Alamance Achieves 2021 Annual Report

Annual Report

Introduction

The 2020-2021 school year presented unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The learning disruption impacted all students in Alamance County, but it placed an even greater burden on students most impacted by systemic inequities. From lack of access to the internet and inflexible work hours for caregivers, to inconsistent learning environments and complex learning needs that in an ideal setting are best met in person -- the pandemic laid bare and exacerbated the inequities within our education, housing and health systems.

IN THE LAST YEAR, ALAMANCE ACHIEVES HAS ZEROED IN OUR FOCUS ON LISTENING AND CONVENING COMMUNITY VOICES.

In the last year, Alamance Achieves -driven forward by more than a hundred community partners -- has zeroed in on our focus on listening and convening community voices. To ensure those most impacted and proximate to inequity are informing and co-developing strategies. Together, Alamance Achieves partners formalized a Community Voice Project, funded by a 100K renewable grant, to allow us to co-create intentional strategies to improve educational outcomes for our community. As we all reflect on the past

two years (2019-21) we are faced with the reality that the “grid” in our community has some areas that are “patchy.” Think of a power grid and imagine a signal being missed or a connection being patchy. For kids in our community, that missing signal equates to a lack of resources, internet, food, transportation and more.

Alamance Achieves continues to focus on the systemic change that will create generational access to opportunity in Alamance County. The work of engaging and aligning our community to create pathways for every child to thrive, from cradle to career is our primary mission. And we know that in order for this to be achieved, it will take a cross-sector of willing leaders and community members committed to eliminating local disparities. It is with that collective action that we believe we will see a collective shift of power in service of our community.

Tyronna Hooker

Tyronna Hooker, M.Ed. Executive Director, Alamance Achieves

Centering Community Voices

The work ahead

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n the last year, Alamance Achieves has been laserfocused on improving the ways we recognize and elevate the expertise of families, students and community leaders. When community members are at the table as experts, we are able to uncover root causes of our issues, co-design and rally behind locally-desired solutions, and create sustainable practices with the power to transform outcomes.

We leaned on the practice of community co-development — where families, students, systems leaders, grassroots leaders and field experts work together as equals to solve problems.

SYSTEMS CHANGE

EQUITY ACTION

In action, this looks like:

Families, students and community members are at the table alongside system leaders, field experts and community advocates, co-developing goals, solutions and measures of success — so that we’re always working together toward community priorities

Always with a focus on racial equity

Decisions are led by community members every step of the way

This means that families and students are designing not just what Alamance Achieves does, but how we do it, and who is at the table. •

FAMILIES AND STUDENTS ARE DESIGNING NOT JUST WHAT ALAMANCE ACHIEVES DOES, BUT HOW WE DO IT, AND WHO IS AT THE TABLE.

Alamance Achieves Values

Alamance Achieves Values

Our work is guided by a set of core values. From leadership tables to action teams, from advisory groups to backbone staff, those who drive Alamance Achieves forward have identified and aligned around these values. As our north star, they ground us and set our focus for the work ahead: strengthening the community resource grid that delivers opportunities and support to all children in Alamance County.

When the grid functions well, all children can plug in and power up. Alamance Achieves partners use data to identify where the grid is patchy, and work together to make needed repairs so that the resources and opportunities that every child needs to thrive flow evenly and reliably throughout the grid.

We’ve found that our work is stronger when multiple values are used together, rather than in isolation. For example, when a team adopts the values of racial equity, community co-development and transparency, a clear way forward emerges.

To embody these values on a daily basis means giving them a clear, working definition. As work moves forward, we must also be intentional about re-grounding ourselves, evaluating our actions and our processes to make sure they’re still powered by our values.

Centering Racial Equity

When we put racial equity at the center of decisionmaking, structural barriers to opportunity become more apparent, solutions become more visible, and ways forward become less cluttered. When we focus on the groundwater, we are able to create environments where everyone can thrive.

Community Co-Development

We are committed to working alongside families, students and community members. We work to create spaces where all voices have power in defining goals and solutions. We believe “no plan about community, without community.”

Transparency

We are committed to deep and critical reflection of our own practices, and communicating openly and honestly when we mess up. We believe in responsible risk-taking and open communication, celebrating both what works and what does not.

Data Informed

We use data to drive our work, highlight promising practices and opportunities for improvement. We use data to focus on improving systems—not fix people. While quantitative data can provide a jumping off point for discussions, narrative and experiential data provide local context and deeper understanding of systemic inequities. Both types of data are necessary.

Continuous Improvement

We are committed to learning forward. We set goals, measure progress and adjust our practices along the way. We engage families, students and youth in program evaluation, ensuring that we are working toward a shared vision of success.

Partnership

We share our collective assets and lean into collaboration. We believe that relationships are at the heart of systems change, and we are committed to taking the time to build strong relationships with families, students, grassroots leaders, field experts and systems leaders. We focus on practices that build trust, strengthen collaboration and enable partners to get to the root of the issues at hand.

