The Watts of Power Foundation Impact Report

Impact Report

The Watts of Power Foundation

Introduction

Public school teachers in the U.S. remain predominantly white. Only 20% of teachers are of color while 56% of students are. A miniscule 2% of teachers are Black men. These disparities are actually increasing as the student population diversifies faster than the teaching profession. California is one of many states where the gap is particularly striking: 35% of teachers but 77% of the students are people of color. More than 78,000 Black students in the state attend schools that have no Black teachers.

A substantial body of academic research has shown why this racial mismatch matters for children. Simply put, kids of color do better academically and socially when some of their teachers share their racial background. One study, for instance, showed that if a Black male student has at least one Black teacher between third and fifth grade their chance of dropping out of high school declines by 39% and their interest in attending college increases by 29%. Research also shows that all students, including white students, are more engaged and do better academically when they have teachers from a variety of racial backgrounds.

But this issue is also critical to the viability of democracy. Kids of color need learning spaces that affirm their cultural identity so that they build strong psychological foundations for lifelong participation in society. All kids need to have experiences with a diversity of teachers so that their worldviews are expanded. Moreover, educators with an array of life experiences must be present in school districts across the country in order to advance and defend curriculum that accurately reflects the realities of the nation’s racial and social history.

The Teacher Village addresses these challenges through a multifaceted multi year program that I am piloting in South Los Angeles. The Village provides professional community, social connection, and housing for Black college graduates while they are earning their credentials. The program:

Engages college seniors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and local colleges in Los Angeles to encourage them to consider a career in education, and offers a Summer Village program in their senior year to help them explore the field.

Features a two year Teacher Village Fellowship. After graduating from college, Fellows move into housing provided by the program, participate in a pre service Summer Institute, and then work as teaching assistants under master teachers as they earn their teaching credential through our partnerships with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the CalStateTEACH credentialing programs. During year two, they complete their student teaching.

Addresses the emotional, cultural, and soft skills development that are not the strength of the credentialing programs. The Village supplements those programs with additional workshops, professional mentoring, and peer support from within the cohort.

Provides housing until a new teacher is fully certified and has secured a teaching position As they near completion, Fellows will also be connected to workshops and resources for first time home owners and encouraged to work towards buying a home in the community

Our Story So Far

O U R M I S S I O N

Watts of Power Foundation is a 501c3 non profit whose mission is to strengthen families and communities in foster care, and those living in high poverty zip codes through a focus on education and community revitalization; through wrap around support for Black educators.

The flagship initiative is called Teacher Village. The Teacher Village addresses these challenges through a multifaceted multi year program that is being piloted in South Los Angeles. The Village provides professional community, social connection, and housing for Black college graduates while they are earning their credentials.

Our program features a two year Teacher Village Fellowship. After graduating from college, Fellows move into housing provided by the program, participate in a pre service Summer Institute, and then work as teaching assistants under master teachers as they earn their teaching credentials over the two as they become the teacher of record.

O U R P U R P O S E

Our goal is to create a culturally affirming community based approach to nurturing the development of African American public school teachers. We supplement the curriculum of existing credentialing programs to address the social, emotional, and housing needs of Black teachers in training. Its approach pays particular attention to Black men, many of whom must heal from trauma experienced in their lives and communities as they become teachers

“Neighborhoods become villages when all of the adults step up to show care and concern for all of the children”

Our 2021-2022 Goals

In November 2021 we received a planning grant grant from New Schools Venture Fund to begin our work of preparing a pilot program to launch in Summer of 2023. Our goal wasn’t to launch our pilot until year two. The pre pilot was launched to have proof of concept to provide foundations with quantitative and qualitative data of the work that has been done. We had to address this challenge by launching midway through our plan to have enough data to share for future funding opportunities and to secure additional funding for our programming.

Strategy & Business Model:

Develop a strategy overview that articulates our Teacher Village Initiative for the next 3 years with desired Outputs, Outcomes and Impact Measurements: Mentoring, Housing, Training, Job Placement

Impact measurement

Develop an evaluation framework that measures the short term, mid, and long term goals of recruiting 5 African American male pre service teachers who would consider the official Teacher Village 2 year fellowship for Summer of 2023 upon college graduation.

Program Model

Solidify pre pilot program model for college seniors who are placed in local schools as pre service teachers who would consider our 2 year fellowship program that leads to becoming a fully credentialed teacher of record in partnership with LAUSD and other Charter School organizations.

Our Strategy

The Watts of Power Foundation flagship initiative Teacher Village Residency. This program focuses on recruiting, placing, and retain Black male teachers for elementary schools. The "secret sauce" of our program is our training focus on the "Components of Care" and Trauma Informed Care for Black males and affordable housing for our fellows for the duration of the residency. We cultivate our Black male educators with wrap around supports that are wholistic in its approach to ensure that these future teachers feel valued, cared for, and supported.

The specific supports that we provide for our fellows for the duration of their residency are as follows:

Training in the Components of Care Supplemental Housing Mentor Teacher Guaranteed Job Placement $2500 Stipend

P R O J E C T S

D E T A I L S

O U T C O M E

Recruitment

Partnerships

Fund Development

Recruitment strategy to meet the goal of 5 African American males. Solidify partnerships with schools. districts, organizations where fellows would be placed. Raise additional funding and a strategic plan for long term sustainability through housing

7 Black males applied 5 Black males were accepted 7 partner organizations in 2022 with 2 more in progress

$25K in revenue with $305K in progress

Draft plan for housing costs and revenue generation.

