year goals). In addition, their largest obstacle to 

achieving each performance measure was student attrition in the district, due to parents removing 

children from the school system. The third grantee fell short of its ED1 target because of inexperience in 

how to formulate this target, which initially was based on the number of at-risk students at the school 

targeted by the intervention and an independent estimate of the number of members per site based on its 

financial and management capacity; this resulted in poor alignment between performance measure 

targets and the number of AmeriCorps members requested. They also started the program late. “After 

reviewing program data and networking with other AmeriCorps tutoring programs,” this grantee 

learned how to calculate more accurate targets (by multiplying the number of full-time members by a 

reasonable caseload of students). 

Exhibit III-23 presents the results for the 12 grantees reporting on ED2 (the number of students who 

completed participation in CNCS-supported K-12 education programs). Six grantees met their targets, 

and five of those exceeded their targets. Six grantees did not meet their targets.

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Exhibit III-23: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED2 Performance Measure 

Grantee Target Actual % of Target Met Target?

Grantee #1 833 1,166 140% Yes

Grantee #2 3,586 2,200 61% No

Grantee #3 405 240 59% No

Grantee #4a 970 310 32% No

Grantee #5 1,536 112 7% No

Grantee #6a 600 948 158% Yes

Grantee #7a 224 508 227% Yes

Grantee #9a 400 496 124% Yes

Grantee #10 360 445 124% Yes

Grantee #11 480 236 49% No

Grantee #12a 315 661 210% Yes

Grantee #13 2,547 750 29% No a The grantee did not provide any explanation about meeting or exceeding the target.

One of the six grantees that exceeded the ED2 target provided an explanation.52 This grantee credited the 

better than anticipated performance to strong relationships with school staff, who helped match members 

with students in need of intervention. 

The grantees that failed to meet targets provided a variety of explanations. Specifically, two grantees 

attributed the problem to student attrition due to parents removing their children from the school or the 

district, and two reported that members perceived the program goals were unrealistic, as students 

demonstrated improvement and moved out of the “at-risk zone” after fewer hours of intervention than 

was anticipated. One grantee explained that member enrollment was low, despite the high demand for 

members, because the timing of properly matching the needs of the school to available members having 

the needed qualifications is strongly impacted by the fluidity and uncertainty of the school landscapes. 

The final grantee described multiple factors, including late start of the program, which reduced the 

amount of time for members to provide services, and hampered members’ ability to form stronger bonds 

with school staff. Further, the design changed, from the district level, to pull-out to in-class tutoring, 

which made the target more difficult to meet. The final problem was staffing. The grantee was unable to 

fill two full time member positions and only had one onsite supervisor for two sites.

Exhibit III-24 presents the results for ED4A, the number of disadvantaged youth/mentor matches that 

were sustained by the CNCS-supported program for at least the required time period. Two grantees 

reported this performance measure, and both met their performance target. No additional information is 

available.

Exhibit III-24: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED4A Performance Measure 

Grantee Target Actual % of Target Met Target?

Grantee #8 1,080 1409 130% Yes

Grantee #9 64 80 125% Yes

Notes. ED4A = Number of disadvantaged youth/mentor matches that were sustained by the CNCS-supported 

program for at least the required time period. 

Exhibit III-25 presents the results for the 11 grantees reporting on ED5 (the number of students with 

improved academic performance in literacy and/or math); three grantees met their performance targets. 

52 As stipulated by the CNCS performance measure guidance for ED2, at the outset of the activity, the program 

should indicate the amount of dosage (i.e. how many days or hours) that is required in order to count a student 

as having completed the activity. This number should be used as the denominator for selected measures and 

therefore the amount of participation should be enough to influence the results.

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The explanations for not meeting program targets included program design changes, issues accessing 

data and receiving reliable data, and inaccurate goal setting.53 

Exhibit III-25: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED5 Performance Measure 

Grantee Target Actual % of Target Met Target?

Grantee #1 235 227 97% No

Grantee #2 2,064 1,706 83% No

Grantee #3 305 188 62% No

Grantee #4 370 1 <1% No

Grantee #5 1,152 29 3% No

Grantee #6 480 0 0 No

Grantee #7 50 70 140% Yes

Grantee #9 340 426 125% Yes

Grantee #11 210 53 25% No

Grantee #12 205 235 115% Yes

Grantee #13 2,547 225 9% No

Notes. ED5 = Number of students with improved academic performance in literacy and/or math. 

Exhibit III-26 presents the results for ED6 (the number of students who improved their school attendance 

over the course of the student’s involvement with CNCS-supported program). One grantee reported this 

performance measure; it did not meet its performance target. This grantee indicated the reasons included 

a late launch date and challenges with member recruitment efforts. In order to remedy the target not 

being met, the grantee indicated plans to start its subsequent program year in line with the school year 

calendar for 2014-2015, and it also planned to add a second site supervisor position. 

Exhibit III-26: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED6 Performance Measure 

Grantee Target Actual % of Target Met Target?

Grantee #4 305 55 18% No

Notes. ED6 = Number of students that improved their school attendance over the course of the CNCS-supported 

program’s involvement with the student.

Exhibit III-27 presents the results for ED7 (the number of students with no or decreased disciplinary 

referrals and suspensions over the course of the CNCS-supported program involvement). Two grantees 

reported this performance measure, one of which met and one of which failed its performance target. The 

latter’s explanation was that the program had experienced a substantial decline in the number of 

disciplinary referrals from the first part of the year to the second part of the year. The grantee did not 

describe any obstacles, or explain why the decline in referrals was not sufficient to meet the performance 

measure target. 

Exhibit III-27: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED7 Performance Measure 

Grantee Target Actual % of Target Met Target?

Grantee #4 25 48 192% Yes

Grantee #7 50 3 6% No

Notes. ED7 = Number of students with no or decreased disciplinary referrals and suspensions over the course of the 

CNCS-program involvement. 

53 It should also be noted that ED5 (as well as ED6, ED7, and ED27) is calculated as the numerator over a

denominator of the number of students who complete participation in the activity (ED2) or the number of 

qualifying mentor-mentee matches that were sustained over the course of the program (ED4A); thus a grantee’s 

performance in meeting the targets for ED5, ED6, ED7, and ED27 depends on having met the dosage 

requirements for ED2 or ED4A.

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Exhibit III-28 presents the results for the eight grantees who reported on ED27 (the number of students in 

grades K-12 that participated in the mentoring or tutoring, or other education program including CNCSsupported service learning who demonstrated improved academic engagement). Three of eight met their 

performance target. The five grantees who did not meet their targets reported issues with data, transient 

student populations, and inaccurate goal setting as the explanations.

Exhibit III-28: GPR Data for End-of-year 2013-14 ED27 Performance Measure 

Grantee Target Actual % of Target Met Target?

Grantee #1 219 278 127% Yes

Grantee #3 324 218 67% No

Grantee #7 50 47 94% No

Grantee #8 1,015 362 36% No

Grantee #9 64 80 125% Yes

Grantee #10 270 348 129% Yes

Grantee #11 336 96 29% No

Grantee #13 1,250 416 33% No

Notes. ED27 = Number of students in grades K-12 who participated in the mentoring or tutoring, or other education 

program including CNCS-supported service learning who demonstrated improved academic engagement. 

Summary

Three grantees met all of their performance measure targets (four, two, and two targets, respectively). 

Three grantees met none of their performance measure targets (four, three, and two targets, respectively). 

Each of the remaining seven grantees met at least one performance target and also failed to meet at least 

one target. In summary, ten grantees met at least one target and three failed to meet at least one target. 

Taken together, the considerable variability in grantees’ capacity to meet performance targets—both 

across grantees and within individual grantees—might suggest that it would be useful to revisit the 

process of establishing meaningful targets. 

Student-level Data Quality

This section describes the data quality of student-level achievement test, attendance, and behavior data 

obtained from School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantees for the 2012-2013, 2013-2014, and 2014-15 school 

years. All grantees except for one collected student-level data during the first two years of 

implementation (2013-2014 and 2014-15), and four grantees additionally collected data on their 2013–14 

service recipients from 2012-13, the year before their entry into the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program (even though this was not a requirement of the grant or an expectation of the grantees). The 

detailed analyses and exhibits included in this section provide the basis for the data quality findings 

summarized in Chapter II, Part 1, Potential Uses and Challenges of Administrative Data. In summary, 

• Only three grantees provided data sets suitable for supporting cogent analyses of 2014-15 

outcome data.

• Rigorous and substantively interesting cross-grantee analyses cannot be performed.

Data quality here is assessed with respect to the feasibility of conducting meaningful single-year data 

analyses; cohort analyses comparing 2013-14 outcomes to 2014-15 outcomes was feasible for only two 

grantees, thus it was not possible to perform a cohort analysis at the program level. 

For a given grantee and a given type of student-level data (achievement, attendance, behavior), the data 

may be:

• Unavailable because the grantee never planned to provide these data to Abt.

• Unavailable because the grantee has not transferred data promised to Abt.

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• Transferred data with high levels of missingness (e.g., not all affiliated schools reported data, a 

high proportion of students in the dataset have missing values).

• Transferred data with low levels of missingness.

Exhibit III-29 summarizes the quality of the 2012-13 and 2013-14 student-level data, and Exhibit III-30

summarizes the quality of the 2014-15 student-level data in an analogous manner. 

Each exhibit provides information about data quality in two ways. For each type of outcome 

(achievement, attendance, and behavior), it first indicates if a grantee’s student-level dataset shared with 

Abt includes all schools affiliated with the grantee. If a school is not represented in a dataset, then its 

progress on the given outcome cannot be tracked and grantee-wide analyses of all its schools cannot be 

performed. Second, the quality of the data that do appear in the datasets is rated. The data quality is rated 

as good if there is less than 25% missing data; this means that a full range of data analyses can be 

performed. The data quality is rated as useable if there are low levels (≤25%) of missing data on some, but 

not all, measures. This allows a limited number of cogent data analyses to be performed with the data. 

Finally, data quality is rated as unusable if there is so much missing data that no cogent analyses can be 

performed.

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Exhibit III-29: 2012-2013 / 2013-2014 Student-level Data Quality

Granteea

Data to be

Transferred

Achievement Tests Attendance Behavior

Data from all of the 

Grantee’s Schools? Data Quality

Data from all of 

the Grantee’s 

Schools? Data Quality

Data from all of 

the Grantee’s 

Schools? Data Quality

Grantee #1 Years: 12-13, 13-14

Types: A, AT, B

Yes Unusable No Useable No data shared No data 

shared

Grantee #3 Years: 13-14

Types: A

Yes Good N/A N/A N/A N/A

Grantee #4 Years: 12-13, 13-14

Types: A, AT, B

Yes Good Yes Good Yes Good

Grantee #5 Years: 13-14

Types: A

Yes Useable N/A N/A N/A N/A

Grantee #6b Years: 13-14

Types: A, AT

N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Grantee #7 Years: 13-14

Types: A, AT

No data shared No data shared Yes Good N/A N/A

Grantee #8 Years: 12-13

Types: AT

N/A N/A Yes Useable N/A N/A

Grantee #9 Years: 13-14

Types: A, AT, B

No Useable No data shared No data 

shared

No Unusable

Grantee #10 Years: 13-14

Types: A, AT, B

No data shared No data shared Unclear: no 

school IDs 

provided

Unusable Unclear: no 

school IDs 

provided

Unusable

Grantee #11 Years: 13-14

Types: A, AT, B

Yes Good Yes Good Yes Good 

Grantee #12c Years: 13-14

Types: A

N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Grantee #13 Years: 13-14

Types: A, AT

Yes Unusable No data shared No data 

shared

N/A N/A

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Notes. A = Achievement tests; AT = Attendance; B = Behavior. N/A = not applicable, because grantee does not collect 

the given type of data.

Using Grantee #9 as an example, the exhibit reads “Grantee #9 collects 2013-14 achievement, attendance, and 

behavior outcomes. Regarding the achievement test data shared with Abt, the data do not include all schools 

affiliated with the grantee, and some cogent data analyses can be performed with the shared data. This grantee did 

not share any attendance data. Regarding behavior outcome data shared with Abt, the data do not include all schools 

affiliated with the grantee, and there is so much missing data in the shared dataset that no cogent analyses can be 

performed.” As another example, Grantee #8 has “N/A” for achievement and behavior data because it does not 

collect these types of outcomes.

a Grantee #2 is not included in the exhibit because it does not centrally track any student-level data. Its district’s

policy did not allow the study team to collect student data from any treatment schools in the district, even though 

they had written partnership agreements with the grantees, unless the grantees’ data sharing agreements explicitly 

state that the data will be used for the CNCS or national evaluation. Two grantees that have partnership agreements 

with this district do not explicitly state this in their agreements. 

b Grantee did not collect student-level data for 2013-2014.

c Grantee is not permitted to share student-level data with Abt.

Summary 

From Exhibit III-29, there are a number of instances of promised data not being shared with Abt (e.g., 

Grantee #7, Grantee #13); a number of instances in which some of a grantee’s affiliated schools are not 

represented in its data (e.g., Grantee #1, Grantee #9); other instances where the data that were shared are 

of such poor quality that meaningful data analyses are not possible (e.g., Grantee #1, Grantee #13); and 

still other instances where the shared data can be used to perform a limited number of analyses (e.g., 

Grantee #8, Grantee #1). The instances where a grantee’s full array of analyses of student-level data can be 

performed are the minority of cases, and it does not appear that substantively interesting cross-grantee 

analyses can be meaningfully performed. For instance, because of missing data in Grantee #8’s dataset, it 

would not be possible to examine 12th grade attendance outcomes for all high schools across all grantees. 

Below, Exhibit III-30 repeats this analysis for grantees’ 2014-2015 student-level data. 

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Exhibit III-30: 2014-2015 Student-level Data Quality

Grantee Data 

Expecteda

Data 

Received

Data from All 

Schools Received?

Student IDs 

Provided?

Student Grade 

Level Provided?