Measurable Change

The end result of our work must be measurably game-changing for families, students and community members most impacted by systemic inequities. Metrics of success should be co-developed by community members. •

Amplifying Community Voices

Community Voice Project

In the work of strengthening Alamance County’s grid of resources, each person brings a lens and perspective that allows us to see a portion of the grid more clearly. As more people come to the table, a clear picture starts to develop. Patchy areas light up and solutions become visible.

The Community Voice Project is a multi-year effort to ensure that families, students and community leaders are at the table, guiding decision-making throughout Alamance Achieves. This means working alongside systems leaders, field experts and advocates to set goals, analyze data, identify root causes, develop solutions and measure success.

WHEN FAMILIES ARE AT THE TABLE, THE ROOT CAUSES OF OUR OUTCOMES ARE UNCOVERED, AND THE STRATEGIES THAT ARISE ARE STRONG, SUSTAINABLE AND TRANSFORMATIVE.

Each person brings a perspective and set of expertise that strengthens the work:

- Families and students bring lived experience, knowledge of what has and hasn’t worked, and a vision for equity

Community advocates, practitioners and field experts bring best practices and programmatic expertise

- Systems leaders bring organizational visions, a knowledge of funding streams, and opportunities for alignment

When families are at the table, the root causes of our outcomes are uncovered, and the strategies that arise are strong, sustainable and transformative.

The Community Voice Project starts with listening sessions, which aim to bring families across Alamance

County together to define what education equity looks like here. With a focus on healing and restorative practices, the listening sessions are designed to focus on community strengths, and work to build a shared vision of an equitable future.

This community-defined vision provides a north star for our collaborative work. Fueled by a co-development methodology, everyone works as equals to design and launch solutions that address themes and structural inequities arising from the listening sessions.

This project builds on years of work that has come before it, leveraging a Community-Based Participatory Research approach that has been championed by community partners such as the Health Equity Collective, Healthy Alamance and Elon University.

COMMUNITY RESOURCE GRID

Keys to healthy child development

Commmunity Centers

Schools

Nonprofit Libraries

Child Care Centers

PROJECT DATA FLOW

Engage families, students and community members in listening sessions along the cradle-to-career pathway to understand what matters most to the community in pursuit of better outcomes.

IDENTIFY ROOT CAUSES OF LOCAL SYSTEMIC ISSUES PRIORITIZE COMMUNITY-BASED INDICATORS

DESIGN COMMUNITYDRIVEN SOLUTIONS DEVELOP COLLECTIVE GOALS

Planning & Methodology Team

The Planning & Methodology team kicked off the first phase of the Community Voice Project in January 2021. This cross-community group includes caregivers, community leaders, advocates, researchers and grassroots field experts—each person applying their own lived experience and committing to working together with a racial equity lens.

Together, they developed a roadmap for the work ahead—sifting through best practices around community engagement and coming to consensus about which was the best fit. They mapped out a plan to conduct listening sessions with families from across Alamance County, with a goal of at least three families from each of the 36 school zones.

LISTENING SESSION GOALS:

• Develop strategies that address the root causes of education inequities and ensure resources flow more reliably for every family

• Gather and provide community feedback that can support the school system and broader community

• Identify and prioritize systems indicators that the Alamance Achieves partnership can rally behind improving

THE ROADMAP:

• Listening sessions were selected as the data collection method. The goal is to hear from families and students on their vision for what education equity looks like in Alamance County

• The listening sessions will aim to reach three families from each of the 36 schools, for a total of 108 families

• There will be a focus on hearing from historically marginalized communities: Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, poor, rural, and intergenerational

GUIDING VALUES:

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Co-Development

INSIGHTS FROM WORKING TOGETHER:

• COVID-19 continues to present challenges for our community; navigating how to safely engage families and kiddos should be a high priority for those connected to the project. The team will support safe gatherings of a small number of folks in person and continue to offer a virtual option

• Trust the process and ask as many questions as needed

• Equity is a very broad topic and means different things to different people. The Implementation Team will have to grapple with building a clear, operational definition of equity when talking to different groups of people / neighborhoods / schools.

• Moving forward, we don’t have all the answers—but we will listen to our community, acknowledge missteps and trust the process and partners.

Partners

Katie Baker, Elon University

Shereá Burnett, Community Advocate

Lucy Callicott, Elon University

Courtnie Carter, Parent

Vanessa Diggs, Youth Solutions

Amber Doby, Alamance-Burlington School System

Diane Duffy, Retired pediatrician

Ann-Marie Iselin, Elon University

Jessica Johnson, Alamance County Health Department

Tamara Kersey, Community Advocate

Yasmeen Lee, Healthy Alamance

Michelle Mills, Alamance County Sheriff’s Office

Implementation Team

The Planning & Methodology Team passed their roadmap for the listening sessions to the Implementation Team—a cross-community group of caregivers, researchers, community advocates and leaders. Their goal was to implement the listening sessions, which would identify and prioritize system-level indicators.

