7th Annual PEAR Conference

Facilitated Work Group Info:

Each pathway below will include a morning and afternoon session, featuring high-profile facilitators and discussants. The morning will focus on the theory, research and policy concepts associated with the pathway, and the afternoon session will focus on citywide approaches and initiatives.

Attendees may choose to stay on the same pathway for both work group sessions or switch pathways in the afternoon.

Building a Better Bridge: Preparing Students for Post-Secondary Success

In our increasingly complex society, all young people will need to master a variety of skills and competencies for success in the job market and for effectively navigating life as 21st century citizens. Many of these skills can be gained only through post-secondary degrees and certificates. Recent research offers new insights on how to prepare young people for post-secondary opportunities. The Success Boston initiative brings lessons from the front line of college transitions to policy-makers and program leaders, as nonprofits and higher education institutions pursue Mayor Menino's goal of doubling the college graduation rate of Boston Public Schools graduates.

AM Speakers:
Sara Stoutland, Ph.D. is a research consultant with expertise in education and urban communities. She has conducted college success research for the Boston Higher Education Partnership. As a research associate at Kennedy School of Government (Harvard), she was involved in efforts to narrow achievement gaps in education. She has conducted several projects on community building in Boston neighborhoods. Stoutland received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Andrew Sum is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles, monographs, and books on regional, national, and state labor markets, on the labor market behavior and problems of young adults and the role of education, literacy, and training in influencing the labor market experiences of adults.

PM Speakers:
Joan Becker is the vice Provost for Academic Support Services at the University of Massachusetts Boston. In this role, she provides leadership and administrative oversight for Undergraduate Studies, the University Advising Center, Academic Support Programs, the Office of Career Services and Internships, the Ross Center for Disability Services, and Pre-collegiate and Educational Support Programs.
Elizabeth Pauley is a Senior Program Officer with the Boston Foundation focusing on the Education Sector. Having started out in the classroom, she moved into education administration at the Massachusetts Department of Education to influence the conditions under which our country educates its children.
Mandy Savitz-Romer, Ph.D. is a faculty member and director of the Prevention Science and Practice program, a Master's degree program that prepares school and community based counselors and practitioners at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Savitz-Romer's professional experience has allowed her to link research to practice in the field of school counseling, specifically as it relates to college access and retention for urban students. Prior to HGSE, Savitz-Romer was the associate director of the Boston Higher Education Partnership, where she led research, policy and programmatic initiatives focused on promoting college access, readiness and support for Boston Public School students. She previously taught courses in school counseling and post secondary planning at Boston University. As a former urban school counselor, Savitz-Romer is particularly interested in how schools and districts structure counseling support systems and college planning efforts to reach all students. Her work in promoting academic achievement for Boston students has also included directing various enrichment programs for middle school, high school and first-year college students in the Boston Public Schools, Boston University, Boston College and Simmons College. Dr. Savitz-Romer is currently working on a book that examines the developmental dimensions of college access and success. Savitz-Romer holds a PhD in Higher Education and a Master's degree in School Counseling.

Back into the Fold: Strategies for Re-Connecting Young People to Learning

How do we bring young people back into a system that has not worked for them? Breakthrough research reveals the key factors that lead to school dropout and enables early identification of those who may be most likely to leave the system before graduation. Learn how this research is providing a framework for preventive strategies and interventions—and how Boston is working to create a network of support to increase its graduation rate.

AM Speakers:
Dr. Robert Balfanz is a principal research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University. He is the co-director of the Talent Development Secondary Project, which is currently working with over 100 high poverty secondary schools to develop, implement and evaluate comprehensive school transformation and turnaround. his work focuses on translating research findings into effective reforms for high poverty secondary schools. He has published widely on secondary school reform, high school dropouts, middle grade on-track indicators, chronic absenteeism and instructional interventions in high poverty middle and high schools. He is the Director of the Everyone Graduates Center launched in February 2009 which engages in analytic, tool and model development, and capacity building efforts aimed at ending the nation's graduation rate crisis. Dr. Balfanz is also the Co-Operator of the Baltimore Talent Development High School, a Baltimore City Public School System Innovation High School and Director of the Talent Development/Diplomas Now US Department of Education Investing in Innovations validation grant project. Dr. Balfanz is the first recipient of the Alliance For Excellent Education's Everyone a Graduate Award.
Michael Brown is CEO and Co-Founder of City Year, a nonprofit organization built on the belief that young people can change the world. Founded in 1988 City Year unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time community service, leadership development and civic engagement. This year more than 1,750 City Year corps members are helping to address the nation's high school dropout crisis and turnaround low performing schools by serving as full-time tutors, mentors and role models in high poverty schools in 20 U.S. cities. City Year also has programs in Johannesburg and London. City Year served as an inspiration for AmeriCorps, the federal initiative through which more than 675,000 Americans have served their country. City Year has more than 13,000 alumni who have contributed more than 20 million hours of service and earned access to $55 million in college scholarships through the AmeriCorps National Service Trust. In 2009, Michael announced In School & On Track: A National Challenge, City Year's national initiative to significantly increase the urban high school graduation pipeline in America. For his work developing City Year and advancing the national service movement, Michael has been awarded the Reebok Human Rights Award and several honorary degrees. He was named one of America's Best Leaders by US News & World Report and an Executive of the Year and a member of the Power and Influence Top 50 by the NonProfit Times. Michael is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

