The William T. Grant Foundation has awarded Youth Service Improvement Grants (YSIG) to 10 community-based organizations in New York City. Each will receive $25,000 to implement projects over the next year to improve the quality of their youth programs. These grantees were selected from a pool of 33 applications received in fall 2012.

These 10 grants will address such issues as alignment with the Common Core Standards, sexual health awareness, college preparation, and vocational training.

The YSIG program shares the goal of our research grants—improving the lives of young people. These grants support medium-sized organizations that have already had some success, but need funding to enhance their services. Applications are accepted twice a year, in the spring and fall. Applications for the fall 2013 application cycle will be accepted between July 24, 2013 and September 11, 2013 at 3:00 p.m. Guidelines are available here.

In addition to funding, the Foundation will also offer grantees consulting support from the Youth Development Institute to aid implementation of their projects. The ten grantees and their project descriptions follow.

Dance Theatre Etcetera
Essential Improvements to DTE’s Arts for Under-Served Youth Program
Brooklyn, NY

Dance Theatre Etcetera (DTE) provides in-school and community-based arts education, public performances, and festivals in Brooklyn and Queens. DTE wants to improve its Arts for Under-Served Youth program, through which DTE artists teach arts and core curriculum classes at five transfer high schools. DTE’s partner schools will soon start implementing the Common Core Standards (CCS) and Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). The school principals have requested that DTE’s curricula show how it addresses the new CCS. Through this award, DTE will hire two consultants to create new curricula and assessment rubrics that align with the CCS. The first consultant is an expert in the design of arts education curricula and the second is an education consultant who specializes in implementing the CCS. Master teaching artists will be trained to implement the new curriculum, and they will then train the rest of the teaching artists.

Urban Arts Partnership
Teaching 21st-Century Skills After School
New York, NY

Urban Arts Partnership (UAP) provides arts education to 55 New York City schools through arts integration, after-school, advanced studio, and various other programs. UAP wants to improve its after-school program, which is delivered twice a week and includes dance, music production, digital media, playwriting, poetry, theater, and other art forms. UAP has developed a strategic plan and conducted an evaluation of its programs. In doing so, it discovered that its after-school program did not sufficiently advance the intellectual and social development of its participants. UAP will use its YSIG to revise its curriculum to better foster students' acquisition of vocabulary, writing, reading, analytical, and presentation skills. UAP will build explicit opportunities for self-advocacy and developing student voice into the lesson plan for each program. The revised curriculum will also include an assessment component, and all teaching artists will be trained to implement the curriculum.

Rocking the Boat
Sail and Powerboat Training
Bronx, NY

Rocking the Boat provides on-water youth development, job skills training, program assistance, and weekly community rowing programs during the school day, after school, and summer to residents of Hunts Point and adjacent South Bronx neighborhoods. Through this award, Rocking the Boat will improve The Sail Training component of its on-water program, which lacks enough skilled staff to safely and effectively operate the program. This causes students to be broken into smaller groups with less time on the water and less hands-on support for students. Rocking the Boat will hire SUNY Maritime to provide sailing and powerboat training to 15 of its program assistants, who are college-age Rocking the Boat alumni. In addition to staffing the sail training program, some of these program assistants will go on to obtain instructor certification, which will enable them to train Rocking the Boat staff in the future.

New York Hall of Science
Science Career Ladder: Training for Design-Based Learning
Queens, NY

New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) will use its YSIG to improve its Science Career Ladder program (SCL), which recruits and trains high school students as Explainers. These teens interact with museum visitors by answering science questions prompted by exhibits. Explainers are trained in methods of inquiry, science content, the scientific method, and how to communicate with the public. They also receive college and career readiness services that foster interest in STEM careers. An evaluation found that current Explainer training could use a stronger focus on critical thinking, authentic investigation, and discovery. To address this problem, NYSCI will hire consultants with expertise in inquiry and design-based activities to develop curricula for SCL. Staff and Explainers will participate in a week-long summer inquiry institute that will introduce them to the theory and practice of inquiry and design-based activities. NYSCI will also revamp the promotion process and have benchmarks more in line with 21st-century skills.

Children of the City
Create Success College Bound
Brooklyn, NY

Children of the City's (COC) Create Success program provides academic enrichment, mentoring, and counseling services to 150 low-income youth in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Through this YSIG, COC will improve Create Success’s College Bound project. College Bound provides 16 high school juniors with 26 weeks of SAT preparatory classes through a partnership with New York Cares and Kaplan. COC has found that many of its students need to improve their math, writing, and reading comprehension skills in order to participate in the SAT preparation course. COC also found that participants need help filling out college applications and financial aid forms. COC will design a new curriculum that includes basic skills training in math, writing, and reading comprehension for College Bound students in the 10th grade. It will also design workshops on the college and financial aid application processes along with workshops to help parents better understand the benefits of a college education. COC will also hire a project coordinator to run the improved program.