As they collaborated and shared information, they realized that many other community engagement initiatives were happening at the same time. The team grappled with whether to move forward with the listening session, potentially burdening community members with an additional request to share their time, experiences and stories.

Leaning in to the values of community responsiveness and building trust with community, the team decided to pause the listening sessions. In the meantime, they decided to move forward with two projects. One was a series of community roundtables, launched in December 2021, that aimed to spark conversation and alignment around prioritizing systems indicators.

The other project was to prototype a transcript review for rising high school juniors, aiming to support the path to graduation by identifying what credits are needed. The team plans to launch a small prototype in summer of 2022 before pausing to reflect on what went well and where there are opportunities to improve.

Values

COMMUNITY CO-DEVELOPMENT

Caregivers, community advocates, field experts and researchers are at the table as equals, driving decision-making throughout the partnership.

COMMUNITY RESPONSIVENESS

When the team learned of multiple listening sessions already in the works, they paused plans in order not to over-burden community with additional research.

TEAM GOAL:

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

The team decided to prototype a new practice to support rising high school juniors, launching small and taking time to learn from what went well and what didn’t.

Partners

Jai Baker

Allied Churches

Adrienne Barr

Shereá Burnett

Amber Doby

Ricky Hurtado

Parent

Community Advocate

School System

LatinxEd and NC House Representative

Ann-Marie

Tanya Kline

Parent

Elon University

Community Advocate

Amy Widderich

School System

As a community leader,

I feel it is important to learn and work together with other organizations that have the same goal in mind. The education of our children is very important and essential for Alamance Achieves.

I enjoy, respect, and believe in the missionof Alamance Achieves. When we growand improve the children of Alamance,it is for generations. When people areknowledgeable of their options, they havehope/goal for better.

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO JOIN THE IMPLEMENTATION TEAM?

To work with a team that ispassionate and committed toimproving educational outcomesin Alamance County. AlamanceAchieves is committed to this workand committed to addressing theroot causes.

How theneeds differin different communities within county.the

To grow as a caring member of the Alamance community.

WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU LEARNED THROUGH YOUR WORK WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION TEAM THAT SURPRISED YOU?

I learned thedifferent uniqueneeds of residentsand some obstaclesunnecessary within theschool system.

I learned there are quite a few passionatepeople who are truly focused on meetingthe needs of the community based on whatthe community says their needs are.

I was surprised that many other community leaders and/or educators feel the same way I do. I feel that the schools are not where they need to be, and the Implementation Team put that out there.

SHEREÁ BURNETT, J.D.

Literacy Advocate/ Community Member

What is something you love about your neighborhood/community? What makes it special?

I love that my family’s legacy is so evident and still visible in this county. Personally, my family history and culture are tied specifically to Alamance County. When I drive through the county, I see places that my ancestors established and changes that they made from the Pleasant Grove area through the Snow Camp area. The fact that my ancestors helped to move Alamance County forward at a time when it was truly dangerous to do so inspires me to continue to make strides towards changing and improving the county as well.

AS A COMMUNITY, WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO ONE ANOTHER AND TO FUTURE GENERATIONS TO COME.

What are your hopes for the longerterm future of Alamance County? What are your concerns?

My hope is to see more diversity in county leadership and among local elected and appointed officials. I hope to see us show a true commitment to assisting those who may not look like, speak like or have the same history as us. I hope to see more diligent work to address issues like literacy, homelessness/affordable housing, domestic violence and equality in medical care. I would also like us to work more diligently in addressing topics such as sexual health and education for our youth and establish additional resources for members of the LGBTQ+ community. My primary concern is that those in positions of authority

will continue to make decisions for those that they know or those that look/live like them and this will continue the trend of everyone not having access to the same resources. Too often access to resources and privilege go hand-in-hand in this county. That leaves a large portion of the county to fend for themselves in the best way that they know how when the opposite should be true. As a community, we have a responsibility to one another and to future generations to come. I would like to see our county’s citizens step away from making prominent names for themselves and focus on making prominent changes in and a better name for Alamance County.

What is your vision for education equity in Alamance County?

My vision for education equity in Alamance County involves us truly meeting children and families where they are; allowing families to truly be the experts on their dynamics; and providing more educational materials where children — particularly children of color — see their lives, their experiences and themselves reflected.

To read Shereá’s interview in full, please visit here •

Community Co-Development

Systems Transformation in Action

S

ystems transformation requires an all-in commitment—a commitment to shift decisionmaking power to community members most impacted by systemic inequality; to co-develop solutions alongside community; to change practices that create and perpetuate racial inequities; and to be responsive and accountable to community members most impacted by systemic inequity.