PM Speakers:
Emmanuel Allen is an outreach worker in a pilot program created by the Boston Private Industry Council. The program is designed to help dropout students get back in to school and on track. As a lifelong Boston resident, he is dedicated to the success and achievement of urban youth. For the past fifteen years Emmanuel has worked with a wide variety of youth ranging from homeless, high risk youth to first-year college students. During his five years at Codman Square Health Center, he helped manage and organize programs targeted toward reducing violence in the Codman Square area. He was a mentor for high school students for four years and also managed Fitchburg State College program which provided high school students with an opportunity to live on campus for a summer. Emmanuel holds a B.S. from Fitchburg State College in Computer Information Systems.
Dr. Robert Balfanz (see above).
Stephanie Wu leads the design of City Year's school-based service model called Whole School Whole Child, which places teams of young adults to work full-time in urban schools to support students who are at risk of dropping out. The program is in 20 cities and hundreds of schools across the country. Stephanie came to City Year from the private sector in 1988 as a founding team leader in City Year's summer pilot program. During City Year's first decade she developed and implemented projects serving Boston youth in school and out of school programs as well as founded City Year's Academy, putting in place foundational programs on City Year's culture, ideals, history, programs and leadership techniques. Stephanie is a graduate of Boston University.

Carpe Diem: Leveraging After-School, Summer & the Expanded Day

As we work to prepare the population for the increased challenges of living in a complex global society, we must embrace a new definition of accountability that includes multiple actors across the community, and a broadened understanding of what constitutes a learning experience. Boston has been recognized nationally for its strategies to complement the formal school day and year with other enrichments and supports that experts consider vital to young people’s thriving. The recently launched Summer Learning Project offers early lessons on how to develop partnerships that are student-centered, results-focused, and school-aligned.

AM Speakers:
Ron Fairchild is the founder of the Smarter Learning Group. Prior to starting the firm, Ron served as CEO of the National Summer Learning Association. The Association's work built on over 15 years of experience and success as the National Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University, where Fairchild was executive director from 2002 through 2009. Under his leadership, the organization grew from a local program to a national intermediary organization that works with a 50-state network of more than 5,000 summer learning program providers that collectively serve more than 2 million young people annually. He is widely recognized as a national authority on how to expand learning opportunities for young people. Fairchild has authored numerous publications and speaks regularly on topics related to public policy, research, and models of effective summer learning programs. His background in education and youth development includes serving as director of education programs with the national office of Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and as an education associate with the Public Education Network in Washington, DC. He is a former classroom teacher with experience teaching both middle and high school students. Fairchild earned a bachelor's degree in political science and history, as well as a master of education degree from Vanderbilt University.
Tina Malti, PhD is currently Visiting Research Scientist in the Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency (PEAR) at Harvard University. Trained as a developmental and clinical psychologist in Europe, her research interests include the development and socialization of resiliency, moral emotions, moral cognition, and social competence, as well as the application of this knowledge in developmentally differentiated, school-based prevention. Her work has been published in highly ranked international journals and as chapters in numerous books..