Quality of Data Received

A AT B

Grantee #1 A, AT, B A, AT, B Unknown-No 

Crosswalk

Yesf No Unusable Unusable Unusable

Grantee #3 A Aj No No Yes Unusable

Grantee #4 A, AT, B A, AT, B Yesb Yes Yes Good Good Good c

Grantee #5 A A Yes Nol Yes Unusablem

Grantee #6 A NONEk

Grantee #7 A, AT, B Bd N/Ae No No Unusablec 

Grantee #8 AT AT Yes No Yes Good

Grantee #9 A, AT, B A, AT, B Nog No Yes Usableh Unusable Unusable

Grantee #10 A, AT, B AT, B Yesb Yes Yes Good Good

Grantee #11 A, AT, B A, AT, B Unknown-No 

school IDs

No Yes Usable Good Good

Grantee #12 A NONEi

Grantee #13 A, AT A Yesb Yes Yes Unusable

Notes. Exhibit III-30 documents the 2014-15 data collected from AmeriCorps grantees and the quality of these data. Using Grantee #10 as an example, data may be 

interpreted as follows:

Grantee #10 was expected to submit student-level achievement, attendance and behavior data, but only submitted attendance and behavior data. Data were 

received from all the grantee’s AmeriCorps schools and student identifiers were provided. The attendance and behavior data submitted were of good quality.

Cells are greyed out where data is not applicable. For example, the data quality of Grantee #8’s achievement and behavior data are greyed out, as it did not submit 

any of these data to Abt.

Grantee #2 is not included in the exhibit because it does not centrally track any student-level data. Its district’s policy did not allow the study team to collect 

student data from any treatment schools in the district, even though they had written partnership agreements with the grantees, unless the grantees’ data sharing 

agreements explicitly state that the data will be used for the CNCS or national evaluation. Two grantees that have partnership agreements with this district do not 

explicitly state this in their agreements. 

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[a] A=Achievement AT=Attendance B=Behavior

[b] Data provided for more schools than were part of the grantee’s AmeriCorps program.

[c] Grantee #4 and Grantee #7 only provided records for students with behavioral issues rather than data on all 

students. However, for Grantee #4 it is possible to determine which students had no behavioral issues by matching 

behavior data to the full cohort of students that received AmeriCorps students provided in the attendance data files.

[d] Grantee #7 submitted aggregated, grade-level attendance data but did not submit student-level attendance data. 

[e] Grantee #7 only oversees AmeriCorps at a single school. As such it is unnecessary to identify individual schools 

within this grantee’s data 

[f] Student IDs were provided only for one school. 

[g] One school was missing all data. Another school was missing attendance and behavior data. A third school was 

missing attendance data. 

[h] The standardized 2014-15 achievement data submitted used a different scale for test scores (raw rather than 

scaled) than was used for 2013-14. As such, these data cannot be used in comparing the 2013-14 and 2014-15 cohorts 

despite being relatively complete.

[i] Grantee #12 was not permitted to share student-level data with Abt. School-grade level attendance rates for 2013-

14 were for all program schools. No data were submitted for 2014-15.

[j] While these data refer to the 2014-15 school year, they were submitted during the 2013-14 data collection. As such, 

the study team is unsure which year these data represent.

[k] Grantee #6 did not collect student-level data for 2013-14. They were supposed to provide student-level data for 

2014-15 but did not.

[l] IDs are provided, but do not link across datasets. As such, their utility is limited.

[m] Grantee #5 submitted data that appeared usable, but told Abt their data were incomplete and hence an 

inadequate representation of their program. As such, the study team classified these data as “unusable.”

Summary 

From Exhibit III-30, there are a number of instances of promised data not being shared with Abt (e.g., 

Grantee #7, Grantee #6); a number of instances in which some of a grantee’s affiliated schools are not

represented in its data (Grantee #9, Grantee #3); other instances where the data that were shared are of 

such poor quality that meaningful data analyses are not possible (e.g., Grantee #1, Grantee #13); and still 

other instances where the shared data can be used to perform a limited number of analyses (e.g., Grantee 

#9). The instances where a grantee’s full array of analyses of student-level data can be performed are the 

minority of cases, and it does not appear that substantively interesting cross-grantee analyses can be 

meaningfully performed. For instance, because of the poor quality of the attendance data from Grantee #1 

and Grantee #9, it would not be possible to examine attendance outcomes for all schools across all 

grantees that provided attendance data (and only six grantees provided attendance data). Only three 

grantees – Grantee #4, Grantee #8, and Grantee #10 – provided data sets suitable for supporting cogent 

analyses of 2014-15 outcome data.

 

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Case Study Findings

Comparative Case Studies

This section addresses the broad research questions, “Which activities pursued by AmeriCorps members 

are perceived as being more or less helpful, and why?” and “What are the perceived impacts of the 

program in supporting a school’s turnaround plan?” It presents the paired case studies for all six sites. 

Within each case study, the school supported by School Turnaround AmeriCorps is presented first

(labeled with an A), followed by a description of its matched comparison school (labeled with a B). Each 

case study includes the following sections:

• Demographic information about the matched schools; 

• Description of School A’s local context, partnership strategies, promising practices, 

implementation challenges, and perceived effects; 

• Description of School B’s local context, partnership strategies, challenges, and perceived effects; 

and

• Description of physical environment for schools that received site visits (Schools 3A, 3B, 5A, and 

5B).

The individual case studies provide an in-depth comparison of stakeholder perceptions of school climate 

and schools’ progress in accomplishing the goals of their turnaround plans with the assistance of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps resources compared to the progress of similar schools with no or minimal 

AmeriCorps presence. Data sources are principal interviews, teacher interviews and focus groups, and 

school climate observations at AmeriCorps and matched comparison schools. A synthesis of findings and 

lessons learned across all case studies was presented in Part I. 

Case Study 1

Brief Overview

This case study describes two urban high schools’ efforts to meet their turnaround plan goals during the 

2014–15 school year, focusing specifically on the roles of AmeriCorps members and/or other volunteers, 

external support staff, and other external partners that help to support school turnaround activities. One 

of the schools (School 1A) engaged School Turnaround AmeriCorps members in a range of activities, 

while the other (School 1B, which did not have School Turnaround AmeriCorps resources) used internal 

staff to provide some additional tutoring and college preparation supports and generally detailed a 

culture of “handling things” themselves. School 1A’s case study is based on telephone interviews with 

the principal and 3 teachers; School 1B’s case study is based on telephone interviews with the principal 

and 3 teachers.

Context 

Local Demographics

Schools 1A and 1B are high schools located in urban areas in the southwestern region of the United 

States. The two schools served generally comparable student populations with similar racial and ethnic 

backgrounds and income levels (see Exhibit III-34). 

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Exhibit III-34: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14)

School 1A School 1B

District urbanicity Urban Urban

SIG Turnaround Model Transformation Transformation

SIG funding 2013-2015: $1,194,000 2011—2014: $5,999,251

School enrollment 1,358 1,489

District enrollment 86,516 86,516

Free- and reduced-price lunch 1,206 1,341

Racial/ethnic composition

White 2.9% 4.4%

Hispanic 83.6% 80.1%

Black 10.0% 1.3%

Asian 1.8% 3.8%

Other 1.5% 1.3%

School 1A 

Perceptions of Local Context

School 1A, a transformation school that became a part of school turnaround in 2013, became an early 

college high school in spring 2015. In the 2014–15 school year, School 1A had nine School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members who were organized and sent to School 1A by the district. According to School 

1A’s principal, the school faces disadvantages due its high percentage of economically disadvantaged 

students and English language learners. 

Partnership Strategies

In addition to its School Turnaround AmeriCorps members, the school had a long list of partner 

organizations and programs. It had three programs for mentoring or social support (in addition to School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps), one for discipline support, one for after-school tutoring, one for college 

readiness, and one organization that provides psychiatric evaluations to students. 

In 2014–15, nine School Turnaround AmeriCorps members served in the building. The program had an 

on-site coordinator, an employee from the district. Members provided English and math tutoring to 

students both in the classroom and after school when needed. Some School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

members offered other activities and supports for parental engagement. At least one member called 

parents at home in an attempt to prevent students from dropping out, though this appeared to be a small 

component of the program. Members also participated, seemingly voluntarily, in after-school activities, 

including a running club. 

Effective Strategies and Promising Practices for Partners 

Relationships with students. All three interviewed teachers felt that members had forged strong, lasting 

relationships with students that positively influenced students’ lives beyond academic improvement. 

Teachers reported witnessing students seeking out members for advice, for tutoring, and just to spend 

time with members. As the year progressed, two teachers felt that members’ influence and activities 

became, as one stated, “wider and deeper” and their work fundamentally encouraged community and 

relationship building. Another teacher noted that members served in a challenging school where students 

were often reluctant to build relationships with adults. Her observation was that members were able to 

overcome the barriers and build meaningful relationships with students. Another teacher gave an 

example of one of her students staying for after-school tutoring twice a week because of his bond with his 

tutor and she noted that the student was “always able to catch up on work, and ... [became] more 

confident in his academics.” 

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School staff and member collaboration. All three teachers reported that school staff and members 

collaborated well and frequently. Members at School 1A attended weekly staff meetings as well as 

biweekly department meetings. Two teachers specifically mentioned that members attended teacher 

training and that they found this very beneficial and felt like members were “in sync” with school staff. 

One teacher elaborated, explaining that she spoke with her tutor every day about lessons, expectations 

for students, and academic and/or behavioral challenges for specific students. Two teachers also 

attempted to give members meaningful roles in their classrooms, to do what they “have a knack” for and 

what they “feel comfortable” doing. This communication enabled teachers to pinpoint the strengths of 

individual members and how to use them to their advantage in their departments and classrooms. In this 

sense, members collaborated with School 1A teachers, with teachers also supporting members. 

Supporting teaching staff. Two teachers felt that members’ relationships with students supported 

teachers. One explained that large class sizes meant that she could not check on every student and that 

she “can’t be two places at once.” With a School Turnaround AmeriCorps member in her classroom, there 

was another adult in the classroom to support and check on students. A second teacher expressed a 

similar sentiment, noting that she and her colleagues were under great pressure with time commitments 

and that members were able to stay after school to tutor students even when teachers had to work on 

something else or return home for family obligations. 

Member dedication. Two teachers specifically noted the high level of dedication School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members exhibited. One teacher noted that her tutor stayed after school until 5:30 p.m. to 

tutor students and was willing to meet them at other times. She reflected that students are less likely to 

do homework when they do not have a place to sit down and study and that members helped created 

this space and atmosphere. A second teacher also reported high levels of member dedication and 

elaborated that one of her tutors helped a student enroll in health care services. A third teacher reported 

that several members joined an after-school activity that helps students complete a marathon. The 

members joined the students in the six-month training, and the teacher was impressed by their fortitude. 

Implementation Challenges in Working with Partners

Although members were perceived as expanding the school’s capacity in some important areas, school 

leadership and staff acknowledged implementation challenges in addition to successes.

Member roles and expectations. The principal and three teachers from School 1A cited confusion and 

concerns with members’ roles and expectations. Two teachers felt that their departments should have 

offered more specifics about what members were allowed to do so that members could have had a better 

understanding of their roles within the departments. One wanted to offer more freedom to members by 

allowing them to come up with supplemental assignments and create lessons to benefit their tutees. 

Another wished her department set clear expectations for them when they arrived so they did not feel 

“lost” and stuck in a “gray area.” One teacher spoke specifically about struggling with program 

restrictions regarding the amount of hours members had to work with specific students in their caseload. 

Even if the teacher had other students she wanted her member to focus on, the member could not shift 

his/her attention because members had to work within their caseload. She wished there had been more 

flexibility in the program to accommodate more students’ needs. 

The principal suggested several strategies for other schools to use when acquiring similar services to 

ensure their expectations for members are clear to avoid frustration, which indicated that these 

suggestions were a result of the school’s own frustrations. He suggested that schools ensure that 

schedules are predetermined before members arrive and that weekly meetings are scheduled on the 

calendar with the director or supervisor to guarantee “the main concerns are met” in assisting the tutors. 

He also emphasized that protocols should be in place before tutors arrive on campus so that staff 

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members, if necessary, know how to formally lodge a complaint, express a concern, or ask a question 

about members’ services and performance. 

Perceived Impact/Success in Using Partners to Meet Key Turnaround Outcomes 

Multiple respondents from School 1A perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps as contributing to 

success in meeting key school turnaround outcomes in the following ways:

Academic engagement. As described above, School 1A’s principal and teachers found the members’ inclassroom support and tutoring to be beneficial to both teachers and students, allowing teachers more 

flexibility in their schedules and bolstering students’ academic engagement and performance. 

Social-emotional support. All three teachers from School 1A found that the School Turnaround members 

contributed on a social-emotional level by building relationships with students. This, in turn, allowed 

students to work in safe spaces where they could ask for additional attention and support and engage 

with tutors in a mentorship capacity. 

Providing after-school programming. One teacher reported that her tutor stayed after school when 

teachers could not to support students in math and reading. Another reported that tutors joined an afterschool activity that helps students complete a marathon. 

School 1B 

Perceptions of Local Context

The community around School 1B has drastically shifted within the last three decades, from a suburban, 

white, affluent population to an area populated by a high percentage of Spanish-speaking and Asian 

immigrants, English language learners, and impoverished residents. School 1B was 96 percent nonwhite 

and linguistically diverse with over 65 different nationalities represented. In the 1980s, the schools faced 

“darker days,” and the principal elaborated that, “the community didn't get the kids, and the kids didn't 

feel like they were supported by the community.” In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the school suffered 

from a series of murders and gang violence. In 2008, the graduation rate was 54.7 percent. However, due 

to reform efforts, the school achieved a graduation rate of 91.7 percent in 2014. The principal cited Title I 

funding, other grants, improving pedagogy, training around challenges faced by the student population, 

and developing and retaining staff as the key reform efforts. He concluded that School 1B is currently

was “not where we want to be but we're a far, far cry from where we were when I started teaching.”