Love Heals
LEAP for Girls Curriculum Update
New York, NY

Love Heals is an advocacy organization for young people’s right to obtain HIV/AIDS education. Through this award, Love Heals will improve its Leadership Empowerment and Awareness Program (LEAP) for Girls program. LEAP for Girls annually recruits 72 young women between the ages of 12 and 18 from its partner schools and community groups in East Harlem, Central Brooklyn, and the South Bronx. The program provides sessions on gender roles and sexuality, healthy relationships, teen pregnancy prevention/contraception, HIV/AIDS, decision-making, and presentation skills among other topics. The young women then design and deliver community action projects to 250 of their peers. Through an evaluation process, Love Heals learned that the curriculum needed to be more youth-friendly and reflective of society’s changing understanding of the topics covered in the sessions. Love Heals will use this award to respond to that need and make the program more interactive. It will conduct interviews and focus groups of program alumnae, facilitators, and partner sites. It will then hire consultants to help revise the curriculum and the print materials.

Renaissance E.M.S.
Spring and Fall SAT Preparation
Bronx, NY

Renaissance E.M.S. provides music instruction and musical instruments to 23 schools in the Bronx and offers an after-school program at its center in the South Bronx. It also has a basketball program and provides academic tutoring and SAT preparation. Renaissance will use its YSIG to improve its SAT preparation program, which is held for 30 hours on Saturdays from September to November. Renaissance will hire A-List Education to conduct four sessions (fall and spring) of formal SAT preparation over the course of two school years. A-List Education will also train key Renaissance staff and volunteers to be certified SAT tutors. These tutors will provide extra academic support during the week and will develop an in-house SAT preparation program.

Groundswell Community Mural Project
Merit Badge System of Achievement
New York, NY

Groundswell’s Mural Apprenticeship programs are conducted after school and during the summer. In these programs, 200 youth are paid apprentices who work with Groundswell professional artists and community-based organizations to create works of public art for underserved New York City communities. Through this award, Groundswell will ensure that all its apprentices in mixed skill-level programs receive the individual support needed to take advantage of learning opportunities appropriate to his/her personal needs and abilities. Groundswell wants to design and launch a merit badge system to support, measure, and reward participants' achievements in its programs. Groundswell will convene focus groups of staff, artists, Board members, and participants to identify and define mastery areas addressed by each apprenticeship program. Staff will use these benchmarks to design a merit badge manual where each badge will have a guide that outlines specific required learning and achievements necessary to earn the badge. Groundswell artists will be trained in the use of the merit badge system.

Vital Theatre Company
Vital High School Voices: Technical Theatre Curriculum
New York, NY

Vital Theatre Company (VTC) produces original family musicals and provides arts-integrated education to three partner schools in Brooklyn and the Bronx. This will award will allow VTC to improve Vital Voices, a program in which teaching artists and classroom teachers co-teach design workshops, which are integrated into core subjects. After school, students in good academic standing are taught technical theater elements such as set-building, lighting, and sound; they can also apply for a year-long internship at the company theater on weekends. VTC has noticed that the curricula used for in-school, after-school, and internship components do not reinforce each other or build learning year to year. Vital wants to hire a technical theater consultant and three professional designers to develop a four-year technical theater curriculum for grades 9 to 12 that would encompass its in-school, after-school, and internship programs. The consultant will provide technical training to teaching artists and school teachers and will train them and Vital staff to implement the new curriculum.

Teachers & Writers Collaborative
Teaching Creative Writing Across the Curriculum
New York, NY

Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) places writers who have publishing credits and teaching experience in K–12 urban schools into mainly English/Language Arts (ELA) classrooms. T&W writers and classroom teachers design lesson plans to help students focus on creative writing techniques and apply these new skills to their own creative writing. T&W wants to improve its middle school program so that it is aligned with the Common Core Standards' emphasis on writing across the curriculum, not only in ELA classes. The new standards require students to read informational texts and source documents and write work that reflects reading comprehension. T&W will use its YSIG to identify writers with expertise teaching creative writing in science and social studies and designate them as master teaching artists (MTAs). MTAs will lead workshops for other T&W writers on adapting lesson plans to meet the Common Core Standards and to link creative writing to middle school science and social studies content.