Two champions of health and education equity are expanding the grid of resources in Alamance County, and taking care to ensure that decisions are driven by community members: Healthy Alamance, a health organization that championed communitybased participatory research in Alamance County, and LatinxEd, a higher education initiative and civic engagement agency for Latinx and immigrant families.

Healthy Alamance is working to increase access to education resources by expanding an existing initiative to repair areas of the grid where access to healthcare is patchy. Healthy Alamance employs community health workers who reach communities with limited access to healthcare, and help families plug in to the resources they need to stay healthy. Weaving together health and education, Healthy Alamance co-funded the salary of one additional community health worker, who will focus on connecting families to education resources—as well as share opportunities to engage in listening sessions and co-development with the Alamance Achieves Community Voice Project. This effort repairs parts of the grid where both health and education resources flow unreliably, and also creates opportunities for building relationships with community members—which is a necessary first step to building the trust necessary to engage in the co-development process.

A similar alignment of resources is happening with LatinxEd. In an effort to expand community organizing in Alamance County, LatinxEd is aligning funds to support the Project Manager for the Community Voice Project. The Project Manager will oversee the implementation of the project, which works to strengthen community co-development throughout Alamance Achieves. The role will continue to build space for education equity to be centered by building out internal processes so that all decisions are driven by community voice—through listening sessions, participatory data analysis and sharing, and solution co-development. This partnership with LatinxEd also provides opportunities to align data needs and leverage data-sharing, which enables one set of listening sessions to fuel multiple initiatives. In this way, we are better able to respect community members’ time and expertise, and recognize the emotional toll of sharing their lived experience.

Together, these partnerships advance equitable outcomes by shifting decision-making power to community members and advancing co-development practices—ensuring that families and students are driving decisions throughout the partnership.

Partners

Ann Meletzke, Healthy Alamance Ricky Hurtado, LatinxEd

RICKY HURTADO

Representative for NC House District 63 (Alamance County) and Co-Founder and Director of Advancement for LatinxEd, a nonprofit educational initiative in NC providing targeted, multi-year support to Latinx students and immigrant families striving for higher education and greater opportunity.

What is something you love about your neighborhood / community? What makes it special?

People are proud of who they are, where they came from, and want to share their gifts with you. Whether it is food, stories, or a place that is meaningful to them, I love how much people in this community love Alamance and their story. Not every community has that, so it’s important we honor and cherish that as we think about how we build off of that to create a community that centers that as one of its core values.

What is your vision for education equity in Alamance County?

My vision is that every child and family, regardless of neighborhood, has the same shot in life. That means meeting students where they are and providing the resources they need to be successful, from cradle to career. If I close my eyes as I think about this question, success looks like every child at high school graduation smiling as they turn their tassels at graduation because the K-12 system did its job and produced critical thinkers that have all created plans after high school (2-year, 4-year, vocational training) and are ready to tackle it so they can contribute and serve their community.

Why did you decide to partner with Alamance Achieves on the Community Voice Project?

Lifting up the community’s needs, concerns, and dreams is so important to LatinxEd—it is at the heart of what we do as an organization. After a while, as you do some of this work in the community, you begin to see the “typical suspects” at meetings, events, and formal engagements. But from my personal life and work in the community, I know community gets together and discusses things happening in their lives in different ways and are invested in their neighborhood and school. Most importantly, they care deeply about their children’s future. So what is the disconnect? For me, CVP is part of the journey of meeting folks where they are, finding out the answer to that question and beginning to create solutions for bridging the many conversations that are already happening in the community.

To read Ricky’s interview in full, please go here •

Pursuing Systems Change

Repairing the Grid, One Section at a Time

DSS Childcare Policy Change

T

he Alamance County Department of Social Services and the City of Burlington collaborated to remove structural barriers to after-school programming for youth from low-wealth backgrounds. Earlier in the year, parents and caregivers lifted up concerns that they were experiencing barriers accessing after-school care using subsidized childcare vouchers. Many high-quality programs, such as those run by the Burlington Recreation & Parks department, had seats available but could not accept childcare vouchers because of a state requirement that vouchers be used at licensed child care facilities. This policy created a barrier for parents who had access to vouchers, but no place to use them.

In response, the Department of Social Services and the City of Burlington successfully scaled a policy to provide scholarships to families with childcare vouchers who are interested in enrolling in Burlington Recreation & Parks after-school sites. This removes barriers for families who have vouchers but could not use them, resulting in a more connected grid with resources flowing more reliably.

This solution would have been invisible without the voices of community, who gave rise to the experience of navigating a policy that created barriers to access.

After-school providers are also in conversation about how to prepare culturally responsive spaces for youth from diverse backgrounds—and have committed to implicit bias training. In practice, this looks like lessons and activities such as games and stories that align with students’ cultural learning styles, tapping into the brain’s memory system and making content more sticky. It also looks like teachers and staff reflecting on the beliefs they hold, and how those beliefs

Partners

Adrian Daye, Alamance County Department of Social Services Morgan Lasater, City of Burlington

translate into action. Culturally responsive practices encourage a sense of belonging, and create safe spaces where all youth feel respected and heard.