Partnership Strategies

Six years ago, School 1B restructured into smaller learning communities and, in 2011, it was awarded SIG 

funding as a transformation school. School 1B also hired a company to provide professional development 

for every teacher. Overall, School 1B seemed to function successfully by using grants, investing in 

professional development for its staff, recalibrating teacher hiring practices, and offering teacher-led 

support services for students. 

The principal and two teachers were unaware of the school having external partners. One teacher noted 

that the school worked with the Boys and Girls Club and another organization that worked with students 

on issues such as teen pregnancy and maturing into manhood. Those who were unaware of partners

explained that their school prefers to handle issues with internal resources because of the trade-offs 

required by working with partners. The principal explained candidly that partnerships “come with 

encumbrances” and not being tied to partner organizations allows School 1B the freedom to be “nimble 

enough” to preserve its own culture. As an example of this philosophy, the principal noted that School 1B 

used to have a grant that funded pullout tutoring for algebra students. For future partners, the principal 

would prefer to work with academic service partners rather than other supports because the academic 

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service providers are “more based on standards” than on trying to integrate into the school culture and 

community. 

School 1B’s principal did feel, however, that his students needed postsecondary coaching. He explained 

that many students did not understand the importance of their grade point averages and college 

readiness and, while Title I provided some funding for postsecondary coaching, it was not enough. He 

elaborated, “... They [students] don't understand the whole college framework and schemas and all of 

that. They don't understand what dorms are. They don't understand all of these types of things that—it's 

hard because you have to incentivize it without it sounding scary.”

Teachers corroborated the principal’s statements about School 1B handling issues on its own. They 

explained that their school was able to do so because certain teaching staff at their school were able to 

serve students. Teachers did this primarily by staying after school, coming in on Saturdays, or tutoring in 

the summer months on reading and math or to help with test preparation for state tests or the SAT. One 

teacher noted that the district made it difficult for volunteers to come into School 1B—they “have to go 

through a lot of approval processes”—and this meant that teachers were nearly the only volunteers. 

Challenges with Partnerships

The three interviewed teachers offered differing perspectives on the perceived value of having internal 

versus external tutors. The teacher who noted the barriers for community volunteers felt that outside 

tutoring did not have the same impact as tutoring done by the teachers. Two teachers, who also wanted 

to provide tutoring themselves, worried that teachers serving as tutors would not be enough. As one 

teacher said, “It is really hard to work an entire day and then stay an extra two hours at night, or show up 

on a Saturday, and not feel completely burned out.” A third teacher hypothesized that students would 

benefit from outside instructors, saying “We're wondering if having an outside partner would make it 

better for the students, that way they are getting different information from different people in different 

ways, and it's not us just re-churning up the same things that we've done in class.”

Perceived Impact/Success in Meeting Key Turnaround Outcomes 

One of the teachers explained how, in her estimation, the math department had achieved improvements 

through internal initiatives, especially the school’s changed hiring practices. The school now asks 

interviewees to teach model lessons and probe to see if they will be a good fit for the school and student 

population. The same teacher also explained that the district gave the school “the power to make our own 

roadmaps for our kids” and tailor the school’s curriculum and culture to match their students’ needs. The 

teacher concluded, “With all of that put together, I think the realization that we are a different campus, 

we do need to do different things to reach our students, and kind of the acceptance and gracing of that 

has helped our campus move forward in healthier ways.”

Case Study 2

Brief Overview

This case study describes the efforts of two elementary schools in an urban district to meet their school 

turnaround plan goals during the 2014–15 school year, focusing specifically on the roles of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps members and/or other volunteers, external support staff, and other external 

partners who help to support school turnaround activities. School 2A’s case study is based on a preinterview with a vice principal in January 2015 and case study interviews with that same vice principal, 

another vice principal, and two teachers in late April and early May 2015. School 2B’s case study is based 

on interviews with a principal, assistant principal, and three teachers.

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Context 

Local Demographics

Schools 2A and 2B are urban elementary schools in the eastern United States. The two schools serve 

generally comparable student populations with similar racial and ethnic backgrounds (97 to 99 percent 

African American) and low family incomes, with about 9 out of 10 students eligible for Free and Reduced 

Price Lunch (FRPL)(see Exhibit III-35). In addition, School 2A currently has the highest population of 

homeless and transitional students in the district. 

Exhibit III-35: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study schools (2013-14)

School 2A Comparison School 2B

District urbanicity Urban Urban

SIG Turnaround Model Restart Turnaround: Arts

SIG funding 2011—2015: $1,279,599 2011–2014: $550,387

School enrollment 587 students 420 students

District enrollment 46,500 students 46,500 students

Free- and reduced-price lunch 89% 99%

Racial/ethnic composition

African American 97% 99%

Hispanic 3% 1%

School 2A 

Perceptions of Local Context

When School 2A was placed in turnaround status five years ago, it was the second-lowest-achieving

school in the district and, to facilitate its turnaround plan, was partnered with a dedicated turnaround 

organization. To boost reading and math scores, students receive double reading and double math in 

addition to science, social studies, art, and music. The school has seen improvement in its academic 

performance. However, in speaking about the 2014–15 school year, the principal explained that the school 

still faced significant academic challenges. It was using the Response-to-Intervention (RTI) model, 

wherein 80 percent of students are assumed to be performing at grade level, 15 percent need moderate 

intervention, and 5 percent need significant intervention. However, At [our school], the triangle is upsidedown,” the principal said.

Partnership Strategies

School 2A had a significant number of partnerships with outside organizations, beginning with a 

dedicated turnaround partner. Staff members mentioned an additional 10 outside organizations that 

addressed a broad range of student needs to help the school be a “community school.” External partners 

provide services such as access to healthy food, including a program specifically for homeless children, 

those in transitional housing, and others that are food insecure. Other services provided by partners 

included parental engagement, youth development and recreation, and tutoring. Tutoring was provided 

by members of a community organization and by other AmeriCorps members (not part of School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps).

School 2A had had a long-standing relationship with its grantee organization, even before entering 

turnaround status, though the partnership was “enriched” after the school entered turnaround status and 

received School Turnaround AmeriCorps members. In 2014–15, the school had a large cohort of 18 

members, giving it a low member-to-student ratio. There were two team leaders and a site coordinator, 

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all of whom worked for the grantee organization. In addition, the school had hired at least eight previous 

AmeriCorps members as teachers to work in the school in recent years.

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members are “an integral part of our day-to-day academics” serving in a 

variety of roles, according to one vice principal. Each member is assigned to work with students in one or 

more classrooms, as well as with different students in intervention blocks and students with behavior or 

attendance issues. From the school’s analysis of its RTI data, members were matched with students in the 

middle tier who needed some support but did not have the greatest needs. Members were matched to 

their classroom teachers based on what one teacher described as a “speed dating” event at the beginning 

of the year where members and teachers met and rated each other as to how strongly they would like to 

work together. The school placed members at the highest match level between member and teacher 

ratings (e.g., each rated the other a 4 out of 5). 

In-class support. Each member was assigned to a classroom for much of the day where he or she was 

assigned a small caseload of students pulled out for math and reading groups. Members also monitored

student progress as part of assessments. Additionally, simply by being in the classroom, members played

a key role in providing more adult attention, which both helped prevent students from acting out for 

attention and meant that members could de-escalate situations when a student became upset. Teachers 

and members met weekly or biweekly to review students’ progress and discuss lesson plans and 

upcoming teaching strategies.

Intervention. Members pulled students from their caseloads for interventions during a dedicated block 

when each student received differentiated instruction with a group of similarly-performing peers. School 

2A trained members on the same pedagogical techniques and program components that teachers used so 

that members’ instruction could complement what students receives in the classroom.

School culture. Members generally contributed to making school a “fun” environment for students and 

were closely involved in the school’s behavioral interventions, which were based on the school’s values. 

Members checked in with them daily with students with high behavioral needs to discuss the students’ 

behavioral goals and if they succeeded in meeting them. At the classroom and school level, members 

hosted biweekly behavior reward parties based on exhibiting the school’s core values. Lastly, members 

contributed to building an age-appropriate college-going culture—in this case, normalizing the 

expectation at an early age that these elementary students were expected to go to college.

Family engagement. Parental engagement was a significant part of School 2A’s overall turnaround 

strategy. The school had engaged another outside partner specifically for parent engagement, including 

home visits. Members participated in and led several activities to engage parents, including participating 

in home visits with teachers. Members were an integral part of Parent Nights throughout the year, where 

they distributed data to parents and talked with them about their children’s progress. Members also 

hosted events designed to get parents involved in specific school initiatives, for example, a night where 

parents and students worked together toward students’ home reading goals. School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members also ran the after-school program, which a vice principal noted was “a huge help 

to parents in the community,” presumably because the children had supervised activities while parents 

were still at work. Members also participated in other activities for families, such as distributions of 

healthy food once a month. 

Attendance. Attendance support was a major program component mentioned by vice principals and 

teachers. One vice principal characterized the school’s approach to attendance outreach as “restorative,” 

where members phrased calls to elementary students as “telling them they miss them when they’re 

absent.” With parents, members tried to gain insight into what might have been happening at home, 

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especially for chronically absent students. Members also tried to incentivize attendance by holding lunch 

clubs for students with attendance problems. 

Effective Strategies and Promising Practices for Partners 

School 2A administrators and staff perceived members to be particularly effective in the following areas. 

Building relationships with students. All the interviewed school staff emphasized that members played a 

highly valuable role in supporting the school culture. Fundamentally, this was based on members’ 

relationships with students where they earned students’ trust because students saw them as “a little 

cooler.” Members used their relationships with students to learn what additional supports they needed, 

generate ideas about effective strategies to reach them, and broker smoother relationships with teachers. 

Several staff members specifically mentioned that members de-escalated situations when students 

become upset. 

Supporting teachers. Two vice principals emphasized that members’ relationship building with students 

supported teachers. By being in classrooms with teachers much of the day, members made the classroom 

environment less stressful. Students were getting more attention and not acting out and members deescalated disruptions, helping the teachers remain calmer and more effective. Likewise, building 

relationships with parents got parents more involved in their children’s schoolwork, which also 

supported teachers. A vice principal and teacher noted the key role of the teachers was as mentors and 

managers of the member in their classrooms. As one teacher put it, “The [Ameri]Corps member is going 

to be as effective as the teacher allows him or her to be,” highlighting the additional responsibility 

teachers take on with coaching members, who usually do not have classroom experience. 

Close integration into school goals and operations. School administrators and teachers described the 

program as offering services closely aligned with the school’s strategies, such as the values-based 

behavior intervention and ensuring that members were well-versed in the intervention models teachers 

used. Operationally, there were several mechanisms for frequent contact among the members, school 

staff, administrators, and grantees. Two team leaders and an on-site coordinator were provided by the 

grantee. The team leaders were former members who provided coaching and professional development 

for members. Team leaders and the grantee’s coordinator (who worked with two to three schools) had 

weekly and monthly meetings. The school has a long history of working with the grantee on multiple 

programs and they had achieved a high level of collaboration. 

Implementation Challenges in Working with Partners

School 2A’s relationship with the grantee organization appeared to be very strong, with only minor 

issues at the administrative level. The technical requirement that members have separate caseloads for 

reading and math was a source of frustration for teachers who had students struggling with both subjects 

who could have benefitted from coaching in both subjects. A vice principal also noted that there was not 

much coordination between the school and grantee about members’ professional development, making it 

hard for the school to know what trainings members were receiving or which school-wide trainings were 

most appropriate for members. Members’ term of service ended before the end of the school-year, which 

a vice principal described as, “jarring for the kids and it’s difficult for teachers who have become reliant 

on their [Ameri]Corps member.”

One teacher noted the school’s heavy reliance on AmeriCorps members, which imposed a real burden on 

the school when problems arose. “It was a really tough school year,” according to another teacher. As he 

and others mentioned, the 2014–15 AmeriCorps cohort was not as strong as the prior year’s, leading to 

frustration among teachers whose members were less committed (including one who left halfway 

through the year) and less effective. While interviewees were not clear about how this had happened, 

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some wondered if the grantee’s screening process changed, or if because the school was closed for 

construction in the summer the school had not offered members the typical two weeks of professional 

development before students arrived and during which time they normally would have been matched 

with teachers. Instead, members were not paired with teachers until after school started. Throughout the 

year, the school had team leaders coach members whose teachers had provided negative feedback, “to 

provide development around that area that the member is struggling in.” Administrators and teachers 

who had a history in the school observed that the difficulties with this cohort represented an aberration 

from their usual experience with the grantee’s AmeriCorps members. 

In fact, one teacher explained that, even though “sometimes, it feels like there’s too many bodies in the 

building ... we push for [AmeriCorps members] every year because it’s so important to have them.” She 

also wished that members could stay for two years but recognized that it was not “sustainable to do it for 

two years because of the financial challenge of it.”

Perceived Impact/Success in Using Partners to Meet Key Turnaround Outcomes 

Socio-emotional health. Administrators and teachers reported that members were very effective at 

building relationships with students and improving their behavior. Both interviewed teachers 

commented that they noticed remarkably more behavioral challenges in the classroom when their 

members were not present. A vice principal noted, however, that he did not think the school had done a 

good job of capturing the impact of School Turnaround AmeriCorps on behavior: “I just don't think that 

anybody's really quantified how that's impacted socio-emotional development.” 

Academic achievement. Corps members’ presence in classrooms, especially with small group work, 

helped improve students’ academic engagement and, therefore, their academic achievement. An assistant 

principal and teacher noted that many students showed marked improvement in their performance, 

particularly in literacy. One teacher explained that, “the [members] that have worked with me, their kids 

grew and—whether it was their math or reading interventions ... the kids in the small groups really do 

learn and benefit.”

