ELC

Section I: Organization Information

Agency Mission: The Education Law Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all of Pennsylvania’s children have access to a quality public education. ELC’s focus is on the state’s most vulnerable students, including poor children, children of color, children with disabilities, English language learners, children in foster homes and institutions, and others.

Name/Title of Contact: Brett Schaeffer, Communications Director

Address: 1315 Walnut St., Suite 400

Phone Number: 215-238-6970, ext. 307

Website: http://www.elc-pa.org/

Email: lrieser@elc-pa.org

Total number of agency staff members: 17 incl. 4 fellows

Agency Budget: 1,650,890 (includes some pass-throughs; detail available on request)

Section II: Community Need

Please state in measurable and quantifiable terms the specific community need that the Philly Fellow will address, including the number of people in the community directly affected by the problem.

Well over 650,000 of Pennsylvania’s 1.8 million public school students are poor. Five hundred thousand of the state’s students are students of color; 271,000 have disabilities; and 48,000 are students whose native language is not English. In general, these groups of children are achieving at levels far below their peers, typically because their schools are not delivering the programs and services that they need. Often, this is because the school has inadequate resources (old buildings, excessive class sizes, out-of-date books and equipment). In other situations, the school has adequate resources but is not using those resources in effective ways. These conditions can be changed, for individual students as well as for whole schools and districts – but only when parents, students and community members can get the support that they need in order to make their efforts effective.

Describe how your agency addresses this need, and how the new capacity created by this fellow will help alleviate the problem.

ELC provides legal support to grass-roots groups seeking to solve school problems and improve their schools. We are the only legal advocacy agency in Pennsylvania that is dedicated to these purposes. We use multiple strategies, all of which heavily involve communication – to parents, students, community organizations, and local and state-level decision-makers. Our communications take multiple forms, including written materials, photos and videos, training materials, newsletters, our website, e-mails, meetings, and more. During the 2009-10 school year, with the help of a Philly Fellow and a new communications director, we have begun to strengthen our communications systems. We have reorganized our primary website, www.elc-pa.org; developed new publications and videos (the videos are a first for ELC); begun the design for a new web function (“SchoolTalk”) that will allow parent, student and community groups to communicate with each other and with us; and developed (but not yet launched) an entirely new website, "SchoolVictories," that will help community organizations plan and document school reform projects. We have got our newsletter, which was previously issued only sporadically, onto a regular schedule; and we have started to expand our networks, bringing in some organizations with which we had not previously been in contact. All of these efforts are works in progress, which we hope that a Philly Fellow will help us develop further.

Describe the level of community involvement in the fellow’s project.

This entire project involves improving ELC’s outreach to, and communications with, the public education community, with a focus on grass-roots organizations serving poor and disadvantaged students and their families.

Section III: Job Description

Please outline in list form the fellow's duties and responsibilities.

With supervision and support from ELC staff, help us expand our communications activities. This includes assisting us with:
- Implementing our new SchoolTalk on-line communication system, and our new SchoolVictories website.
- Keeping our primary website up to date. This involves working with program staff to decide how best to use the website to engage people in our projects and campaigns. This task will also involve writing announcements, articles, and other material.
- Writing and producing our newsletter.
- Developing additional alerts, informational pieces, and reports (including printed and on-line materials as well as photos and videos).
- Gathering stories and other information from clients and constituents concerning their experiences with issues that we are working on (such as school funding, teacher quality, services to children with special needs, and the like). This will require interviewing and writing skills. We will use the information both to shape our work and to “tell our story” to partners and supporters.
- Media activities, including press releases, background briefings, editorial board meetings, and maintaining up-to-date media lists.
- Expanding our contacts with public education activists and community groups around the state. This is a major component of the project, and will entail identifying new contacts (from existing relationships, news articles, phone calls and e-mails addressed to us, etc.), talking with them to learn their concerns and to share our perspectives, and bringing them into our networks.
- Managing our contact databases. This will include working with us on systems to categorize contacts by interest, role (e.g., parent activist, student activist, community organization, reporter, educator, etc.), legislative district, and other parameters.
- Fund-raising and marketing. This involves assisting with fund-raising campaigns, as well as helping us market ELC services for which we can potentially earn income (consultation, training, etc.).

Please outline in list form the skills/qualifications a fellow should have to succeed in the position.

• In general, communications skills and experience, with a special emphasis on communication aimed at engaging people in working on social issues as well as on communication with lay audiences, such as families, for whom complex and technical issues must be presented in an engaging and user-friendly way.
• Strong writing skills.
• Interest in and familiarity with on-line methods of communication, including websites, e-newsletters, social networking sites, and so forth.
• If possible (though not required), skills in any of the following: graphic design, web editing, photography, video production.
• Interest in, and some familiarity with, current issues in public education, especially issues involving fairness and equity for poor and disadvantaged children.

Please describe your agency's plan to orient and train the fellow.

ELC will provide intensive orientation and training, beginning with our annual August “retreat” and continuing with daily contact with supervisors and colleagues. The Fellow will also attend our regular office meetings. While some of the training that we will provide will specifically involve our existing communications systems, lists, website, newsletter, etc., we will also involve the Fellow in our substantive work. By participating in conference calls, meetings, contacts with clients and constituents, and other activities, the Fellow will become familiar with our projects and our approach – which we see as essential if s/he is to be able to provide real help with our communications. Much of the Fellow’s work, especially in the early part of the year, will be in combination with other staff. We will continue to provide support and oversight as the Fellow becomes more independent. We will also provide the Fellow with opportunities to gain additional skills through “outside” training programs, e.g., in web-editing skills, as needed/desired.

Section IV: Project Plan

Please describe the proposed project goal(s) you expect the fellow to achieve. These should relate to your community need and reflect the long-term impact of the fellow’s project.

The goal of this project is to help us continue to strengthen our communications systems, so that they (i) reach more people and organizations and (ii) do so in ways that better meet our audiences’ need for information and engage them in our work.

Section V: The Nitty Gritty

Will fellow be working at the same address listed above?

Yes

Please describe the fellow's work environment

Fellow will have a shared office.
Fellow will have their own desk.
Fellow will have their own computer.

Please list the name and title of the fellow's immediate supervisor.

Brett Schaeffer, Communications Director

Please approximate the percentage of time fellow will work:

Independently: 50%
As a team member in a group setting: 50%
As a team leader in a group setting:

Travel:

Will the fellow be expected to travel as part of the position?

Yes

If so, how often and where?

We estimate 4-5 trips within Philadelphia per month, and 2-3 trips outside Philadelphia per month.

Will the fellow need the following to carry out the position?

A driver’s license: No
Their own car: No

Section VI: Supervision/Resources

Please briefly describe plans for supervision of fellow:

The fellow will be supervised by our Communcations Director, Brett Schaeffer.

What methods, information, or data will you use to evaluate the fellow’s success in their position and your agency’s success in meeting your community need?

- Information on the extent to which our primary website, our new "SchoolTalk" on-line communications system, and our new "SchoolVictories" website are being used by our target constituents (grass-roots groups serving poor and disadvantaged students). This information will come from usage data, interviews or surveys, and observation.
- Documentation of the products (stories, alerts, reports, newsletters, fund-raising materials, etc.) that the Fellow develops or helps us to develop.
- Data showing whether our constituent networks and donor base are expanding as anticipated.