The success of our Teacher Village pilot has the potential to inspire community activists and school districts across the country and may have implications for efforts to overcome racial exclusion in other aspects of society. As our first Fellows secure their teaching credentials during the 2023 24 school year we will share our approach through communication tools including professional quality short videos, op ed essays, workshops and webinars These outreach efforts will shine a light on the history of segregation and exclusion in the education profession, today’s racial disparities, and the logic of our comprehensive community based approach to recruiting and developing African American teachers. We will seek to share what we are learning with the larger racial justice field and look forward to dialogue and mutual learning with our movement colleagues.

We are currently partnering with KIPP So Cal, TFA Los Angeles, CSUDH, SEED LA, LAUSD, The Wooten Center and Landed, Inc.

In

person Teacher Village Trainings

We are on track to reach our long term impact over the next 10 years of placing 113 black male teachers who are fully credentialed and on the road to home ownership in the neighborhoods in which they serve. Below are our goals over the next 1 2 years with our Teacher Village Residency.

Recruit college seniors interested in pursuing education as a profession/career

Train Teacher Village Fellows utilizing the Components of Care and Personal Trauma that is available as college credits or salary points

Build and provide affordable housing for Teacher Village residency fellows that is supplemented, which functions as a stream of revenue for the long term sustainability of our organization.

Through additional funding from NSVF and Catalyst ED we were able to contract Letter Four Inc. for the past six months. This company is a full service design build firm who has been helping us with the development of our first Teacher Village housing. This project went from concept to design and renderings with financials that lay out the complete cost to engage this project from start to finish. Upon completion of this first phase we have gathered an all in costs of $2.2M to build a 5 bedroom 5 bathroom unit on land that is already owned and ready for build.

T E A C H E R V I L L A G E H O U S I N G

100%

This estimated budget is conservative as Letter Four Inc. assume current construction pricing and material availability will stabilize by the time they are ready to start the construction of our project. This total is based upon a sketch that includes all of the project’s must haves and nice to haves. That said, Letter Four Inc. can work together to value engineer the design to reduce construction costs. As noted in the D+B contract, they may need to look at adjusting the scope of work or the desired budget to have the two come into better alignment. It is their goal to provide realistic estimates so that The Watts of Power Foundation can make an informed decision as to how best to move forward.

The number of Teacher Village housing needed to hosts fellows

The number of fellows at full capacity of the program

Private foundations, donors, and investors

The Goal is to raise in private funding $2.2M by June 2024

Our Finances

Partner school sites where our Teacher Village Fellows are placed

The amount of K 12 students our fellows impact on a weekly basis.

We received a planning grant of 150,000 from NSVF to begin the work of developing the Teacher Village Initiative Residency program and pre-pilot. These funds were initially earmarked for salary for the founder and professional service fees to set up operations, memberships, and subscriptions. The need to launch a pre pilot the first year was necessary to be in position for future funding and donations. As a result, our spending differed greatly from our original intent.

The founder took half the expected salary working full time on this project while holding other consulting and part time positions. The remaining resources went to general expenses for professional fees and stipends for trainers, and Teacher Village fellows. A large percentage of the resources went into marketing and advertising. Since our organization and the program itself was new, we had to create a brand and build relationships across both digital platforms and in print.

The percentage above our Giving Tuesday goal

The percentage of the fellows who are still in our program on the path to becoming teachers

We have been applying for grants and meeting with donors and foundations this fiscal year and feel we are in a much stronger position to acquire major donors, grants and earned income over the next two fiscal years (‘23/’24). The biggest factor that we are confident in is the teacher village housing element. We have the land, the architectural design and plans to begin raising the necessary capital to start building in Fall of 2024.

The two biggest risks to our work are securing additional funding from NSVF to expand our work and raising the $2.2M necessary to build housing for our educators. In the upcoming year, we will add an additional five fellows, and implement our pilot.

Confirmed Revenue as of December 2022

To mitigate the risks, we are we will hire a full-time fund developer for the 2023 24 fiscal year to build the capacity of our organization. An additional measure is to continue working with the expertise of Mini Vera who is helping us develop our “quiet campaign” to raise the $2.2M needed to build housing. We have secured the land, we have the plans, and the all in costs to build thanks to the additional resources to work with Catalyst Ed to contract with Letter Four Inc to build our plan.

Our Training

One of the biggest wins is our partnership with Cal State Dominguez Hills. The “secrete sauce” of our training program on the “Components of Care” has started conversations with Cal State Dominguez Hills who is working with our foundation to create a teacher village education course that will possibly be used as an additional certification to Dominguez Hills’ credential program and/or used as salary points for school districts.

We met our fundraising goal through our Giving Tuesday campaign to develop eLearning modules on "The Components of Care" that will be available for On Demand and subscriptions. These 6 part training modules will be available for school site administrators and other educators who want to experience the training that our fellows receive in our residency.

Acknowledgements

It truly takes a village to transform communities. We would like to formally thank and acknowledge our Village of donors, supporters, partners, and educators who helped to make this first year a success!

Initial investment, coaching, and relationship management from New Schools Venture Fund

Consulting Company Catalyst ED

The data and researchers Amy, Tanya, and Briana for the data behind the impact report.

Letter Four Inc helping develop our strategic plan for housing development and the costs to build.

Teacher Village Fellows who entered our pre-pilot program and providing feedback for strengthening the program for future fellows.

Mini Vera Patti for training and coaching in fund development.

The Watts of Power Foundation

1613 W. 20th St. Los Angeles, CA 90007 1213 361 9211 www.wattsofpowerfoundation.org admin@wattsofpowerfoundation.org

We thank you for your continued support in our programs.