School 2B 

Perceptions of Local Context

School 2B is located in the same high-poverty area as School Turnaround AmeriCorps school 2A and 

serves a similar student population from pre-kindergarten (as young as 3) through fifth grade. At the 

time of the study, its student population was almost entirely African American (99 percent), with 1

percent of students reporting Hispanic ethnicity and 1 percent of students who were English language 

learners (ELL). Virtually all of School B’s 420 students (99 percent) are eligible for free and reduced price 

lunch (FRPL). 

Substantial numbers of students experienced growth in their math and reading capacities in 2013–14 as 

compared to 2012–13 (54 percent and 40 percent, respectively). Over the same time period, however, 

student truancy rose (from 5 percent to 9 percent) and student satisfaction decreased (from 90 percent to 

82 percent). Retention of teachers rated highly effective also declined from 2012–13 to 2013–14—from 100 

percent to 71 percent, according to performance data collected by the district and posted on the school’s 

website. 

School 2B has a school-wide emphasis on the arts and, in 2012, received the President’s Committee on the 

Arts and Humanities Turnaround: Arts designation. It had a diverse set of partners and programs for arts 

(10), academic support (10), and wellness (6), including an AmeriCorps program; interviewed staff 

discussed 17 distinct partners. School 2B’s turnaround plan emphasizes seven principles: strong principal 

leadership, formal and informal teacher evaluation, professional development for teachers through an 

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instructional coach and external partners, transformation of the school culture to focus on increasing 

student academic performance, visibility of its arts-integration programs, effective use of data, and 

parental engagement. 

Partnership Strategies

Professional development. School 2B engaged many partners and internal strategies for professional 

development for its teachers. These included district- and school-level professional development for 

teachers, external consultants, a literacy-focused assistant principal who provides instructional coaching, 

and other external partners. Other external partners include arts organizations that teach teachers how to 

integrate material from the fine arts into core academic subjects. As one teacher who “loves” the 

approach explained, she has learned how to teach students “to read a book by learning how to read a 

painting.” The school also has ongoing instructional coaching from the assistant principal who 

continually reviews data with teachers and has, with the help of an external partner, emphasized the 

importance of flexible small-group strategies to tailor instruction. 

Curriculum-integrated partners. Several of School 2B’s partners provided additional academic content 

tailored to the school’s instructional standards. In effective cases, partners delivered the content in 

different but complementary ways to teachers’ regular classroom delivery. One program, for example, 

worked with older elementary grades; it presented several units throughout the school year, each of 

which was aligned to specific standards. The unit included a pre- and post-test surrounding an 

enrichment trip led by the external partner for the students and teacher. Another partner, an AmeriCorps 

program that had two members (though the school lost one late in the year), targeted younger grades, 

and was also noted to tailor its instructional strategies to match those used in the classroom. At least one 

other academic partner co-planned lessons with classroom teachers and its volunteers were highly 

regarded for their strong understanding of the school’s standards and curriculum. Professional 

development activities for pedagogy in both core subjects and arts-integrated teaching were provided by 

a number of partners and were closely tailored to the school’s standards.

By contrast, one literacy-focused partner was noted by an assistant principal to not only be ineffective but 

potentially damaging to student progress because the tutors used different instructional strategies than 

the school’s standards—and the skills on which students would be tested. This tutoring occurred during 

students’ literacy block and into their math block, meaning that struggling students were potentially even 

further behind relative to the skills their peers were acquiring in full-class instruction.

Shared experiences for students and teachers. An administrator and two teachers discussed the benefits of 

shared experiences for teachers and students. In the field trip-based unit described above, a school leader 

suggested that teachers’ participation in trips changes the dynamic between teachers and students from, 

"I'm telling you, I'm telling you" to “remember when we did this.” 

With parental engagement, too, external partners help by relieving some of the pressure on teachers to 

handle all the logistical aspects of an evening. This allows teachers to be able to “sit along with families 

during the process and either be learners or participants with our families, and kind of engage with them 

in a much less stressful manner.” 

Challenges with Partnerships 

School 2B experienced turnover in its leadership in 2014–15; a new principal arrived in the fall and a vice 

principal left midway through the school year, which interview respondents noted made the school year 

challenging. The new principal tried to continue existing partnerships, although some partnerships 

ended. The vice principal’s mid-year departure led to other challenges as her responsibilities then had to 

be reassigned. An administrator and teacher also mentioned teacher turnaround as having a negative 

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impact on the school, as did high absenteeism and low morale among some other teachers. One teacher, 

who is was going to lead an initiative in the 2015–16 year about improving school culture and behavior, 

spoke of the interrelated challenges of setting standards for student behavior, especially when morale is 

low among teachers.

Another challenge was inconsistent coordination and communication between the school and its multiple 

partners. This meant that, with at least two partners, students were not being picked up and dropped off 

at expected times, and in other cases that either school staff or partners did not have needed information 

in a timely fashion. One partner, for example, provided recreation and social skills programs that were 

much-loved by students and parents, yet inconsistent coordination and communication between the 

school and the partner led to administrator and staff perceptions that the program was not as effective as 

it could have been. Other cases of inadequate communication were when academically-focused 

intervention partners did not meet frequently with school leaders or teachers to discuss data (and 

translate periodic interventions into classroom teaching), or when school leaders did not have a roster of 

partners that were coming to the building.

Perceived Impact/Success Meeting Key Turnaround Outcomes 

Interviewed School 2B staff agreed that external partners played large roles in increasing engagement and 

enthusiasm among both students and parents; the partners’ contributions were generally very highly 

valued. One external partner helped build a key bridge between parents and the school by 

communicating the importance of attendance, homework completion, and rigor through Common Core 

standards. Teachers and administrators also believed that students were very excited about most of the 

programming offered by external partners, especially physical activity, field trips to historic sites or 

cultural institutions, and the AmeriCorps program. Teachers perceived the AmeriCorps program as 

being more effective than a similar academic intervention because the members were present all the time, 

which allowed them to both forge relationships with students and “make a connection between what was 

going on in the classroom and what they were doing with their intervention.” Administrators and 

teachers withheld stronger specific comments about perceived impact as they had not yet seen 

assessment data that would back up their personal observations, however, they did seem to expect that 

achievement data would show improvement.

Case Study 3

Brief Overview

This case study describes two urban elementary schools’ efforts to meet their turnaround plan goals 

during the 2014–15 school year, focusing specifically on the roles of AmeriCorps members and/or other 

partners. One school (School 3A) engaged School Turnaround AmeriCorps members in diverse activities 

while School 3B, which did not have School Turnaround AmeriCorps support, had other external 

partners engaged in various support activities. This case study is based on a site visit to Schools 3A and 

3B in May 2015. At each school, there were interviews with the principal, two teachers, a teacher focus 

group with four teachers, and a structured observation protocol of the school environment. 

Context 

Local Demographics

Schools 3A and 3B are elementary schools in the same city in the southwestern United States. Schools 3A 

and 3B are located in two separate school districts that are 11 miles apart. They serve comparable student 

populations with similar racial and ethnic backgrounds (a majority of Hispanic students) and income 

levels (the vast majority of students were eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch), although School B is 

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in a considerably smaller school district. The two schools received significantly different SIG funding 

amounts; School A receiving nearly $1,500,000 more than School B (see Exhibit III-36). 

Exhibit III-36: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14)

School 3A School 3B

District urbanicity Urban Urban

SIG Turnaround Model Turnaround Transformation

SIG funding: years and total award 2010–13: $2,256,517 2010–13: $760,200

School level Elementary Elementary

School enrollment 395 students 384 students

District enrollment 83,377 students 10,069 students

Proportion of students eligible for 

free- and reduced-price lunch 85% 91% 

Racial/ethnic composition

White 5.8% 8.9%

Hispanic 64.0% 82.0%

Black 25.0% 2.1%

Asian 2.5% 4.7%

Other 2.5% 2.3%

School 3A 

Physical Environment

The School 3A building was generally a clean and inviting space. Various posters were on the walls in the 

hallway encouraging students to stay focused during standardized testing and reminding students of 

testing tips and norms (testing was ongoing during the site visit period). Some of these posters appeared 

to be created by students. Flyers posted throughout the building announced family and community 

events, such as a Family Ceramics Night, illustrating the school’s efforts to engage and involve students’ 

families in activities going on at the school. Students also had access to a gymnasium, playground, 

cafeteria, art room, library, and computer lab, which were all separate dedicated spaces. 

During the study team’s short visit to School 3A, teachers and school staff engaged in frequent and 

positive interactions with one another and with students. AmeriCorps members were not typically 

distinguishable from other school staff in any way, but their space in the building was clearly visible to 

visitors; the hall outside the AmeriCorps classroom featured a large banner with their name on it.

Perceptions of Local Context

According to the teachers and principal at School 3A, the student population in general has a high need 

for socioemotional support. The school had a full-time counselor and a part-time social worker, yet 

several staff members commented that the school’s limited resources meant it was unable to meet 

students’ socio-emotional needs. Additionally, three teachers expressed frustration with the lack of a 

district-wide mathematics curriculum and said that this created additional work and challenges for 

teachers, such as needing to align curriculum across multiple grades.

Partnership Strategies

School Turnaround AmeriCorps was one of several external partnerships supporting School 3A. Another 

partner was a group of local professionals that visited the school once a week during their lunch hour and 

read books with second and third grade students. The principal commented on the way in which that 

program provided socio-emotional support for students by having additional adult mentors with whom 

students could form relationships. 

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Another partner was a philanthropic organization that supported student participation in the Accelerated 

Reader program with a program in which students read books and took comprehension tests. The 

program logged the amount of time spent reading, and students’ scores on the comprehension tests; 

students received prizes and could track their progress toward goals. The principal explained that the 

Accelerated Reader program encouraged students to read more frequently, which she said could 

positively impact their academic performance.

Additionally, School 3A partnered with an organization that provided consultant visits throughout the 

year to help teachers learn how to interpret student data and how to use the data to tailor their 

instruction. The principal and teachers reported that their partnership with this organization enabled 

teachers to use student data effectively and ultimately positively impact student academic performance.

In the 2014–15 school year, six School Turnaround AmeriCorps members served in the building plus a 

coordinator who split her time between three schools. Two members left the program and were replaced 

at the beginning of the school year. 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps members focused primarily on math tutoring, which was provided to all 

fourth graders and some third and fifth graders. All members were assigned small groups of students to 

meet with every day. The AmeriCorps coordinator met with the third through fifth grade teachers 

regularly to plan instruction based on the specific areas in which students needed additional support. The 

coordinator then communicated the plans to the members. Members spent 50 minutes with each small 

group of students, starting on grade-level material for 10 to 15 minutes and then working with the 

students on their level, which was often different than their grade-level. 

A secondary goal of the AmeriCorps members at School 3A was mentoring. Through frequent smallgroup tutoring sessions and members’ participation in school events and interaction with students 

throughout the day (at lunch or recess, for example), they were in a unique position to form bonds with 

their students. 

Effective Strategies and Promising Practices for Partners 

School 3A’s principal and staff perceived members to be particularly effective in the following areas:

Academic tutoring. Each member was assigned multiple sets of small math tutoring groups that 

remained consistent throughout the year. They provided tailored support to students, spending 

additional time on the grade-level material students were being taught in the classroom and also working 

with students on material at their current level of understanding. Teachers reported that members used 

many strategies for engaging their students and checking for their understanding, such as the use of 

games, contests, and exit tickets (a school-wide strategy teachers used to check for student 

understanding). The principal and teachers mentioned that they believed the academic support members 

provided had a beneficial effect on the students’ academic performance and socio-emotional health.

Mentoring and relationship building. The principal and teachers commented several times that the 

members worked hard to build relationships with their students, which they noted helped keep students 

engaged in their small group tutoring sessions. Members regularly had lunch with students, attended 

school events, and spent time outside their required tutoring time with the students in their tutoring 

groups. As previously noted, staff at School 3A noted that the student population at their school had a lot 

of socio-emotional needs and not enough school resources to support all of them. The principal and the 

school counselor commented that the mentoring provided by the members added to the school’s efforts 

to meet students’ socio-emotional needs.

Members serving as a team. Administrators and staff reported that the consistent teamwork displayed by 

the members was noticeable and beneficial to their work. Teachers noted that the members would all 

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come to the classroom together to pick up their groups at consistent times and in a consistent manner. 

Members were also known to collaborate with each other and with their coordinator frequently. If a 

member was out of the building one day, the other members would take on the students from their 

groups so that the students’ and teachers’ routines were maintained. 

Implementation Challenges in Working with Partners

Although members were perceived to expand the school’s capacity in some important areas, school 

leadership and staff acknowledged some implementation challenges as well.

School staff and member collaboration. While teachers noted that members were consistent in the ways 

they worked with students, they felt that there were missed opportunities for members to collaborate 

with school staff. A few teachers mentioned that they felt members were separate from the rest of the 

school community; they also commented that teachers were not always aware of what was occurring in 

the tutoring sessions. The majority of teachers’ interactions with members were reported to be around 

managing student behavior. Teachers said they did not have a lot of direct contact with members outside 

of when members picked up and dropped off students. While members frequently attended school 

events, some teachers felt that the members could have played a larger role in planning or executing the 

events. 

Progress monitoring. Several teachers and the principal at School 3A highlighted the lack of progress 

monitoring in the tutoring groups as a challenge. In previous years, the members had apparently 

assessed their students’ progress frequently and shared data and insights with the teachers. The School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps grantee organization discontinued use of the progress monitoring system, 

which disappointed those teachers who were interviewed, as they had found the progress monitoring 

data helpful for their use and to help them assess the impact of members’ tutoring. Three teachers were 

somewhat hesitant to say that the tutoring definitely had an impact on their students’ academic 

performance as they felt they had no data or information to back up their claim. 

Member support and training. Three teachers and the school counselor at School 3A felt strongly that the 

coordinator splitting her time among three schools was a challenge to both the members and the teachers. 

One teacher mentioned that the coordinator served as a conduit for information to members, and the 

coordinator’s part-time schedule posed a challenge. Additionally, a few teachers mentioned that they 

would have liked for the members to have additional training in managing student behavior before 

starting the school year. These teachers noted that behavior management was difficult for all school staff, 

but that it would have been helpful if the members had started the year being aware of some strategies to 

help them work effectively with their students. 

