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A full-service school model for Flint
By ANN RICHARDS
Mark Evan’s goals were modest when he was hired in 2003 as coordinator of community outreach for Durant-Tuuri-Mott (DTM) Elementary School in Flint: Drawing upon the resources of area businesses and institutions, he hoped to introduce programming that would benefit students and their families.
Little did he anticipate that five years later, the state would recognize DTM’s network of services as one of 19 model programs to receive funding as family resource centers.
The goal of the state’s Family Resource Center initiative is to help schools improve academic performance by creating more efficient access to community services, according to officials at Michigan’s Department of Human Services. Because these centers are targeted to assist struggling communities and families, schools can participate only if more than half of their students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.
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| Mark Evans is working to establish family resource centers at two more Flint schools. |
The Family Resource Center at DTM has been instrumental in introducing a number of positive changes. Of all its achievements, Evans is most proud of the AYP (Annual Yearly Performance) award the school received from the U.S. Department of Education in 2006. It was the only school in Michigan to meet AYP performance standards over the preceding five years.
“I believe the award was a direct result of the center’s efforts to foster collaboration — by parents, teachers, local businesses and area institutions,” Evans said.
He arrived at DTM in 1998, courtesy of nearby Kettering University, which used a portion of a $5-million endowment gift in 1995 from the Mott Foundation to create a Community Outreach Fund. The $2-million fund, which continues to support Evan’s salary as the school’s school/community coordinator, is used in Kettering’s ongoing efforts to stabilize and revitalize the neighborhoods surrounding its 90-acre urban campus.
Evans says that stable source of funding gave him the gift of time, without which he could not have gained the community’s trust and confidence.
“My first project was dismantling a broken-down playground. I think it had become a sort of symbol of failure for the neighborhood.
“Then it became a matter of investing my time in building relations with the community, getting them to come to the school, finding out what they needed.”
Evans credits Dan Berezny, DTM’s longtime principal, and Metro Housing Partnership Inc. as keys to the Family Resource Center’s success.
He also credits the flexibility and patience of many partner agencies -- including the Michigan Department of Human Services, which has placed two full-time social workers at DTM. Currently, the DTM Community Partners in Action Collaborative, which established the Family Resource Center, includes 12 public, private, nonprofit and faith-based agencies.
“It became less of a hard sell as more agencies agreed to work with us,” Evans said.
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| The Family Resource Center at Durant-Turri-Mott Elementary School in Flint, Michigan. |
But it is neighborhood residents, and their willingness to subsume personal interests for the good of their community, that keeps the center on track, according to Ravi Yalamanchi, executive director of Metro Housing.
“Mark was able to change the mindset of neighborhood residents, particularly the families with children at DTM. His work changed the culture of the neighborhood,” Yalamanchi said.
“That’s what makes this model so compelling. It was built slowly, engaging individual with individual, agency with agency. This is a model built for perpetuity.”
Evans agrees.
“I’ve been spending time trying to help two more Flint schools replicate the DTM model, and the neighborhood has noticed my absence. They’ve requested more of my time and want to develop some training to strengthen their own skills. To me, this is success — a community that knows what it needs and is unified in going after it.
“They’ve built a solid foundation of cooperation; they’re not letting go of that.”