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A Private Approach to No Child Left Behind

We have been hearing much about the wide education gap in Greenwich, as well as the state of Connecticut. Considering the fact that the disparity in upper and lower incomes is greater in Connecticut than in all but two states, it should come as no surprise that the spread between students in the top and bottom achievement quintiles is also significantly greater than the national average. At the top are children of well educated and, for the most part, relatively affluent parents. In the bottom are many students for whom English is a second language, and whose reading habits are not as likely to have been instilled at an early age. While the Board of Ed has been addressing this problem (amidst some past controversy), a recent initiative has come from the private sector that does more than help close the educational gap.

We refer to the Greenwich Alliance for Education, founded in 2006, whose goal, according to its current chairman Laura Geffs, is to open doors of opportunity to all students of Greenwich public schools to further their educational success. She emphasizes that their mission is not limited to underachievers, but includes students at all levels. In Connecticut eighty-four towns have educational foundations. Until the Greenwich Alliance was founded, our town had none. With adequate support for public education a universal problem, this kind of nonprofit foundation has become a popular supplement to school programs across the country.

The annual operating budget of the Alliance is just $300,000, not much by today’s standards, but it has a volunteer labor force large enough to undertake some significant projects. The organization has created and administers after school programs in music and literacy. “Going Places with Books” addresses early-literacy and uses a “Storymobile” RV to bring the program to preschools and homes; “Tuning in to Music” provides free music lessons to elementary and middle school students who cannot afford private lessons to help them reach their potential. Juilliard trained instructors come out from New York to teach fourth to eighth graders, and there is a waiting list; “Skills for Success” is a summer tutoring and mentoring program for high school students that worked so well that the high school formally adopted it.

The Alliance works with other non-profits through various grants: SoundWaters for marine ecology and science; the Boys & Girls Club for after school reading and the United Way’s Reading Champions, for tutoring at selected schools; a special program for girls interested in math and science careers was developed for New Lebanon and Western Middle School; and at Western and Eastern Middle School field trips for kids to visit the Selectman’s office, the library, Bruce Museum and the Arts Council so they can appreciate what their town has to offer.

The most recent initiative, called AVID for Advancement Via Individual Determination (thank goodness for acronyms), is a mentoring program designed to bring middling students up to a level of college eligibility.

An enthusiastic group of Alliance volunteers, parents and school officials, undeterred by monsoon rains, met recently at the Riverside home of Peter and Kyu Scott in support of the AVID program. Present were two students who stood before the assembled guests and described what AVID meant to them. Andres Ortega from Western Middle School said, “It’s like my daily pickup. Without AVID school would be boring. More than a class, it’s an opportunity to go to college. I come from a family where no one has completed college…. I want to be the first one.”

Gaby Ruiz, in her first year at the high school, admitted that at first she was hesitant about AVID, “but now I know that through this class I’ll be a successful student and achieve my goal of getting into a university.”

AVID’s ability to help less advantaged students is evident in the statistics: nationally, 89 percent were accepted by a college, and of these 89 percent graduated.

The Alliance has made great strides in the three years since it was conceived in a meeting around the kitchen table of founding chairman Nancy Kail. With donations of $1 million, the organization now has a modest one-room office in the former Junior League headquarters on Maple Avenue, and a part-time executive director in the form of the energetic Julie Faryniarz, fresh from her tour as president of the PTA Council. Laura Geffs points with pride to the Greenwich Alliance for Education as an example of a successful public/private partnership. Working in consultations with school principals, the PTA and the Board of Ed, Alliance volunteers determine unmet needs, then initiate and obtain private grants for programs to assure that no child who wants to learn is left behind.