Perceived Impact/Success in Using Partners to Meet Key Turnaround Outcomes 

Multiple respondents from School 3A perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps as contributing to 

success in meeting key school turnaround outcomes in the following ways.

Academic support. As described above, all of the staff interviewed at School 3A believed that the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps members had a beneficial effect on the academic performance of the students 

receiving tutoring supports, though they could not quantify the improvement at the time of the site visit. 

Socio-emotional support. As described above, the administrator and teachers at School 3A reported that 

the member mentoring and relationship-building time increased their school’s capacity to meet the 

socioemotional needs of their students. 

Participating in before school or after-school learning time. Multiple teachers commented on the amount 

of time the members spent tutoring students before school and participating in clubs after school. They 

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reported that the time members spent in these activities contributed to their success in impacting 

students’ academic performance and providing additional socio-emotional support for their students. 

Improving the school environment and climate. The principal and multiple teachers commented on the 

ways in which members had positively impacted the school environment and culture at School 3A. One 

teacher explained that the close relationships formed between the members and their students resulted in 

positive impacts on student behavior which then impacted the school culture. Another teacher 

commented that the members were consistent in their routines and interactions with students, such as 

when transitioning from the classroom to tutoring groups. Orderly and calm transitions prevented

learning time from being wasted and contributed to the positive school climate at School 3A. 

School 3B 

Physical Environment

School 3B’s interior was clean and organized, but the building itself showed signs of aging. Additionally, 

the gymnasium and cafeteria were a shared space and seemed noisy and crowded with multiple activities 

going on simultaneously. The kindergarten and special education classrooms were located in satellite 

buildings separate from the main school building. There also seemed to be a lack of meeting space for 

school staff; the teacher interviews were held in the principal’s office as no other space was available at 

that time. 

There were multiple displays on the walls supporting school spirit and positive climate, as well as 

displayed student artwork and writing. One of the halls featured student essays in which they explained 

their goals for college. There was clear evidence of parent and community involvement with flyers and 

handouts on school and community information in the lobby, a designated parent drop-off zone called 

the “hug and drop-off zone,” and a dedicated parent room where parents could meet to help plan school 

events or participate in parent education classes.

Perceptions of Local Context

The principal at School 3B explained that his/her school was unique in terms of its level of parent 

engagement. The principal commented that parents frequently came together to plan school events, 

participate in parent education classes, and assist in after-school activities. Additionally, School 3B was a 

competency-based school, meaning that students were grouped by level rather than age or grade. For 

example, a student may have been age-appropriate for a third grade class in a typical school but he or she 

could be in a range of levels, such as level two or five, depending on how he or she was performing in 

each subject. The principal believed that the competency-based groupings would negatively impact 

students’ scores on standardized testing as it was possible to have an age-appropriate third-grade student 

who had never seen third-grade material. 

Partnership Strategies

While School 3B did not receive support from a School Turnaround AmeriCorps program, it had several 

partnerships with external organizations. Two partnerships provided support for field trips; one to a golf 

course, with lessons and equipment provided as well, and the other to a museum, supplemented by 

professional development for teachers. The principal and one teacher commented that these 

opportunities allowed their students to engage in activities that they may otherwise not have been able to 

due to their families’ incomes. A teacher also noted that the students were excited leading up to the field 

trips, which positively impacted the school climate.

The staff at School 3B also cited the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) as a partner. Some parents at 

School 3B collaborated on planning school events and assisting with after-school activities and clubs, 

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such as dance club. A few teachers noted that the PTO and other parents were primarily involved in the 

school’s non-academic activities rather than academic endeavors. 

Another partner worked with school staff on literacy skills, through use of the Burst: Reading Literacy 

Intervention program, Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessment and regular 

progress monitoring. The partnership provided a literacy consultant for five full days during the year to 

work with teachers and discuss classroom and individual student data. 

Finally, School 3B partnered with two tutoring companies for 10 weeks of the school year that worked 

with students from level 1 (first grade material) to level 5 (fifth grade material). Each tutoring company 

provided reading intervention tutoring twice per week for the 10-week period. One company’s tutors 

(company 1) were all teachers at School 3B who had received training and additional compensation to 

tutor students in the reading intervention after school. The other tutoring company (company 2)

employed some teachers and staff from School 3B but mostly hired their own part-time tutors. Company 

2 trained teachers and the external tutors on the program, which followed a phonics-based method that 

teachers said was very prescribed and detailed. 

Challenges with Partnerships

The primary challenge that emerged from interviews with staff at School 5B was that some of the 

interventions were perceived to not be long enough to have a meaningful impact. Specifically, teachers 

reported that the Burst literacy intervention could potentially have been more effective if staff had more 

time to work with the literacy consultant. One teacher mentioned that in past years the school had a 

dedicated literacy consultant in the building and that the support she provided was extremely helpful to 

the teachers and ultimately very beneficial to the students. In addition, some teachers questioned the size 

of impact that tutoring company 2 could achieve with a 10 week program.

Perceived Impact/Success Meeting Key Turnaround Outcomes

Teachers and the principal confirmed that the PTO and other parents not involved in the PTO positively 

contributed to the school environment and school culture. 

The principal and teachers reported that the support provided by the literacy consultant for Burst was 

ultimately somewhat beneficial to their students’ academic performance due to teachers learning how to 

effectively interpret student data and provide targeted instruction, with the caveat that it could have been 

more helpful if teachers had been able to spend more time with the consultant. 

Teachers described the program used by tutoring company 1 as more holistic and literature-based and 

allowing for more teacher flexibility. School 3B staff felt that tutoring company 1 was superior to tutoring 

company 2 in that the teachers themselves were the tutors and they were able to better target the 

intervention to students’ individual needs and use their own knowledge and creativity in their lessons. 

Some teachers questioned whether the external part-time tutors were able to provide the same quality of 

tutoring as the experienced teachers could. These teachers noted that the external part-time tutors from 

company 2 seemed inexperienced in working with struggling students and did not seem to be 

knowledgeable in effective behavior management strategies. The principal and teachers felt that the 

tutoring provided by both tutoring companies 1 and 2 probably had a beneficial effect on students’ 

academic performance. 

Case Study 4

Brief Overview

This case study describes two urban high schools’ efforts to meet their turnaround plan goals during the 

2014–15 school year, focusing specifically on the roles of AmeriCorps members and/or other volunteers, 

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external support staff, and other external partners that helped to support school turnaround activities. 

One of the schools (School 4A) engaged School Turnaround AmeriCorps members in a range of activities 

while School 4B (which did not have School Turnaround AmeriCorps resources) had small volunteer 

efforts that were not able to fill School B’s needs. In School 4A, one principal, one assistant principal, and 

two guidance counselors were interviewed. In School 4B, the principal and three teachers were 

interviewed. All interviews were conducted by telephone.

Context 

Local Demographics

Schools 4A and 4B are high schools located in different urban districts a little over an hour apart in the 

U.S. Midwest. The two schools served generally comparable student populations with similar racial and 

ethnic backgrounds (almost 100 percent African American) and income levels (slightly over 80 percent of 

students were eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch); see Exhibit III-37. As of the 2014–15 school year, 

School 4B was no longer receiving Title I funding, as the district made multiple funding cuts. 

Exhibit III-37: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14)

School 4A School 4B

District urbanicity Urban Urban

SIG Turnaround Model Transformation Transformation

SIG funding: years and total award 2009–2014

$5,788,125

2009-2014

$1,034,512

School enrollment 724 975

District enrollment 8,625 8,485

Free and reduced-price lunch 86% (623/724) 82% (802/975)

Racial/ethnic composition

White 0.1% 6.0%

Hispanic 0.1% 2.0%

Black 97.2% 89.0%

Asian 2.2% 0.0%

Other 0.0% 3.0%

School 4A 

Perceptions of Local Context

School 4A began receiving SIG funding in 2001 and became a college readiness school at the beginning of 

the 2014–15 school year. Its new principal and assistant principal had been the driving forces behind the 

college readiness agenda. According to the principal, the school had a high percentage of students at-risk 

of having academic challenges and attendance problems. Creating a college-going culture at the school 

was a major focus of School 4A’s turnaround efforts and of the initiative served by AmeriCorps members.

Partnership Strategies

School Turnaround AmeriCorps was one of several partnerships supporting School 4A; it provided 

college readiness and mentoring supports to the school and its students. In 2014–15, four members served 

in the building, although due to retention issues, only one remained by the spring of 2015. The program’s 

on-site coordinator, one of school 4A’s guidance counselors, supported the members in providing college 

readiness and parental engagement activities. School 4A also had a new partnership with an organization 

that provided coaching and training for teachers, an existing partnership with a local college for tutoring, 

and an existing partnership with another AmeriCorps program that placed teachers in low-income 

schools. 

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College readiness was the major focus of School 4A’s AmeriCorps program. One member was assigned to 

each grade, and each grade had a specific set of focus areas. In twelfth grade, the focus was on financial 

aid literacy, college applications and essays, and scholarship completion. In eleventh grade, the focus was 

on the ACT, resume writing, and job readiness. For tenth grade, the focus was on school and career 

awareness, and ninth grade focused on understanding high school and the high school mindset. All 

members were assigned caseloads of students based on which grade they were in, however, not all 

students received members’ assistance. No one interviewed, including the site supervisor, seemed to 

understand how members were assigned their caseloads, which suggests that assignment occurred 

outside the school. 

Some members offered other activities and supports for parental engagement. At least one member 

provided workshops for parents on college readiness, called parents at home to check-in about their 

children’s progress, and helped to establish a support room for parents where they could ask questions 

and find resources. 

Effective Strategies and Promising Practices for Partners 

School 4A administrators and staff overall perceived members to be effective in the following areas:

Student mentorship and motivation. The principal, assistant principal, and both guidance counselors 

spoke about the importance of member relationships with students. Both guidance counselors 

commented that having another positive adult role model available to students was crucial for their 

success. The on-site supervisor guidance counselor stressed members’ ability to motivate students and 

beneficially affect attendance and academics as particularly important. The assistant principal noted that 

he had heard positive feedback about members from students, who seemed enthusiastic about working 

with members. 

College readiness and climate. Interviewees also commented on members’ positive impact on college 

readiness and school climate. One guidance counselor indicated that members could speak the same 

language and convey the same college readiness mindset that School 4A’s staff did and that this alone 

contributed to School 4A’s culture. 

Parent engagement. Another perceived benefit came from member responsibilities related to engaging 

parents via conducting workshops about college readiness, calling parents at home to check-in about 

their children’s progress, and helping establish a support room parents could visit to ask questions and 

find resources. Member relations with parents, in some cases, smoothed teacher-parent relations. One 

guidance counselor noted, “If a teacher has been contacting a student [at home] forever and they are not 

able to get through, an AmeriCorps member can say, “Hey, well I talked to that parent, let me call,” and 

use that connection to a teacher’s advantage. 

Implementation Challenges in Working with Partners

Although members were perceived to have expanded the school’s capacity in some important areas, 

school leadership and staff acknowledged some implementation challenges.

School staff and member collaboration. School staff and member collaboration was minimal and was 

limited to the members’ on-site supervisor, who was the only interviewee who could provide a full 

account of members’ activities. Another guidance counselor and the assistant principal reported knowing 

very little about the program. No teachers were interviewed because they knew so little about the School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps program. 

All three interviewed staff members explained that there was a wide disconnect between teachers and 

members, which was problematic for the program. The assistant principal felt that member training 

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should have included “spending time with teachers” and “knowing what type of support teachers need.” 

For example, when members entered a classroom to present a college readiness workshop, their 

workshop “wasn’t necessarily communicated to the teachers” beforehand. As a result, teachers felt 

members interrupted their classes. 

Member roles and visibility. Interviews highlighted the lack of clarity within the school about members’ 

roles and that members did not maintain a strong, visible presence on site. As one guidance counselor 

noted, teachers were generally unaware of exactly what members were there to do and apparently had 

not been provided updates on student progress after members began working with students. The

principal noted the program also had issues with “accessibility,” explaining that the program served 

multiple schools, which limited its ability to focus and attend to School 4A’s needs specifically. As a 

result, “there [were] certain things that still fall through the cracks.” As one guidance counselor 

explained, “I think it would have been helpful to have had them more present in the building ... just 

more visible throughout the building.” The same guidance counselor also wished that members were 

able to more widely disseminate the college readiness culture, explaining that she thought the hallways 

could have used some “boards or posters or some kind of information throughout the building” that 

highlighted support systems and student successes.

Member-school alignment. All three interviewed staff members reported that the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program was not well integrated into school 4A’s operations and goals. The assistant 

principal (new to the role in 2014–15), explained that he was told, “these people are going to be in your 

building, in this room, doing X, Y, and Z rather than here's a partnership that we have.” His perception 

was corroborated by the guidance counselors; they described the program as not being integrated into the 

school. Instead, their perception was that the program operated as a separate entity. The assistant 

principal described the program as “self-serving” instead of pitching in when the school needed all hands 

on deck. The counselor who acted as an on-site supervisor noted in hindsight that it would have been 

helpful to have had an orientation for members and guidance counselors at the start of the school year to 

align goals and priorities. The supervising guidance counselor recommended that members communicate 

with their school’s principal early in the year to specifically tailor their plans and to help School 4A where 

it needs it the most. She recommended that they create a calendar “to structure them in the building” and 

to increase member-school alignment. 

Member retention. The principal, assistant principal, and one of the guidance counselors characterized 

member retention as a challenge and a disappointment, reflecting the departure of three of four members 

before the school year’s end. The principal explained that with such low wages there is no “incentive to 

retain or stay or to matriculate with the students” so at least one member left to pursue another 

opportunity. Members’ unanticipated exits from the school meant that the school had to adjust 

midstream to continue its college readiness programming absent the level of support it had been 

promised. In an ideal world, the principal would have had members start working with students in the 

ninth grade and continue to work with them as they progress through high school. The grantee, in 

response to members leaving midyear, explained that they asked the remaining members either to pick 

up another grade or to work together to service all grades.