PM Speakers:
Rahn Dorsey, evaluation Director with Barr Foundation, manages grant making and other activities intended to strengthen the system of out-of-school opportunities for children and youth, so that all of Boston's communities have good options.
Jeffrey Riley, Academic Superintendent for Middle and K-8 Schools for Boston Public Schools.
Peg Sprague is Senior Vice President for community Impact at United Way Massachusetts Bay and the Merrimack Valley (UWMBMV) which serves more than 100 cities and towns in Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire and Maine. In her role Peg oversees the development and implementation of community investment strategies for United Way. Peg has served on a number of s statewide task forces and committees including Governor Patrick's Readiness Task Force, Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Birth to School Age Task Force, and Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Early Childhood and Out of School Time Workforce Development Task Force. She also serves as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care. In collaboration with the Mayor's Office Peg co-led the development of Thrive in 5, Boston's citywide school readiness roadmap. She has over thirty years experience in both the public and private sectors. Peg was recently awarded the 2010 Pioneer in Early Education award by the Urban College. Peg graduated from Simmons College with distinction with a B.A. in education and holds a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership from Wheelock College, where she has served on the adjunct faculty.

From Trauma to Resiliency: Violence Prevention, Intervention & Recovery

This session will feature an international expert in trauma and violence, Robert Macy, who will describe the relationship between trauma and violence. He will link this topic to the driving elements of the Achieving-Connecting-Thriving youth outcomes framework by addressing how positive relationships between teachers and afterschool providers can heal and reduce the risk of violence. His framework and those of the contributors in the afternoon session will also focus on how trauma can give birth to resiliency and strength, and how safe educational programming can play a significant role.

AM Speakers:
Robert Macy, Ph.D. is the Founder and Executive Director of the Boston Center for Trauma Psychology, the Co-Director of a Category III National Center for Child Traumatic Stress Network site at the Trauma Center/JRI in Boston, and the Founder and Executive Director of Boston Children's Foundation, also in Boston. Macy is a pioneer in the field of Traumatic Incident Stress Interventions and violence prevention initiatives for children, youth, their families and their communities exposed to traumatic events including large-scale disasters, terrorist events, and political, community and armed conflict violence. macy is a Research Associate in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Macy designs, implements and evaluates traumatic stress reduction programs, and psychosocial assessment and intervention projects in the United States, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine and Israel, Jordan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Burundi, Eritrea and South Africa.

PM Speakers:
Kevin Andrews is the Headmaster of the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester, MA. Prior to joining NHCS, Kevin served as a high school principal in Brookline and Newton and as a public school teacher. Also, Kevin has worked with several higher education institutions in Boston, most specifically as an adjunct faculty member at Lesley College. IN addition to his service on the MCCPSE board, Kevin serves on the Board of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Kevin is also the co-founder of the Support Network for Innovative Principals and the Project for School Innovation. Kevin holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Masters of Education and Administration from Antioch University.
Gia Barboza, J.D., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of African American studies in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University. Dr. Barboza recently analyzed the impact of summer employment on more than 400 14-24 year olds in three high violence Boston neighborhoods. Before joining the Northeastern Faculty, Barboza served as director of research and evaluation for the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, INC., a community-based planning and organizing non-profit. She also served as a post-doctoral fellow at the institute for Quantitative Social Science, at Harvard University, and as a research associate at the Department of Emergency Medicine, at Yale University.
Robert Macy, Ph.D. (see above).
Ed Powell is the Executive Director of StreetSafe Boston and comes from the Boston Private Industry Council, a public-private partnership that connects Boston Public Schools students and other Boston-area young people with employment opportunities. At the PIC, Mr. Powell served as Deputy Director with responsibilities for the organization's legislative strategies. Earlier in his career, he was director of the PIC's school-to-career program. He also worked as a career specialist at Charlestown High School, where he helped to place hundreds of students in summer jobs.

Note: while there are morning & afternoon sessions for the 4 main pathways, there will be one afternoon-only session on the following:

Getting Ahead of the Game: Assessing Strengths & Risks in Youth,
featuring Martin Guhn from the University of British Columbia and PEAR at Harvard University and McLean Hospital.

How can we learn about the internal struggles of young people? How can we detect mental health problems long before they become chronic and debilitating? How can we address socio-emotional well being to foster academic success? In this session, Martin Guhn will show that we can now utilize systematic screens to elicit information from students at the beginning of each school year. A demonstration of such an assessment system will kick off discussion with afterschool providers and school personnel. The session will also focus on how assessments can help determine the most efficacious prevention and intervention strategies.

Martin Guhn is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia and PEAR at Harvard University and McLean Hospital. His school- and community-based research focuses on children's developmental health and wellbeing. Martin conducts large-scale longitudinal data analyses and has expertise in assessment of children's social and emotional competencies and in measurement validation. He received his PhD in Human Development at the University of British Columbia, and holds degrees in psychology and music.