Kindergarten Transition

The transition into kindergarten is a milestone for children and families. Successful kindergarten transitions enable children to thrive in school, adjust quickly to classroom rhythms and expectations, and get connected to timely and appropriate supports. Activities aimed at improving the transition into kindergarten have been shown to increase social skills and academic achievement.

Kindergarten teacher Melissa Blum is working alongside the Alamance Partnership for Children to increase access to high-quality kindergarten transition supports. They are building on years of work with Ready Freddy, an evidence-based transition program that Blum first brought to Alamance County in 2018. Children who participated in Ready Freddy scored higher, on average, on the ABSS Kindergarten Screener’s measurements of academic, social, emotional and motor skill readiness than their peers who did not attend the program. In addition, parents reported feeling more confident about supporting their child’s transition into kindergarten and incorporated additional early learning activities at home.

Now, the partners are working together to leverage funding, identify best practices and use data from the Early Development Instrument to strategically identify opportunities to strengthen the grid of early childhood resources. This is one way we build equity—ensuring all children have access to high-quality early experiences that set a strong foundation for life.•

Partners

Melissa Blum, Alamance-Burlington School System

Carrie Theall, Alamance Partnership for Children

Early Grade Reading

Youth-serving community partners on the Beyond the Classroom Team aligned efforts to address reading proficiency, which dropped during the pandemic—disproportionately impacting children of color. They decided to infuse literacy enrichment into their daily programming, choosing to pilot BookNook, an evidence-based early literacy intervention that meets students where they are to provide targeted reading supports.

Each student who logs into BookNook is met with an interactive lesson that meets them where they are in their reading journey, focusing on specific skills that will help them level up—such as phonics, phonemic awareness and text comprehension. BookNook tracks progress, so that the next lesson builds on skills built in previous lessons.

BookNook lessons also include a social-emotional learning (SEL) component, which asks students to choose an emoji to represent how they’re feeling before and after each lesson they complete. This gives students a space to identify whether they’re feeling anxious, happy or sad—and has the potential to improve teachers’ ability to support holistic learning and mental wellbeing of students.

EACH STUDENT IS MET WITH AN INTERACTIVE LESSON THAT MEETS THEM WHERE THEY ARE IN THEIR READING JOURNEY.

As part of any pilot, Beyond the Classroom partners are focused on continuous improvement. Partners are actively working to identify what’s working well and where there are opportunities for improvement. This reflection allows partners to identify small changes in implementation that could make a big impact on the program’s effectiveness—such as when BookNook is offered during the day, how many devices are available, and how teachers introduce the lessons. This enables partners to adjust and strengthen practices along the way, maximizing effectiveness and creating a blueprint for success that can be scaled across Alamance County.

Early Grade Reading

Partners

Emily-Lynn Adkins, Alamance-Burlington School System

Walter Britt, YMCA

Reisha Drumgold, Ebenezer United Church of Christ

Lisa Edwards, Dream Center

Brian Faucette, Graham Recreation & Parks

Jenny Faulkner, Alamance-Burlington School System

Brittany Hargrave, Burlington Recreation & Parks

Sherri Henderson, Boys & Girls Club of Alamance County

Taylor Jones, Alamance County 4-H

Michael Lane, Alamance-Burlington School System

Nikki Ratliff, Burlington Housing Authority

Bobbi Ruffin, Burlington Recreation & Parks

Ally Snuggs, YMCA

Elizabeth Weizlak, Alamance County Public Libraries

Kim Yarborough, Alamance-Burlington School System

BookNook has been well-received by children who are not in permanent housing situations. Since effectiveness of the intervention cannot be tracked over time in settings that serve families experiencing homelessness, new measures of success will need to be determined.

Access to technology remains to be a barrier; sufficient computers are needed to maximize time spent in lessons.

BookNook has proven useful for readers who speak both Spanish and English, including new immigrants, as it has a feature that translates lessons on the screen -- enabling learners to make real-time connections by doing the reading in one language and comparing vocabulary with the other.

There are opportunities for Alamance Achieves backbone staff to provide additional support to learning sites, including specific supports for bilingual guides.

As part of a holistic effort to reach children before they start school, sites are also working to connect families to Ready4K, an evidence-based texting service shown to improve kindergarten readiness and socialemotional health. Currently, there are 110 families enrolled. •

Since its launch, has enrolled &

students across four after-school sites lessons have been completed including reading standards

Middle Grade Success

Success

AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS

ARE CRITICAL PIECES OF OUR COUNTY’S GRID OF RESOURCES.

EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES PHYSICAL HEALTH

SOCIALEMOTIONAL LEARNING

of safe and engaging programming for youth in the middle grades. As a result, an entrepreneurship workshop series was developed in partnership with Burlington Housing Authority, Truliant Bank, local business owners and the City of Burlington’s Youth Solutions role, which works alongside youth and families in low- to moderateincome neighborhoods to support the development of strategies and practices that engage opportunity youth. Held every Friday for six weeks, the sessions engaged youth in financial wellness conversations and credit simulations.

After-school programs are critical pieces of our county’s grid of resources, enabling children of all ages to thrive in school and beyond. High-quality after-school programming has been shown to improve educational outcomes, school attendance and social-emotional learning. They also promote physical health and provide a safe space for children in the hours between 2:45 and 5:30 PM, when many caregivers return home.

Through a series of listening sessions led by the City of Burlington’s Youth Solutions coordinator, youth and caregivers in two neighborhoods identified a lack

The City’s goals for the Youth Solutions program are to reduce risk factors of youth violence in our community – and one way to do that is by increasing access to affordable, high-quality afterschool programming. Now housed within Alamance Achieves, the role will be bolstered by the partnership’s resources and networks. Partners are working together to identify barriers to enrollment, as well as to actively create culturally responsive spaces for youth from all backgrounds -- which allow all youth to feel safe and thrive.

Partners

Vanessa Diggs,

City of Burlington’s Youth Solutions

Allen Blue, Burlington Housing Authority Kevin Hooker, Burlington Auto Mart Truliant Bank

Early Development Instrument

Early Development Instrument

Data-driven decision making is at the heart of what we do. Data helps us understand what’s driving our outcomes, allows us to be strategic, and provides a shared reference point for collaborative work. When we bring together different pieces of data, we create a map of Alamance County -- one that shows where resources are flowing well and where areas are patchy. This allows us to better coordinate and collaborate to ensure opportunities flow evenly for all children.

Kindergarten readiness is a notoriously difficult area to develop data around, since data is not collected on a large scale until children start school. Partners across the community have been working together to strengthen the data available around kindergarten readiness. One such effort is the launch of the Early Development Instrument (EDI), a measurement tool used at the start of kindergarten that provides, for the first time, a neighborhood-level snapshot of the specific skills that kindergartners are starting school with -- and where there are opportunities to strengthen the grid of early resources.

DATA-DRIVEN DECISION-MAKING IS AT THE HEART OF WHAT WE DO.

For example, the data might indicate that children in one neighborhood are coming to school with strong socialemotional skills that help them navigate new experiences in the classroom. But in that same neighborhood, there might be an opportunity to strengthen physical readiness for school, such as motor skills and hand-eye coordination. How might we, as a community, ensure that all children in this neighborhood have access to opportunities that strengthen motor skills -- like high-quality outdoor spaces to play?

In the year ahead, we will be using the EDI to strengthen the grid of early childhood opportunities by assessing the specific needs of each neighborhood, redirecting targeted resources, and analyzing the effectiveness of new practices. •

Kindergarten Readiness

Kindergarten readiness is the foundation for success throughout school. Children who are ready for school are more likely to read well in third grade and graduate from high school. In 2019, 560 Alamance County children (52%) were on track at the start of school. The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is an assessment done at the beginning of kindergarten that helps us understand the specific strengths and opportunities in Alamance County, engage in conversations about available assets and take action to improve access to high-quality learning opportunities. What exactly is kindergarten readiness? Being ready for kindergarten is a combination of skills that set children up for success in reading, math, science and more. Here are the five domains (or skill sets) measured by the EDI. Success in each of these domains is predictive of achievement later on in school:

Physical Health & Wellbeing:

A child doing well is physically ready for a new day at school, is generally independent, and has excellent motor skills

Social Skills:

A child doing well gets along and plays with other children, is self-confident, and is able to follow class routines

Emotional Skills:

A child doing well almost never shows aggressive, anxious, or impulsive behavior and has good concentration

Language & Cognitive Development:

A child doing well can read and write simple sentences, count, and recognize numbers and shapes

Communication & General Knowledge: A child doing well has excellent communication skills and can tell a story and communicate with both children and adults

On Track to Thrive in School

Each domain below is predictive of success later on in school. The higher the bars, the more kindergartners are on track to succeed in school. The shaded blue area

top

Alamance County

for each domain,

Kindergarten Readiness in Alamance County

How can we ensure that every child in Alamance County has access to what they need to thrive -- before kindergarten, throughout school and beyond? How do we know where to strengthen the grid of resources? How do we know which specific resources each neighborhood needs to thrive?

This map can help answer those questions. It provides place-based data that shows kindergarten readiness throughout the county, by geographic area. Darker blue areas represent areas where more students are on track across all kindergarten readiness domains—Physical Health, Language & Cognitive Development, Social Competence, Emotional Maturity and Communication & General Knowledge. Red areas represent places where more students are at risk of falling behind in one or more domains.