On-site supervisor. While school staff and administrators focused on the issue of member retention, 

grantee staff also mentioned that they struggled (across all their partner schools) with retention of on-site 

supervisors because of turnover in school faculty, specifically guidance counselors. Grantee staff noted 

that if a site supervisor decided to leave, they worked with the principal to identify someone else or, if no 

one else took the position, the principal sometimes had to take on that role and responsibility. 

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Relationships with students. While their relationships with students were listed as one of the members’ 

strengths, the supervising guidance counselor also noted that it took time for members to build 

relationships with students. She explained that members’ training taught them certain strategies that did 

not apply to all students and “saying hello, hi my name is this, may not develop that relationship” so 

members needed to be more creative and persistent. However, once the supervisor provided 

relationship-building supports to members, they were able to effectively implement those strategies with 

students. 

Perceived Impact/Success in Using Partners to Meet Key Turnaround Outcomes 

School 4A respondents perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps as contributing to success in meeting 

key school turnaround outcomes.

Social-emotional support. The principal and guidance counselors of School 4A described the School 

Turnaround members’ main contribution as on the social-emotional front, through building relationships 

with students and motivating students to be engaged in school. 

College readiness and school climate. School 4A’s staff observed that members contributed to fostering a 

strong college readiness climate. Although they also commented that the members (or the program) 

could have done more to advertise and communicate about their mission, school staff concluded that 

members’ presence in School 4A enhanced the school’s college readiness environment. 

Parental Engagement. School leaders and staff perceived members to be helpful in engaging parents by 

including them in workshops and communicating with them about available resources.

School 4B 

Perceptions of Local Context

According to School 4B’s principal and staff, School 4B faced multiple challenges stemming from a high 

percentage of at-risk students, an impoverished population, and a district in considerable debt. School 4B 

had suffered from recent and repeated funding cuts and high staff turnover. As one teacher noted, “We 

service probably the most oppressed, marginalized kids in the city. And with that comes everything 

else.” 

With so much district debt, School 4B had struggled with its transformation school status. As the 

principal explained, “They’re doing some things that transformational schools do, but they have no 

resources to back it.” The school struggles with staff turnover, which adversely affects its capacity to 

carry out turnaround plans and activities. Safety is another concern that negatively affects the school’s 

capacity to attract and retain volunteers. On the day of the interview with one teacher, for example, 

School 4B was still reeling from a riot and three resulting fights that occurred on school property the day 

before.

The school’s challenges were compounded by the district’s elimination of Title 1 funding for all of its high 

schools in 2014–15, which meant School 4B lost its behavioral specialist and lost some of its security 

guards. One teacher noted that even if people wanted to volunteer and support the school, the school did 

not offer a safe environment for them. Morale was also an issue, as teachers typically worked for seven 

hours each day without a break. Severe negative impacts from funding cuts as reported by the principal 

and teachers, however, meant that the funding will be restored for the 2015–16 school year.

Partnership Strategies

In spite of these challenges, there were multiple volunteer organizations and programs at School 4B, 

including an after-school tutoring program, a meditation program, a student-parent exchange program 

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with another high school, and partnerships with local colleges that supported students in math, and, in 

one case, college readiness. Volunteers ranged from community members to members of religious 

organizations, from parents to security guards and a former principal. All four interview respondents 

(three staff members and the principal), however, struggled to name the different organizations and 

could not recall whether given partners were active or had withdrawn from the building. 

Challenges with Partnerships

Staff members disagreed about whether the multitude of programs and volunteers were beneficial or 

detrimental. One observed, “Any program that you can get in to help students prepare them to improve 

their academic performance or to help them move onto college or if it's just to help them at being a better 

person and citizen in the community, any of those programs are good. I think all schools could use any 

program like that.” Another commented that having multiple organizations in the building was 

counterproductive, because the school had no plan about how to use the partners or volunteers. A third 

wished there were more tutoring, parental engagement, and in-classroom support services. 

Perceived Impact/Success in Meeting Key Turnaround Outcomes

Staff expressed hopelessness about the school and its students and deep concern about having 

insufficient numbers of teachers, interventionists, parent facilitators, and security advocates and 

inadequate supplies. Staff members also noted a desperate need for more parental engagement, 

explaining that the school did not have a PTA nor did it have an effective way or program to assist with 

engagement. As one staff member concluded, the changes in School 4B’s city had taken the school from a 

“model for community schools” to its current struggles to provide services and safety (see Exhibit III-38).

Exhibit III-38: Teacher Perspective on the Challenges of a Changing School Community

“It used to be a community. We used to be the model for community schools for the nation. You know, 

I mean, there were people that looked at us -- that looked at our district on a national platform as being 

what you should do with community schools. And I think that if we went back to things to engage our 

community, afterschool programs that supported not just kids but parents as well and adults... I think 

that we would -- we would go really far towards improving our district.”

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This teacher explained that once factories and other employers left their city, jobs left with them, as well 

as the community grants and education opportunities they provided. The same teacher, who had been 

teaching in the district for 12 years and lived in the community, explained that in her entire life, “this year 

has been the most dysfunctional year and place that I've ever worked.” 

Case Study 5

Brief Overview

This case study describes two rural high schools’ efforts to meet their turnaround plan goals during the 

2014–15 school year, focusing specifically on the roles of AmeriCorps members and/or other volunteers, 

external support staff, and other external partners who help to support school turnaround activities. One 

of the schools (School 5A) engaged School Turnaround AmeriCorps members in a range of activities 

while the other (School 5B, which did not have School Turnaround AmeriCorps resources) incentivized 

teachers to provide additional academic supports. This case study is based on a site visit conducted at 

Schools 5A and 5B in May 2015. Data sources are principal interviews (one per school), teacher interviews 

(two per school), a teacher focus group (one per school with four teachers per school), and a structured 

observation protocol of the school environment.
Context 

Local Demographics

Schools 5A and 5B are high schools located in rural districts about two hours apart in the south central 

region of the United States. The two schools served generally comparable student populations with 

similar racial and ethnic backgrounds (almost 100 percent white) and income levels (slightly over half of 

students were eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch) (see Exhibit III-39). As of the 2014–15 school 

year, School 5B was no longer receiving SIG funding, as grant funding ended the prior year. 

Exhibit III-39: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14)

School 1A School 1B

District urbanicity Rural Rural

SIG Turnaround Model Transformation Transformation (no longer receiving funding 

from SIG grant)

SIG funding: years and total award Ongoing (until 2017) No longer receiving funds as of 2014-15

School enrollment 847 students 602 students

District enrollment 4,538 students 2,525 students

Free- and reduced-price lunch 62% 58%

Racial/ethnic composition

White 97.0% 99.0%

Hispanic 0.7% 0.2%

Black 1.9% 0.7%

Asian 0.0% 0.2%

School 5A 

Physical Environment

School 5A had recently been renovated, and its interior was clean and full of natural light. Large sports 

fields surrounded the building. The school’s mascot was prominently displayed throughout the school, as 

were school rules, and order seemed to be emphasized in the school’s public spaces. Science and history 

projects were displayed in the hallways, along with posters and bulletin boards of student work outside 

classrooms. The well-stocked library was spacious. Photos of faculty of the month, student of the month, 

and most-improved student were displayed in the central office, which helped to convey the school’s 

focus on school improvement and student achievement. The school’s focus on career and college 

readiness was evident through numerous posters about college preparation, scholarships, and college 

entrance examinations. Parent and community involvement was not evident in displays around the 

building.

Based on the study team’s observations, the principal seemed to have good rapport and frequent 

interactions with school staff and students. School staff seemed respectful of each other and of students. 

AmeriCorps members were recognizable as they wore green vests or other AmeriCorps insignia.

Perceptions of Local Context

According to School 5A’s principal, the school faces disadvantages because of its rural location: “There’s 

not a lot of opportunity for students in this area. Students can’t go out and get a job. There’s definitely 

more people than there are jobs.” The principal also noted that students do not typically leave the 

immediate area for college or employment opportunities after high school, despite the lack of local 

options. Many students would be the first member of their families to attend college. 

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Partnership Strategies

School Turnaround AmeriCorps was the only outside partnership supporting School 5A in 2014–15, and 

the program provided various supports to the school and its students. In 2014–15, as many as 22 

members served in the building; due to turnover among members, the school did not reach its planned 

capacity of 24 members, and by late spring 2015, only 18 members remained. 

One major focus of School 5A’s AmeriCorps members was mentoring; with the entire cohort of 22, 

members were able to offer mentoring to all students in the school. All members were assigned caseloads 

of students. The members were available in the library as needed for any type of support (which was 

voluntary for students), and they occasionally pulled students from classrooms in response to teacher 

referrals. 

Attendance monitoring was another major focus of members’ work, as reported by members who 

participated in focus groups and interviews and by the grantee. This work involved contacting families 

(primarily via telephone) to encourage better attendance. Although the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

grantee reported that family and community engagement was a core activity, School 5A’s members 

focused primarily on attendance monitoring versus engaging more broadly with families, as noted by 

school leadership and teachers. Some members led extracurricular activities and sold tickets at athletic 

events, and some members also helped students with college preparation activities, such as assisting with 

ACT registration and college visits.

Other activities and supports were offered by some, but not all members, including in-classroom 

instructional support to support English and math teachers. Members worked with groups or individual 

students as needed. In addition, some members stayed after school to focus on credit recovery with 

students who needed to make up course credits to be eligible for high school graduation.54 

Effective Strategies and Promising Practices for Partners 

School 5A administrators and staff perceived members to be particularly effective in the following areas:

Adult advocacy. School 5A’s leadership identified “adult advocacy” as the most effective contribution of 

the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program. Through mentoring, the members provided additional 

“listening ears,” bridged gaps between students and school staff, and helped integrate personal interests 

into the school. As the principal reported, “the biggest thing that they [members] have been able to do is 

open some communication lines. They are another body that’s in the building that allows the students to 

have an adult advocate.” 

Attendance monitoring. School 5A’s leadership also perceived attendance monitoring as a particularly 

valuable contribution. Members contacted families of students who were habitually absent and/or truant. 

Without such daily focus by the members, the school would not have had the capacity to follow up 

regularly about attendance with students and their families.

College preparation. Member assistance with college preparation was perceived by school leadership as 

another helpful activity. In 2014–15, members began conducting “mission transition trips” with students. 

These trips provided students with the opportunity to visit campuses and learn about programs outside 

of the immediate geographical area. The principal commented, “Just getting to those schools was big. A 

lot of times students see University of [State Name] and don’t know anything about it and feel that this is 

54 Respondents were not able to give a sense of how many of the school’s 22 members provided these non-core 

services, indicating that the services may have been of an ad hoc nature and may have depended on the needs of 

students in their caseloads.

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their only option. When that’s their only option and they think they can’t go there, they don’t look at the 

other technical schools we have here, the other colleges they have around here.”

Implementation Challenges in Working with Partners

Although members were perceived as expanding the school’s capacity in some important areas, school 

leadership and staff acknowledged some implementation challenges as well.

Recruiting and retention. School 5A experienced difficulties with School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

member recruitment and retention and was not able to reach full capacity because of turnover. The 

principal reported that member turnover made it more difficult for students to bond with the members. 

Member mentoring caseloads were also higher because fewer members were available to students, which 

made it more challenging for them to reach all students and build close relationships.

Member roles and focus. Some School 5A staff reported confusion about members’ roles and the focus of 

their work. Grantee staff indicated that School 5A’s principal was very involved with the program and 

members, yet program information had not seemed to reach the staff level. School staff were particularly 

confused about the members’ schedules (when they would be present or absent), the students’ schedules 

(when students would be pulled from classes for mentoring or college visits), and what members were 

supposed to be helping with when in their classrooms. 

On-site supervisor: Some School 5A staff were concerned about the lack of an on-site supervisory 

structure to monitor members on a daily basis and to help communicate with school staff. Although a 

grantee staff person was responsible for coordinating members across both School 5A and another school, 

school staff were not aware of his presence and reported that they did not communicate regularly with 

him. School staff commented that daily supervision could ascertain whether members were performing 

their assigned roles and responsibilities, including regularly attending classes to which they had been 

assigned and pulling students out of classrooms at appropriate times, indicating that these were 

perceived problems at the school. School staff also indicated that having an on-site coordinator could 

help communicate more effectively to teachers how members’ activities related to the larger goals and 

mission of the school.

School staff and member collaboration. School 5A’s staff and members did not have a formal structure or 

time set aside to communicate with school staff, particularly teachers, about activities and students. As a 

result, according to some school staff, members lacked clear understanding of the context in which they 

were working, which likely contributed to them taking students out of important core classes or during 

critical exam preparation activities. Another challenge, noted by some school staff, was that members did 

not routinely explain the purpose of their activities to faculty and staff, including, for example, why it 

was important for students to miss full days to attend college trips. Some school staff observed that the 

lack of collaboration resulted in missed opportunities for them to communicate with members about how 

to work with high-need students, including those with learning disabilities, home issues, or consistent 

truancy problems.

Student instructional time. School leadership and staff expressed concerns about members taking 

students out of the classroom (or school) during instructional time. The grantee explained that their staff 

worked with higher learning institutions to arrange trips that were tailored to each student’s interests; it 

was unclear, however, how the trips were scheduled or why teachers were unaware of the scheduling. As 

the principal commented, “I’ve taken a hard hit with these [college] trips because what may happen is 

that these two people miss this day, another person misses another day, three people miss this day, and 

that’s been hard. It’s hard for a teacher to have a lot of time to see the big picture. If all you see is room 

200 and something interferes with room 200 they have issues.”

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Perceived Impact/Success in Using Partners to Meet Key Turnaround Outcomes 

Multiple respondents from School 5A perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps as contributing to 

success in meeting key school turnaround outcomes in the following ways.

