INTERVIEW INSTRUMENTS FOR AMERICORPS MEMBERS

Note: If you serve at multiple schools, think about the school where you spend most of your time serving, on 

questions that are specific to a school rather than the program overall.

NOTE: Telephone interviews with a sample of AmeriCorps members, across all grantees, will be conducted at the 

end of the school year. Sample selection and size are to be determined.

1.Can you please describe your role and duties at the school where you served?

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2. Can you please tell me about your top three activities and responsibilities at the school, in terms of those 

activities on which you spent the greatest amount of time? For each of these, I’d like to know with whom you 

collaborated to carry out the activity, how frequently the activity took place, and approximately what 

percentage of time you spent on the activity. 

Probe: How did/does this activity support the school’s turnaround effort?

Probe: Who was this activity intended to help or support?

Probe: What was the frequency and amount of time spent on the activity?

Activity Collaboration Targeted

Audience

Frequency Percentage of Time

a.

b. 

c. 

3. Did the activities change throughout the year? If so, then why?

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4. What types of supports have you received, or are available to you, to implement your planned activities at the 

school?

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5. What are the formal or informal channels among school staff and AmeriCorps members for communicating 

about school improvement goals (for example, grade- or team meetings, faculty meetings, informal meetings 

with teachers whose students you support, email communication from principal)?

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6. What was the general attitude among school staff and faculty to your addition to the site/school when you 

first began serving? How did perspectives, collaboration, and/or relationships with the school staff 

(principal/teachers/counselor/school leaders) change throughout the year?

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7. In which of the following ways did you (AmeriCorps members) contribute to the school’s capacity to 

implement school turnaround program activities? Specifically, how did you help the school build capacity 

through...

a) Fostering respect among students and staff?

b) Involving families (e.g. in attending events, providing access to information and resources to support their 

child’s education, helping students complete homework, volunteering in child’s classroom)?

c) Meeting the academic needs of specific groups of students?

d) Meeting the behavioral and/or socio-emotional health needs of specific groups of students?

e) Improving the school environment and climate

f) Filling additional instructional/support staff positions?

g) Supporting teachers in the use of data/assessments and with classroom activities?

h) Providing before- or after-school or extended learning time programming?

i) Other activities and contributions? (please specify)

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8. In your opinion, is your AmeriCorps program successful in helping students you directly worked with at this 

school to improve in the following areas:

a) Academic achievement?

b) Academic engagement?

c) Behavior?

d) Attendance?

e) Socio-emotional health?

How have you determined this?

Probe: Ask specifically if members participate in discussions with teachers about student performance based on 

interim assessment data? Also ask if members participate in discussions with teacher about student 

attendance, behavior, and engagement.

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9. What kind of academic and social supports are currently in place to help the students in your assigned 

class/group succeed? Were you or other AmeriCorps members involved in providing these supports? How?

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10. Are these services helpful to the students you directly worked with at this school? Why or why not? Are 

there additional supports that you think need to be put in place?

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11. How do you think AmeriCorps member services that were implemented this year will help students at this 

school?

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