This helps us understand where we’ve created strong early resources, and where there is room for additional support or improvement. For example, one neighborhood might have strong play-based learning resources that are leading to high social-emotional skills. But that same neighborhood could use more safe spaces for physical exploration and development. When we look at this map, we can imagine the grid of resources in each neighborhood, how those resources might be powering up early development, and how we can improve.

Percent of Kindergartners on Track Across All Readiness Domains

Snow Camp/Pleasant Hill:

of kindergartners who live in the Snow Camp area were on track across all readiness domains.

on track in physical health and well-being

on track in social skills

on track in emotional skills

track in communication skill

on track in language skills

How might we support the development of ageappropriate language skills? What early literacy assets already exist, what can be scaled to reach more children, and where are there opportunities to improve?

on Track:

Downtown Burlington:

of kindergartners who live in the Downtown Burlington area were on track across all readiness domains.

on track in social skills 76% on track in emotional skills 72% on track in language skills 89% on track in communication skills 56% on track in physical health and well-being

How might we support physical health and well-being in the downtown Burlington area? What outdoor spaces already exist to support the development of motor skills and coordination, where can families find support with food security, and where are there opportunities to improve?

Snow Camp

Burlington Mebane

Cradle-to-Career Outcomes

Cradle-to-Career Outcomes

WHEN WE LOOK AT DATA, WE MAKE SENSE OF IT USING OUR OWN LENS … SHAPED BY OUR BELIEFS, VALUE SYSTEMS AND EXPERIENCE.

VALUE SYSTEMS BELIEFS EXPERIENCE

Look at the differences in outcomes. What do you see? What barriers and pathways become visible? What practices and systems might be contributing to these outcomes?

Guiding questions as you look at the data:

Who is most impacted by inequitable policies and practices?

How is the pandemic showing up in this data?

What stories aren’t represented here? What information is missing?

Data from 2020-21 should be interpreted within the context of the pandemic. •

When we look at data, we make sense of it using our own lens — a lens shaped by our beliefs, value systems and experiences. We use these lenses all the time; they allow us to think quickly and make decisions. But our lenses leave out pieces of the story, putting important context and experiences just out of view.

As you look at the data below, we invite you to use a wide-angle lens, one that exposes how policies, practices and systems that are rooted in historical inequities contribute to differences in outcomes. We use this lens because we want to ensure that our resources flow reliably and evenly, so that every child has access to what they need to thrive.

Third

Eighth Grade

High School

Post-Secondary

Connected to

Track

Who We Are

Beyond the Classroom

Emily-Lynn Adkins,

Alamance-Burlington School System

Walter Britt, YMCA

Reisha Drumgold, Ebenezer United Church of Christ

Lisa Edwards, Dream Center

Brian Faucette, Graham Recreation & Parks

Jenny Faulkner, Alamance-Burlington School System

Brittany Hargrave, Burlington Recreation & Parks

Sherri Henderson, Boys & Girls Club of Alamance County

Taylor Jones, Alamance County 4-H Michael Lane, Alamance-Burlington School System

Nikki Ratliff, Burlington Housing Authority

Bobbi Ruffin, Burlington Recreation & Parks

Ally Snuggs, YMCA

Elizabeth Weizlak,

Alamance County Public Libraries

Kim Yarborough, Alamance-Burlington School System

Planning & Methodology

Katie Baker, Elon University

Shereá Burnett, Community Advocate

Lucy Callicott, Elon University

Courtnie Carter, Parent

Vanessa Diggs, Youth Solutions

Amber Doby, Alamance-Burlington School System

Diane Duffy, Retired Pediatrician

Ann-Marie Iselin, Elon University

Jessica Johnson,

Alamance County Health Department

Tamara Kersey, Community Advocate

Yasmeen Lee, Healthy Alamance

Michelle Mills, Alamance County Sheriff’s Office

Implementation

Jai Baker, Allied Churches

Adrienne Barr, Parent

Shereá Burnett, Community Advocate

Amber Doby, Alamance-Burlington School System

Ricky Hurtado, LatinxEd and NC House Representative

Ann-Marie Iselin, Elon University

Tanya Kline, Parent and Community Advocate

Amy Widderich, Alamance-Burlington School System

Quality & Measurement

Melissa Boyce, Alamance-Burlington School System

Kathy Colville, North Carolina Institute of Medicine

Dr. Ayesha Delpish, Elon University

Arlinda Ellison, Health Department

Sarah Heinemeier, Compass Evaluation and Research Inc.

