RENEW

Ministry Action Plan

2017-2018

The RENEW Family Literacy program will continue to grow in love of God and neighbor by providing a quality sustainable literacy program to teach immigrants and refugees English, by offering citizenship classes, and by creating community between church members, our students and their families, and other immigrants and refugees in our community.

Alignment with Plymouth’s Strategic Initiatives . Evangelism: RENEW puts into practice the Biblical mandate to welcome the stranger, vitally important during this time of heightened anti-immigrant, anti- refugee and anti-Muslim rhetoric and fear.

Summary of RENEW program . We offer English and citizenship classes for adult immigrants and refugees, taught by volunteer teachers at Plymouth, 4 hours a week (39 weeks a year)— 2 hours on Wednesdays and 2 hours on Saturdays.

. We presently serve English language learners from low beginning to intermediate to low advanced.

. We are one of the few programs to specialize in small group and one-on-one classes to meet our students’ individual needs. Some of our students come to us from larger ESL classes where they were unable to progress.

. Unlike larger programs, we accommodate our student’s complicated lives. Students leave us for a variety of reasons, including work schedules and family obligations, but often return to us when their situations change, and we welcome them back.

. We partner with community organizations to involve Plymouth members in projects that build relationships and provide needed cultural support.

o EMBARC, Ethnic Minorities of Burma Advocacy and Resource Center, project to pair Plymouth members with Burmese families for friendship and mentoring. EMBARC manages pairing and training.

o Nisaa African Family Services (Barwaqo Aden) Science Maker Fair project for Plymouth youth and Muslim youth to be held in fall of 2017. This is a joint project with RENEW, Rachel Corpus and the Plymouth youth program, and Plymouth member Greg Long (retired electrical engineer and experienced youth science program developer).

o Iowa State University Extension and Des Moines Public Schools: Healthy eating cooking program, involved 30 students and 10 volunteers.

o United Way: Plymouth hosted the first ever Iowa Refugee summit, a 2- day event with 250 people attending each day, 20 interest tables and a variety of speakers including refugees, government representatives and business leaders

o Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church collaborated on outreach to refugee communities at locations where many refugees live.

o Offered support and information to other new ELL programs, including the Johnston Library and the Catholic Church next door to us.

Reviewing Performance 2016-17

Major outcomes . We started the year in the fall of 2016 with 10 teachers and 19 students, some attending twice a week and some once a week. We grew steadily throughout the year.

. Over 39 weeks of classroom instruction from September 2016 thru July 2017, we logged 33+ teachers at 884 hours and 55+ students at 1,154 hours.

. We established a 7-week summer session, one of the few in the Metro, so that our students would not lose their skills. During this session, we continued to attract new students and teachers.

. We improved our program administration by assigning roles and procedures, resulting in better attendance among students and teachers, and better learning outcomes.

. We established a strong sense of community among our students and teachers through holiday and student recognition events, in addition to regular classes.

. We attracted many new students through the recommendation of current or former students, indicating that our students feel they are learning.

. We offered a safe and welcoming environment at a time when many of our students were feeling under attack. . We continued our relationship with DMU students who volunteered on Saturdays, helping with English and citizenship. Accomplishments and critical success factors In summer of 2016, a small group of RENEW teachers identified four areas for improvement (listed 1 – 4 below). This is a summary of our progress in 2016/2017.

1. Program Management & Administration

a. In August of 2016, all former members of the RENEW Leadership Team resigned, and we started with a new Vista and leadership team. The team includes RENEW teachers Bloyce Johnson, Nancy Anderson, and Courtenay Wolf, with Heather Vermeer serving as our liaison to the Board of Christian Social Action.

b. Established roles and responsibilities for leadership team members and set up clearer classroom procedures.

c. Began monthly teacher meeting/training sessions.

d. Developed a yearly calendar with appropriate holiday breaks and made it available to teachers and students.

e. Established a new teacher shadowing program, allowing new volunteers to shadow an experienced teacher until they are ready to teach.

f. Assigned new teachers to a level they feel comfortable teaching. Some prefer beginners, others intermediate or advanced.

g. Assigned each new student to a teacher or in some cases, if they attend Wednesdays and Saturdays, to two teachers who collaborate.

h. Encouraged teachers and students to share phone numbers and communicate directly with each other when schedules change, cutting down on third-party administration. A side benefit is deeper relationships.

i. Worked with Plymouth administration and the Sunday School Coordinator to expand into 6 classrooms and the youth room, allowing teachers and students a quieter and more focused learning environment.

j. Provided our students with appropriate books and materials at no cost. We are one of the few programs to provide materials, and we’ve seen a big payoff in relationship building and educational progress. Although this is an added expense, we have eliminated the practice of copying materials in violation of copyright protections.

