Below is the text from the Executive Summary from this report. The complete report can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.
A Summary Evaluation of
Project CO-SEED
at the Vinalhaven School
2005-2008
Prepared for:
Antioch New England Institute,
The Vinalhaven School,
and
The Island Institute
Prepared by:
Michael Duffin,
and
PEER Associates, Inc.
October, 2008
Executive Summary
Project CO-SEED’s purpose is to help schools and communities work together to develop community- and place-based approaches to education while simultaneously strengthening the community and helping the environment. This evaluation report presents a summative view of CO-SEED working with the Vinalhaven, Maine school and community from 2005-2008. The report focuses primarily on actionable recommendations for the near future in order to complement the broader narrative story format of a book chapter essay that covers similar topical ground and is presented together with the evaluation report. Data analyzed for this evaluation included interviews or focus groups conducted over the course of three years with 117 adults (teachers, community members, administrators, program staff) and 18 students, as well as many documents,
notes, and additional conversations collected over the same time period.
In sum, this evaluation found that CO-SEED contributed to substantially increased educational connections to the community during its three years on Vinalhaven.
The four main themes that emerged from the data, along with the recommendation that followed from each one, are presented in Table 1 below and discussed in more detail in the main body of this report. Collectively, these themes describe how CO-SEED played a vital supporting role rather than the dominant leading role in the school culture and curriculum change process. Because most of the data and analysis are focused at the level of school and community phenomena the impact on students was often implicit. It should be noted, however, that students were clearly the primary beneficiaries of the school and community level effects described. This report also provides a brief review of evaluation and research beyond Vinalhaven that is generally consistent with the findings from this particular evaluation.
Table 1. Summary of Main Themes and Recommendations
for Evaluation of CO-SEED at Vinalhaven
Main Themes |
Recommendations
Place-based education is most likely to flourish on Vinalhaven if...
|
1. Community culture and politics were major factors affecting school change |
1. ...the new superintendent builds a new and broader coalition of support for the current direction of the school. |
2. Increasing curricular coherence helped teachers and promoted PBE |
2. ...the school leader focuses on institutionalizing the PBE curriculum and culture, including continued development and refinement of both. |
3. Many PBE projects were successfully implemented on the ground |
3. ...the leadership team owns and drives on the ground implementation of PBE, including documentation and celebration of successful projects. |
4. Claims of success were closely linked to CO-SEED funding and staff resources |
4. ...some group (perhaps PIE) creates a mechanism to continue something like mini-grants. |
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quote boxes...
“I definitely see an increase in teachers and student projects that are more immersed into the community... More people [are] looking at not having the school be a separate entity.” - Vinalhaven Community Member
"I feel this new wave of energy. These kids have got these visions about what they want to do and how they can see the [ARC] being used.... There’s all kinds of applause and excitement that they get for their work and it just leads them to wanting to do more.” - Vinalhaven Community Member
“It’s [about] continuing to increase the rigorousness of [parent involvement] and evaluating our curriculum more and what we’re doing to improve rigor and reaching all learners.” - Vinalhaven Administrator
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