Jessica Johnson, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services

Danielle Lake, Elon University

Edna Parker, LabCorp

Amy Richardson, Alamance-Burlington School System

Kathleen Rudd,

Alamance County Health Department

Lynette Wellons, Department of Social Services

Communications

Adrian Daye,

Alamance County Department of Social Services

Sandy Ellington-Graves, Allen Tate

Mary Faucette, City of Graham

Jenny Faulkner, Alamance-Burlington School System

Sally Gordon, United Way of Alamance County

Ricky Hurtado, LatinxEd and NC House Representative

Morgan Lasater, City of Burlington

Kelly Roberts, Alamance Chamber of Commerce

Penny Scott, Alamance Partnership for Children

Madison Taylor, Elon University

Kindergarten Readiness Network

Marie Alston, Alamance-Burlington School System

Sarah Austin, Alamance County Health Department

Linda Barron, Community Advocate

Melissa Blum, Alamance-Burlington School System

Allen Blue, Burlington Housing Authority

Tracey Brown, Alamance Partnership for Children

Kristie Coffer, Alamance Partnership for Children

April Durr, United Way of Alamance County

Melinda Freeman, Department of Social Services

Dr. Mary Knight-McKenna, Elon University

Erika Nunnally, RCS Head Start

Kelly Mendenhall, Alamance County Health Department

Angela Osborne, Alamance County Health Department

Dr. Jean Rattigan-Rohr, Elon University

Amy Richardson, Alamance-Burlington School System

Elizabeth Weislak, Alamance County Public Libraries

Backbone Staff

Steering Committee

Lashauna Austria, Kindred Seedlings Farm

Adrian Daye,

Alamance County Department of Social Services

Jenny Faulkner, Alamance-Burlington School System

Tony Foriest,

Community Leader and former State Senator

Tracey Grayzer, Impact Alamance

Reagan Gural, Alamance County Chamber of Commerce

Bryan Hagood, Alamance County

Sherry Hook, Alamance County

Ricky Hurtado, LatinxEd and NC House Representative

Tony Lo Guidice, Alamance County Health Department

Heidi Norwick, United Way of Alamance County

Dr. Jean Rattigan-Rohr, Elon University

Pamela Thompson,

Board of Alamance County Commissioners

Rev. Dr. Ron Shive,

Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Burlington Derek Steed, Glen Raven, Inc.

Carrie Theall, Alamance Partnership for Children

Connie Wolfe, Alamance Community College

In Gratitude:

Thank you to those who have supported, and continue to support, Alamance Achieves. Everyone has been a vital asset to our organization and we are excited to see our mission and values continue to thrive.

This year, the backbone staff committed to identifying areas of growth and development, actively seeking out opportunities for co-learning — including participating in a qualitative data intensive at UNC to better understand community-based research practices. Lucia launched an Emergent Strategy Book Club, which created space for the team to delve deeper into conversations around emergent learning and racial equity.

Tyronna Hooker Executive Director

This year, Ty participated in the Alamance County Racial Equity Co-Lab. Impact Alamance is partnering with NCCJ of the Piedmont Triad to launch the Alamance County Racial Equity Collaborative (ACRE Co-lab). This new program is an 8-month experience that aims to equip Alamance County nonprofit and government professionals with the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to be inclusive leaders and create more inclusive and equitable workplaces and communities. We encourage directors and one of their board/council members to attend together, if possible.

Lexy Roberts

Community Engagement Manager

I’ve gleaned so much from the Community Voice Project. Through this we have built a model for community responsive work that other community organizations can begin to take and apply to their own work. The other piece that I’ve learned is the importance of centering relationship building. It is easy to get consumed with coming up with “action” but the best ideas and innovation comes when groups trust each other and acknowledge the dynamic experiences we all have. To have groups walk away growing their community with others who are committed to advancing education equity is how we start to improve outcomes.

Sylvia Ellington Collaborative Action Facilitator

Like every year, it’s been one filled with many lessons learned and new revelations that bring even more depth and clarity to the conversations we are holding and the spaces we are trying to create for ourselves and our community. I’ve been reminded that our work is about creating the conditions for change, connections, and new possibilities. We can set out to do big things but our impact is limited when we try to do them alone. The journey to educational equity is one that requires endurance and a commitment to the long-game. We must lean on each other’s strength, courage, expertise, and passion knowing that, together, we have all the tools for a movement that centers love, dignity, and our shared humanity.

Alison Harman Data Manager

I’ve learned that community narratives are immensely powerful. In the past, I thought of qualitative data (the stories) and quantitative data (the numbers) as equal partners, both equally necessary to understanding our outcomes and developing solutions. But I’ve learned the graphs and charts and maps tell such a small part of the story. The real power to understand and design solutions lies in lived experience. The graphs and charts, they’re just there for support.

Lucia Lozano Robledo

Elon Year of Service Graduate Fellow

I’ve learned the power of a pivot. Rather than so tightly holding onto a previous plan/vision, there is immense value and integrity in being responsive to community and shifting conditions. This was a huge lesson that I learned from the way we pivoted the implementation team of the Community Voice Project. We paused when we became aware of all the listening sessions going on in our community and pivoted our plan to hold listening sessions to be curious and creative on a different model of gathering community voice.

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