2. Clarity of Focus

a. Maintained a focus on the four key areas of teaching ELL—Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing

b. Focused our teaching efforts and materials on students from low beginning to low advanced. This did not include preliterate students.

c. Covered teaching concepts and materials related to these four areas in our monthly teacher meetings.

3. Teaching Methodology

a. In 2015/16 we received a $2,000 grant for books and materials in connection with New Reader’s Press. We started the 2016/17 year with a variety of materials and began to test them with our students. We identified several basic and advanced texts that teachers can select from.

b. Adopted a phonics program, providing a consistent approach to teaching the formation of sounds in English, one of the most challenging aspects of speaking and understanding English. All students and teachers spend some class time on this, and we’ve seen noticeably faster improvement.

c. Leadership team members and advanced teachers continually investigate and try out new ideas, sharing those that work well.

d. Encouraged students to work on their English outside of class, using apps, speaking English to friends and family, and taking advantage of other community opportunities.

e. Used holiday special events to build community and share information on American culture and the cultures of our students. 4. Assessment and Report

a. Developed a new intake form for all students and adopted an assessment test that helps us place students in the appropriate instructional level and pair them with an appropriate teacher.

b. Tracked student and teacher attendance in summary reports to better understand attendance patterns.

c. Recognized students for attendance in a special ceremony, giving each student a certificate listing the number of classes attended. This encouraged students and also served as proof of attending English classes, sometimes needed for job applications.

d. Kept track of and managed our budget expenditures.

Difficulties, disappointments and missed opportunities for past year . Still working on curriculum development for various levels. This is more complicated and time-consuming than we realized, but we are making progress.

. No current method of assessing the progress of our students, other than teacher observation.

. Although our students expressed interest in computer classes, and we had planned to offer classes, it did not come together this year.

. Need to refine our assessment and teacher assignment process.

Preparing for the upcoming year

Essential Goals . Increase our student load to an average of 30 students per week.

. Increase our teacher base to an average of 25 teachers per week.

. Develop a workable method of assessing student progress.

. Continue to improve teacher quality through monthly teacher meetings and special teacher workshops in coordination with the larger community.

. Finish the curriculum work started in 2016/17. . Pilot a small preliterate class using the teaching materials developed by the community Preliterate Curriculum Development group.

. Grow preliterate offerings in Spring 2019 to meet increasing community need.

. Increase support for the RENEW program within the Plymouth community through continued outreach.

. Identify a Plymouth member to take responsibility for special events.

. Develop a plan for program sustainability going forward without the support of an AmeriCorps VISTA.

Essential Strategies . Establish a host position, where host is available at each class session to do student intakes and assessments and to troubleshoot problems as they arise. Host may also maintain adequate supplies, keep them organized, and maintain records.

. Continue to refine and improve intake, assessment and student assignment procedures with a goal of long-term sustainability.

. Continue to refine and improve new teacher orientation, training and assignment procedures with goal of long-term sustainability.

. Develop a better and more sustainable process for handling expected and unexpected teacher absences.

. Continue to work with local community refugee and immigrant organizations to build trust and better meet needs.

. Identify core needs for long-term program sustainability.

. Incorporate computer literacy into program.

. Work to identify key areas of concern for ongoing sustainability.

. Involve appropriate stakeholders at Plymouth in helping to create a plan addressing concerns and ensuring RENEW moves forward as a sustainable program, supported by church members.

. Involve younger members of the congregation in leadership roles, including empty nesters and early retirees.

Advanced Goals . Pilot a tutoring program for refugee and immigrant high school students who are struggling in school, working with EMBARC.

. Continue to collaborate with community organizations to bring more consistency to ELL offerings community-wide.

Advanced Strategies . Continue to strengthen established relationships in the community.

. Experiment with different classroom practices for pre-literate students.

. Collaborate with the Des Moines Community to offer education beyond English literacy.

2018 Budget Request: $4,200 training and materials to improve teaching quality, e.g. curriculum, books, software (note our growth goals; meeting them will a larger investment)

$500 to fund five field educational trips at an estimated $5 to $7 dollars per student per trip

$1,250 to fund five community events at $250 an event for end of session recognition and holiday celebrations

$750 to pilot new preliteracy curriculum (includes materials)

$500 to provide class supplies such as notebooks, binders, writing utensils

$200 background checks for all teachers and volunteers working with adults and children to meet community standard for referrals