Social-emotional support. The principal of School 5A perceived that members’ main contribution was on 

a social-emotional level (personal rather than academic). Staff also reported that the members’ main 

contributions were to help strengthen relationships between students and staff and contribute to afterschool mentoring and activities.

School climate. As already described, School 5A’s leadership, staff, and members reported that the 

members helped to improve the school climate in several ways including creating beneficial relationships 

between members and students and providing additional support to improve attendance. Staff also 

reported that members provided encouragement when students performed poorly on academic work 

and helped them focus on how to improve instead of being discouraged, which improved the classroom 

environment. 

School 5B 

Physical Environment

School 5B’s clean and well-used interior demonstrated a focus on academic achievement and college 

readiness, as well as school spirit. The school’s mascot was present both inside and outside the school. 

The hallways did not contain much student work or colorful decor. 

Student achievement data were prominently displayed in the principal’s office and outside one 

classroom. There was also a data wall with the number of students above benchmark on assessments, and 

another wall displayed photos of seniors who had met their graduation requirements along with the 

colleges they planned to attend. There was not any physical evidence of parent or community 

involvement.

Study team members observed positive interactions between school leadership and staff, and both 

positive and negative interactions between school leadership and students. School rules were 

prominently displayed, and school staff were observed as they disciplined several students who were not 

complying quickly with posted rules. School staff greeted students who walked by or entered the office 

and asked them about their day. School leadership described the contributions of vocational students 

within the school, including the culinary students (who cooked for athletic events), the construction class 

(which made the benches for the athletic fields), and the agriculture class (which planted a garden in the 

spring).

Perceptions of Local Context

According to School 5B’s principal, the rural setting and lack of population density presented a few 

unique challenges—including students who had to travel significant distances from home and could not 

stay for after-school activities or extended-learning-time programming. In addition, the large geographic 

size of the county meant that the school had a diverse socioeconomic population, with some higherincome students coming from closer by and economically disadvantaged students coming from more 

remote areas with considerably fewer resources. 

Partnership Strategies

School 5B did not have outside partnerships to support its turnaround activities (either during the current 

year or in prior years), yet it was able to provide supplemental tutoring to students through its own staff 

who put in additional hours, as well as by having retired teachers come into the school. School 5B offered 

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extended tutoring (called Extended School Services or ESS). Regular teachers tutored students who were 

referred or opted to participate for an hour or two per week in content areas for which they needed help. 

Teachers applied to be part of the tutoring program and, if selected, were compensated with stipends. 

Teachers tutored in the same general content area in which they taught, with one tutor each for reading, 

math, history, and science. 

The school also had a daytime waiver program focused on math; this program was run by a retired 

teacher who was in the school 10 hours a week during regular school time. Through the program, 

students identified as falling behind were provided a waiver to receive targeted tutoring instead of 

regular classroom instruction, with the goal of improving their academic proficiency in math.

School 5B leadership and staff reported some challenges with their tutoring model, including 1) lack of 

staff capacity; 2) constraints on participation in after-school tutoring arising from limited transportation 

options and/or other after-school activities; 3) lack of content expertise in certain areas; and 4) general lack 

of funding/resources to support tutoring efforts.

Challenges with Partnerships

School 5B leadership also expressed interest in more community involvement, including collaboration 

with local industries and making connections to additional college and career readiness supports. More 

generally, school leadership expressed interest in identifying partners with particular content knowledge 

or skills including but not limited to math, reading and grammar, and test-taking strategies.

Perceived Impact/Success in Meeting Key Turnaround Outcomes

School 5B’s leadership and staff perceived the tutoring provided by teachers to be very helpful. They 

observed that students who participated in ESS and the waiver program improved their performance in 

the specific units for which they had come to tutoring, improved grades on tests and quizzes, had better 

performance on written assignments, and had higher assessment scores. Staff also noticed that tutored 

students passed classes they had previously failed after electing to go to tutoring. 

These supplementary programs also allowed students to build strong one-on-one relationships with 

teachers. Staff reported that by building these relationships, some students became more invested in their 

schoolwork and had an adult with whom to talk when struggling with non-academic issues. 

Case Study 6

Brief Overview

This case study describes two high schools’ efforts to meet their turnaround plan goals during the 2014–

15 school year, focusing specifically on the roles of AmeriCorps members and/or other volunteers, 

external support staff, and other external partners who help to support school turnaround activities. One 

of the schools (School 6A) engaged one School Turnaround AmeriCorps member in activities focused on 

attendance and truancy, while the other (School 6B) did not have a School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

presence or other significant support from external partners. The case study is based on telephone 

interviews with the principal and three teachers at each school.

Context 

Local Demographics

School 6A, which had a School Turnaround AmeriCorps presence, and School 6B, which did not, are both 

high schools located in the upper Midwest of the United States. School A is located in a suburban district 

and School B is located in a rural district about a third the size of School 6A’s district. The two schools, 

approximately 90 miles apart, are in different counties in the same state. The two schools are quite 

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different; School 6A serves more than twice the number of students as enrolled in School 6B and serves a 

largely non-white student population, while School 6B serves a predominantly white student population 

(see Exhibit III-40).55 

Exhibit III-40: At a Glance: Characteristics of Case Study Schools (2013-14)

School 1A School 1B

District urbanicity Suburban Rural

SIG Turnaround Model Transformation Transformation

SIG funding: years and total 

award 2010–2012: $1,400,000 2010–2012: $1,000,473

School enrollment 741 338

District enrollment 2,214 783

Free- and reduced-price lunch 79.7% 50.3%

Racial/ethnic composition

White 19.0% 85.0%

Black 43.0% 4.0%

Asian/Pacific Islander 16.0% 1.0%

Hispanic 19.0% 3.0%

American Indian/Alaskan 1.0% 7.0%

School 6A 

Perceptions of Local Context

School A is in a suburban community with a rising poverty rate. The principal explained that the 

community had yet to recover from the 2008 recession and housing crisis. The principal also noted that a 

high percentage of students had entered the school multiple grade levels behind in both math and 

reading. School 6A also was in the midst of a number of changes, including implementing an updated 

curriculum and a new teacher evaluation system. 

Partnership Strategies

School 6A is a community school and provides social and emotional supports, including mental health 

and medical services, to students and families on site. These resources include a health clinic open to 

students two days a week for doctor and/or dentist visits. In addition, two mental health organizations 

provide on-site licensed family therapists and social workers who offer therapy sessions for both students 

and their families, if appropriate. The school also has a partnership with a local nonprofit that provides 

after-school activities and extended learning time support for students. 

School 6A had one School Turnaround AmeriCorps member during the 2014–15 school year, down from 

two members in 2013–14. School 6A’s program represented the smallest School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

cohort size by school in 2014–15. In addition, the model was unique for primarily targeting one specific 

issue. The member’s focus was on attendance monitoring and truancy outreach for about 30 students. 

The member reviewed attendance records daily and systematically tracked students’ absences and 

tardies, flagging students whose absences were approaching a designated threshold and compiling a list 

of those who had to be reported to the state for educational neglect. The member also advised the 

attendance team—which was made up of counselors, social workers, a vice principal, and other staff—

about which students needed additional support.

55 The comparison school that provided best match declined to participate due to other major school reforms. The 

replacement comparison school provided a poor-to-mediocre match.

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Based on information gathered from the attendance monitoring, the member intervened with frequently 

truant students. The intervention included reaching out to parents and regularly meeting with these 

students. Through these meetings, the member would try and find out why students were missing so 

much school and direct them to necessary resources. The member also used the meetings to talk to 

students about their academic performance, and explain how truancy negatively affects academics, and 

offer students an opportunity to discuss out-of-school issues with which they were struggling 

The member was supervised by a vice principal who also served as the school’s truancy officer. The 

supervisor held daily check-ins with the member, reviewed timesheets, and handled any questions or 

concerns. Although not originally a part of the program’s design, the member also worked closely with a 

school counselor who provided guidance on working with high-risk students and on which local 

resources to direct students to. If necessary, the member shared information with the counselor about 

questions and concerns beyond her/his capacity to address and told the counselor when a student was 

struggling with something the member did not feel equipped to handle. 

Effective Strategies and Promising Practices for Partners 

School 6A administrators and staff perceived their School Turnaround AmeriCorps member to be 

particularly effective in the following areas:

Systematic attendance tracking. Both the principal of School 6A and school staff reported that having a 

person dedicated to systematically tracking attendance led to more effective identification of students at 

high-risk for falling far behind academically or dropping out. While the school had other resources to 

handle truancy concerns, the member’s presence provided the capacity for daily monitoring and followup on attendance issues. The principal commented that having the member focused on attendance 

“[took] a ton off of the social worker’s plate, the school counselor’s plate, the dean’s plate and helped us 

get to the reason why they’re not coming to school, [which was] a huge support for all of us.” 

Attention to high-risk students. The targeted attention to high-risk students was identified as a valuable 

contribution by leadership and staff. The principal noted that the school’s administration “looks at 

attendance as probably the biggest indicator of success at schools” but highly truant students often still 

“fall through the cracks.” Staff reported that, by meeting with highly truant students, the member was 

also often helping those most in need of academic assistance. The member often “went beyond the 

attendance piece” and helped these students with homework, organization, and identifying what else 

they needed to do to raise their grades. 

Staff also reported that frequently truant students often benefited from having another adult who was 

available to talk with them as well as advocate for them. As the guidance counselor explained, the 

member was able to “build a relationship and establish that rapport, so when kids were struggling they 

[had] another person outside the classroom to go to.” 

Connecting students to resources. The member’s role in connecting students to resources both in and out 

of the school also was perceived as helpful. Staff reported that, because of trust built during regular 

meetings, students often opened up to the member about issues that affected their ability to attend 

school. The member encouraged students to talk to the administration and other faculty and partners 

about these issues so they could provide the necessary guidance and support. The guidance counselor 

explained that “even if [the member] did not know what to do, [the member] would at least talk to me 

and we would come up with an additional problem solving plan and I would take it from there to access 

additional supports for those kids.” 

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Implementation Challenges in Working with Partners

Although the member was perceived as expanding the school’s capacity in some important areas, school 

leadership and staff acknowledged some implementation challenges as well. 

Clear definition of member’s role. School 6A staff and leadership reported issues stemming from a 

perceived lack of clarity about the member’s role. The principal explained that, while the member’s 

attendance monitoring responsibilities were clear, responsibilities for the mentoring component were not 

as well defined by the grantee, which led to the member’s engagement in activities perceived by school 

leaders as outside the appropriate scope. Specific examples included repeatedly taking students out of 

classrooms for long periods of time, sitting in on classrooms to observe when students had disagreements 

with teachers, and counseling students on issues that should have been referred to the behavior dean. 

Leadership and staff believed that these issues arose because the member’s mentoring responsibilities 

were not well defined by either the school or the member. One staff member commented that such 

problems could be addressed by “a training before school starts with the person who is going to be 

supervising them, establishing the ground rules for how they will be working in our school, including the 

process for pulling kids.” 

School staff and member communication. Leadership and staff noted that a stronger connection between 

the member, teachers, and other staff would enhance the effectiveness of the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program. One staff member explained that some issues reflected teachers’ lack of 

information about who the member was and how he/she could be helpful. The staff member stressed that 

sharing such information more broadly within the school might lead teachers to perceive the member “as 

an asset, not just someone who’s going to take kids away from them.” 

Staff also noted that improved communication also would likely benefit members. The guidance 

counselor explained that, when the member went outside the scope of the program, it was because “[the 

member] did not necessarily know who to go to with the information” so was instead handling it alone. 

Staff mentioned that this problem could be addressed by trainings for staff early before the program 

began and also regular relationship-building time throughout the year. 

Instructional time. School leadership and staff expressed concerns about students being pulled out of the 

classroom (or school) during instructional time. There was not, however, clear guidance about when and 

how often the member was allowed to take students out of the classroom. Consequently, the member 

pulled students out at their request or when he/she determined it was appropriate, which led to 

diminished instructional time for students and resentment on teachers’ part. 

Perceived Impact/Success in Using Partners to Meet Key Turnaround Outcomes 

Multiple respondents from School 6A perceived School Turnaround AmeriCorps as contributing to 

success in meeting key school turnaround outcomes in the following ways.

Understanding of attendance patterns. As previously mentioned, leadership at School 6A reported that 

the member’s attendance monitoring efforts gave them a much better understanding of attendance 

patterns. The principal explained that the member’s system helped them “put together trend data around 

attendance and truancy patterns in our building” which helped them see “where issues clustered at grade 

level and certain times of year.” Having this information allowed the administration and guidance staff to 

more effectively identify and intervene with those who were at risk of becoming chronic truants. 

In addition, having up to date truancy data allowed School 6A to devote additional resources to 

vulnerable grades and populations. The principal mentioned that the member’s monitoring allowed them 

to recognize potential truancy concerns with their younger grades and, by with current information, they 

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were able to reach out to the district and request additional “support and outreach for our most 

vulnerable students.” 

Social-emotional support. Counselors and guidance staff at School 6A perceived that the member’s main 

contribution was providing social-emotional support to high-risk students. By developing trusted 

relationships with these students, the member reinforced the idea “that someone [was] watching them, 

and assisting them, and caring about them.” Staff explained that this additional support also helped 

students academically as “having one more voice for them to talk to, [made one] more person they [felt] 

accountable to” and that by simply checking in and showing students that someone was concerned 

helped them “stay on task academically.” 

School 6B 

Perceptions of Local Context

School 6B serves a small population in a small district (enrollment is under 1,000 students) in a large rural 

area. The school’s staff includes fewer than 25 full-time teachers, most of whom are from the area. The 

principal reported that the limited number of staff members can make it hard to implement new ideas 

because “if you have one or two outliers, it has a significant impact on things.” The principal observed 

that the faculty size also meant that individuals were less comfortable sharing either successful strategies 

or struggles, which made it difficult to identify where the school needed assistance or improvement. 

Partnership Strategies

The only outside support School 6B had in 2014–15 was through parent-teacher organizations (PTOs). 

The principal noted that the school’s size, location, and dearth of resources limited the opportunities 

offered to students, noting “it would be fabulous if we could fund a fab lab or a robotics team or 

vocational trainings” but that is” not feasible in the community that we live in.”

Challenges with Partnerships

The principal and another teacher explained that the school struggled to develop other external 

partnerships because of an inability to create the structures necessary for outside individuals to come in 

and be helpful, not because of a lack of interest from the community. One teacher mentioned “our biggest 

struggle is we have a lot of community members that want to come in, want to help, want to tutor and do 

all of those things, but we don't have the systems set up in our own building for them to do that.“ Staff 

explained that the first step in developing effective partnerships would be “starting from the inside and 

figuring out where our needs are” because right now they “don’t know how to utilize [volunteers].”

Perceived Impact/Success in Meeting Key Turnaround Outcomes

School 6B’s main PTO helps connect the community and the school; it organizes events (e.g., book fairs 

and service trips), advertises athletic events and performances, fundraises for school spirit clothing and 

other supplies, and shares student success stories. The PTO also highlights important dates in the school 

calendar (e.g., testing periods) and opportunities for tutoring or other outside-the-school community 

assistance. The PTO does this primarily through social media, including an active Facebook page and 

Twitter feed. 

Staff described one particularly helpful event the PTO organized: a day for students to shadow local 

business owners. This activity helped to motivate students and to see that if they applied themselves and 

improved their grades, they might be able to operate small businesses too. The principal concurred, and 

said “students are more driven after they know somebody in the community cares about what they're 

doing.” Staff also explained that this was an important day for families who could observe students in the 

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community and see them being enthusiastic about careers, which, as one teacher explained, built more 

trust in the school and “excited parents to view their kids out in public doing something neat.” 

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IV. CONCLUSION

Summary of Implementation, Case Study, Perceived Impact, and Grantee Administrative Data 

Collection Findings

Over the 2014–15 program year, the evaluation of the School Turnaround AmeriCorps program 

examined the program’s implementation in detail and learned about progress and challenges from key 

program stakeholders. The study’s combination of program-wide data collection strategies generated 

consistent findings that the program operates largely as intended, is perceived as contributing 

substantially to schools’ turnaround goals overall as well as toward attainment of school-specific 

outcomes. The findings generated by the case studies illustrate both the diversity of school contexts—

including the wide range of supportive activities in which members engage—and the importance of 

relationship building and communication in sustaining effective partnerships in turnaround schools. The 

study’s exploration of grantees’ administrative data underscore both the advantages and challenges of 

reporting requirements designed for broad accountability purposes yet flexible enough to be customized 

by individual grantees. Taken together, these findings provide comprehensive insights into what the 

program actually does in schools.

The evaluation’s first-year findings also point to the conditions that help support School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps members and their host schools and illustrate why implementation varies across schools and 

contexts. These collective insights can inform the program as it continues to support grantees’ capacity to 

implement more-effective programs and achieve more-consistent results. The fact that implementation 

varies primarily as a function of local needs and contexts suggests that the findings from this evaluation 

may also inform other CNCS programs in low-performing schools. The School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

program had achieved demonstrated moderate success by its second year of implementation, and it 

clearly has the potential to increase its impact, by heeding lessons learned thus far, and by addressing 

underlying tensions in the AmeriCorps program model to create the right conditions for success. 

Lessons Learned, Promising Practices, and Suggested Improvements to the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps Program 

Effective School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs are ones that cultivate relationship building with 

district and school stakeholders at multiple levels—and particularly with school leaders—to become 

successfully embedded in host schools, establish staffing structures that enable coordinated member 

placements and optimal student caseloads, and clearly communicate members’ roles and the services 

they can (and cannot) offer to support teachers, schools, and families. The clearest lesson learned from the 

first-year findings is that once this groundwork has been laid, AmeriCorps members add the greatest 

value to low-performing SIG schools by providing additional academic supports and individual, 

personalized attention to students. They also add value by collaborating with teachers to identify

students in need of tutoring, support differentiated instruction, promote use of student progress and 

assessment data to improve instruction, and help with classroom management. 

While several unresolved tensions will likely continue into the third funding year—most notably 

members’ term of service and relative inexperience and confusion over members’ roles and program 

rules—there were clear signs of program maturation by the end of its second year, as programs worked

to make changes to address challenges in the first two years. Principals noted improvements in 

communication between schools, programs, and/or members, and expressed a desire to collaborate better 

with School Turnaround AmeriCorps in refining their processes for assigning work to members at their 

schools. Overall, principals indicated that members became more involved and integrated into their 

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communities with time, and programs were more open to listening to schools’ approaches, allowing 

more flexibility in the restrictions placed on members. 

Looking ahead to the last year of the funding cycle, grantees considered the effect of losing AmeriCorps 

resources on their partner schools, including ways to smooth the transition process and prepare for a 

more sustainable future. Grantees also discussed implementing changes to management and data use to 

monitor the effectiveness of their strategies and tailor their interventions to meet students’ needs. 

Further research is needed to better understand themes of interest from the first-year findings. Areas for 

deeper research in the second year of the evaluation might include (1) the process for selection and 

placement of members in partner schools; (2) how grantees, districts, and schools work together (or not) 

to determine which and how many members are placed in which schools; (3) the effectiveness of member 

strategies in serving targeted student populations (e.g., English language learners, students with 

disabilities) in need of additional academic supports and individual, personalized attention; and (4) how 

well the program builds school capacity to implement turnaround efforts by easing the demands on 

teachers, thereby giving teachers more time for planning, instruction, and professional development 

activities. 

Implications for the Program Theory of Change 

The School Turnaround AmeriCorps logic model specifies the inputs the program brings, and the 

activities and services members offer to schools, and illustrates how these inputs/activities lead to 

changes in such proximal outcomes as student engagement, academic abilities, and school climate and 

more distal outcomes as academic achievement, graduation rates, and college readiness. Additionally, the 

program-level logic model includes whole-school turnaround and program sustainability and growth 

among the long-term outcomes. Inputs include AmeriCorps member resources, AmeriCorps grant funds, 

SIG and Priority school funding, and grantee partnerships with schools. Key activities include 

supplemental academic and wraparound services; supports for increased learning time; community and 

parental engagement activities; and AmeriCorps member recruitment, training, monitoring, and 

oversight. 

Overall, the program logic model accurately reflects what was observed in Year 1 of the evaluation, 

including actual program strategies and the perceived impacts of AmeriCorps services. However, several 

changes are needed to reflect new learning, including updates to the types of direct service activities 

programs deliver to schools. In addition, improved understanding of the moderators and assumptions 

will allow more systematic documentation of how and why change happens, which can be especially 

useful for a new program still in the formative stages of development. Specifically, the Year 1 findings 

reinforce or refine the following moderators and assumptions that explain the program theory of change:

• Academic engagement is closely related to academic achievement. 

• Relationship building is a critical ingredient for effective service provision. 

• Member qualities, preparedness, and training are key to grantee capacity to successfully 

implement the program. 

• School leaders’ attitudes, behaviors, and leadership are key to schools’ capacity to effectively 

manage and leverage external partner resources such as AmeriCorps.

Academic Engagement and Achievement 

The original program-level and direct-services logic models, provided in Exhibits IV-1 and IV-2, 

presumed that shorter-term changes in student confidence and resilience, as well as increased learning 

time and attendance, would lead to increased academic engagement in the medium term. The logic 

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models also hypothesized that improved engagement would lead to improved student reading and math 

abilities and ultimately improved academic performance in these areas over the longer term. The 

underlying assumption of this causal relationship is that the “presence of AmeriCorps members will 

enable students to foster positive relationships with a trusted adult, which positively influences students’ 

educational experiences and academic engagement.” 

The findings to date support this hypothesis. Stakeholders’ perceptions of the program’s success indicate 

that members’ services helped to shape a positive school climate, mediated student attendance and 

behavioral issues, improved students’ self-concept and attitudes about school, and influenced students’ 

outlook and aspirations for postsecondary education. In addition to tutoring and other academic services, 

programs provided parental and community engagement, mentoring, behavior support and school 

attendance coaching, and other supportive services to build school capacity. These services represent the 

range of strategies programs used to turn around pervasive behavioral problems, which help schools, 

and teachers in particular, focus more effectively on academics. A majority of interviewed parents 

reported that School Turnaround AmeriCorps interventions had improved their children’s academic 

performance as well as their engagement and enthusiasm about school. This close connection between 

academic achievement and academic engagement supports the program theory of change: When a 

student is motivated, participates in class, demonstrates an interest in school and a desire to learn, that 

student will perform better academically than a student who is disengaged and disconnected from 

learning and absent from school. 

Importance of Relationship Building to Effective Service Provision

The original program logic model (see Exhibit IV-1) also recognized communication and cooperation 

between schools and AmeriCorps members and grantee staff as a moderator of program outcomes, and it 

assumed that programs would exhibit evidence of collaboration from schools and local education 

agencies. The Year 1 evaluation findings bolster these assumptions, by illustrating the importance of 

relationship building in School Turnaround AmeriCorps programs. This important theme was observed 

in programs’ approaches to structuring relationships with schools and in how programs formed 

relationships among the network of key stakeholders, as well as in the tangible impacts of strong 

relationships between members and students.

The Year 1 findings also suggest strongly that relationship building is an important pre-condition for 

effective service provision—in tutoring and mentoring relationships with students, in engaging parents 

to support their children’s academic success outside of the classroom, and in providing attendance and 

behavior coaching. Because all of these activities fundamentally involve working in and through 

relationships, the findings to date support the hypothesis that the level of trust established in those 

relationships moderates the degree to which these activities produce the desired outcomes of improved 

student engagement and academic achievement. 

Taken together, the importance of establishing structures to support relationship building (e.g., 

partnership agreements and on-site coordinators), of members’ successful integration into school culture, 

and of relationship building for improving school climate and effective service provision, helps to refine 

the program theory of change illustrated in Exhibit IV-3:

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Exhibit IV-1: CNCS School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program—Program Level Logic Model 

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Exhibit IV-2: CNCS School Turnaround AmeriCorps Program—Direct Service Provision by AmeriCorps Members Logic Model

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Exhibit IV-3: Relationship-Building Mechanisms Observed in the School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

Theory of Change

 

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Finally, “building school capacity to meet turnaround standards” was also included as an activity in the 

original program logic model (see Exhibit IV-1).56

Sustainability and growth of the program also is a long-term outcome in the program logic model. In a 

program in which members serve one-year terms (and can reenroll for up to four terms, but with no 

expectation or guarantee of reenrollment) program sustainability and growth is defined as “targeting an 

increased number of at-risk students each subsequent year.” Moreover, the model refers to the 

sustainability of the turnaround program once the AmeriCorps members have left.

While the logic model articulates several important factors in program implementation, Year 1 findings 

suggest that another factor, the role of the school leader, should be reflected as well. School leaders’ 

attitudes, behaviors, and leadership fundamentally drive schools’ capacity to effectively manage and 

56 Building school capacity was defined in similar terms as the SIG improvement models: “Replace principals and 

at least 50 percent of teachers; identify and reward teachers who are increasing student outcomes, and remove 

those who are not; select and implement instructional models based on student needs; provide professional 

development to build staff capacity; support schools in providing increased learning time; provide socialemotional and community-oriented services/support.”

Member Qualities, Preparedness, and Training

The program-level logic model (see Exhibit IV-1) also identified having procedures for member 

recruitment, training and ongoing support and for oversight and coordination of AmeriCorps programs 

as necessary for successful implementation of School Turnaround AmeriCorps. The importance of these 

procedures was borne out by the Year 1 findings, which identified both strengths and challenges in 

grantee capacity. Strengths include (1) use of data for targeting, monitoring, and adapting instruction and 

for continuous program improvement; (2) member commitment, qualities, and preparedness; (3) the onsite coordinator role; and (4) interventions characterized by individual, personalized attention. 

Challenges involve such issues as (1) grant administration and program operation; (2) member 

recruitment, management, and retention; and (3) member qualities, preparedness, and member training.

In particular, member qualities, preparedness, and training are key to understanding the most-effective 

ways to deploy School Turnaround AmeriCorps resources in SIG schools and build grantee capacity to 

implement the program successfully.

School Leaders’ Attitudes, Behaviors, and Leadership
leverage external partner resources such as AmeriCorps. Although most programs have established 

written partnership agreements with school partners, and many of these agreements contain the elements 

of strong partnerships outlined in CNCS guidance, authentic buy-in and support of the program by 

school leaders appears to be a critical element of a school’s capacity to leverage external partner resources 

and facilitate effective delivery of AmeriCorps services.

For example, school leaders can facilitate members’ integration in the school community and, 

importantly, strengthen members’ relationships with teachers by including members in faculty meetings 

and trainings. School leaders may inadvertently hinder implementation when they neither involve nor 

communicate with teachers about the program and members’ roles in the school and in their classrooms. 

In rare cases, the study observed instances of school leaders openly opposed to hosting the program in 

their school, leaving members poorly positioned to access school resources and carry out impactful 

activities. 

School leaders’ divergent understandings of members’ roles in schools can translate, in some cases, into a 

misunderstanding of program rules about the allowable activities members can perform and about how 

principals can deploy members most usefully (from their perspective) to support their turnaround efforts. 

Principals’ attitudes toward the program’s rules also may reflect the operational flexibility granted to 

them as a required component of their turnaround model. And, finally, their perspectives might reflect 

the competencies and qualities considered important for effective school turnaround leaders, such as 

being “entrepreneur-style” leaders who drive for results by “break[ing] organization norms or rules to 

deploy new tactics needed for early wins” and “discard[ing] failed rules and routines when they inhibit 

success” (Center on Innovation & Improvement and Council of Chief State School Officers. School 

Improvement Grant (SIG) Intervention Models, March 2010). 

For these reasons, incorporating the influential role of school leaders in moderating program success in 

their respective schools should be acknowledged in the program theory of change.

 

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