Thousands of recent high school graduates across the U.S. are now enjoying their last summer before beginning college in the fall. While many will diligently complete the enrollment process by submitting deposits, selecting courses, and preparing for a move potentially far away from home, significant numbers of students from low-income communities who have been accepted into college (or might have already even enrolled) do not ultimately show up for college on day one. Rather than continuing their education and improving their life prospects, they simply “melt” away during the summer.

The problem of “Summer Melt” is a nation-wide issue that is affecting Hartford high school graduates, too. Estimates indicate, of the 90% of graduates from Hartford’s high schools who get accepted to college, only about 60% enroll in a postsecondary institution during the first year after graduation. The “Summer Melt Project,” a first-year collaborative initiative launched by the All In! Coalition and housed within Hartford’s College Supports Network is determined to change that.

Martin Estey, Executive Director of the Hartford Consortium for Higher Education and convener of the College Supports Network, explains that, “This is a new collaborative for this city between the Higher Education community, the Hartford Public School District, and the community of providers that help students access college. We have been doing this individually for far too long, and this is an attempt to come together and combine our efforts to significantly boost the numbers of HPS graduates who enter college after high school.”

Alan Kramer, former Dean of Magnet Schools at Goodwin College, is helping lead this project to alleviate a complex problem that disproportionally affects students from inner-city communities.

“First generation students, especially those from urban settings like Hartford, tend to lack support systems to help them through the complex and often frustrating process of getting into and enrolling in college. School counselors aren’t available over the summer, relatively few family members have been to college, and peer pressure from friends who are not college-bound can actively discourage them in the process,” Kramer said.

A team of four college students and recent graduates have been as outreach specialists to reach out to 127 students who are not part of an existing support program and who were identified by their high schools as being at-risk of not enrolling in college this fall.

Efforts include taking student’s “college-going temperature” and helping them solve problems from completing financial aid forms, to identifying strategies for success in the unfamiliar social environments many colleges present. While some students only need friendly reminders about submitting deposits, completing medical clearance forms or selecting their first semester of classes, others require deeper assistance.

“They need support! I couldn’t have done it alone when I went to college. It’s a lot of work,” says Sabrina, one of the outreach specialists on staff. The unavailability of high school guidance counselors during the summer along with limited family support means Sabrina can then fill that critical assistance gap.

When asked what she believed helped her enroll in college on time, Mariana – another outreach specialist – described how the internships and mentors she had in high school stayed with her.  Many Hartford students do not have these extensive support networks. “In college, in many cases, you’re just a number. I want them to know that with us, you are not just a number.”

Despite their committed efforts, Sabrina and Mariana face practical challenges that may limit the impact they have this summer. Out of the 127 students they and the two other counselors are tasked with reaching out and assisting, they have been unsuccessful in even contacting 40 of them, despite repeated phone calls, texts, and emails.

Going Beyond Outreach

It’s a good thing the Summer Melt Project isn’t simply relying on outreach to get the job done.

Connecting directly to the colleges that have accepted Hartford students is the key to what makes this work systemic. The ‘systemic’ change happening here has to do with relationships newly forged between Hartford Public Schools, the greater Hartford higher education community and the various community-based organizations, and how these working relationships are sustainably changing behavior and practice.

Exciting improvements already include sharing more data, aligning attention and action to rally around and solve agreed upon high priority problems (e.g. Summer Melt), and joining forces to fix holes and leaks in our city’s talent pipeline.

This systemic work translates all the way down to programs too, with efforts by the Summer Melt Action Team driving changes to how the High School Senior Exit Survey is administered and how that data is shared and used.

That’s entirely new in Hartford and all three groups (Higher Education, HPS, college prep programs) will be mutually accountable. “This is something that I am very proud of,” adds Estey.

Bottom Line  

Going forward, the Summer Melt Project is committed to both understanding the extent of the problem and treating it for those currently affected. By collecting and analyzing data on these 127 Hartford students, the team hopes to develop a systemic solution that doesn’t require new money.

“While our immediate goal is to help as many of these students as possible overcome the obstacles they face right now,” said Kramer, “any long-term strategy requires that we identify leverage points that can better help future students. We’re collecting data on every intervention we try and the numbers of students who are actually helped by these interventions. We’ll use this information to develop strategies for the future.”

A former journalist who covered civil rights and school finance cases in the federal and state courts, Kent Ashworth was an incredible find for Achieve Hartford! back in 2010. In honoring his departure from Achieve Hartford!, we start by recognizing that we could not have become what we have without the incredible contributions of Kent Ashworth.

“Back then, we were really just getting our feet under ourselves and operating as a start-up nonprofit, so bringing on someone with Kent’s experience to shape and write our flagship communications tool Education Matters! was a big deal,” said Executive Director Paul Diego Holzer.  Iterating both the content parameters and the design for Ed Matters! each year, Kent helped the organization find its voice while creating a valuable window into education in Hartford for so many readers.

Now, as Achieve Hartford! takes its focus in a new direction focused more directly on student outcomes, Ed Matters! is restructuring and so is the small staff.  “After seven years as our Lead Writer, we owe Kent a huge debt of gratitude, and both the staff and the board of directors acknowledge his contribution to the small organization he helped shape all these years,” Holzer added.

Kent brought a lifetime of wisdom into interviews and his writings on leadership, equity in education, and speaking out about injustice. Whether coming from his time covering as a journalist the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress to working on the ground on criminal justice and recidivism issues down in New Orleans, his context has been rich.  Also, having served previously as Director of Dissemination for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), as well as Public Information Officer in Trenton, New Jersey for eight years, Kent brought his experience in – and his passion for – America’s cities, always focusing on the intersection between urban problem-solving and the interests of children.

“I can’t tell you how many times Kent diagnosed the problems in Hartford so accurately, based on what he had seen elsewhere,” Nyesha McCauley noted.  “We’ve taken so much from Kent these past seven years and I know we are all going to try hard to hold on to that unique disposition he had to always get perspectives from those on the ground who know the work, and to always try and keep people honest.”

In honoring Kent’s contribution to Achieve Hartford! and to the City as a whole, we invite you to read a few of his Education Matters! stories from over the years, as well as a few of his publications, listed in chronological order:

Adamowski final Hartford days interview

Keeping the HBOE honest on attendance

Principal attrition in Hartford

Edfocus publication on principal attrition

2016 Annual Letter to Stakeholders

Recommendations on Sheff

Interview with departing Superintendent Dr. Beth Schiavino-Narvaez

From all of the staff at Achieve Hartford!, and the board of directors, we say thank you, Kent Ashworth, for your non-stop dedication to the children, families, educators and advocates of Hartford.

Last October we launched the All In! Coalition, a partnership between several public and nonprofit organizations designed to address Hartford’s talent needs by increasing high school graduation, post-secondary enrollment, and post-secondary completion.

Martin Estey, Executive Director of the Hartford Consortium for Higher Education and a member of the All In! Steering Committee, has taken the lead on the College Supports Network (CSN).

This summer, the CSN is hard at work driving the All In! Coalition’s Summer Melt Action Team, which has brought together high school counselors and college admissions staff to identify recent high school graduates who have already been accepted to college, but remain at risk of not enrolling. The students are then engaged by near-peer outreach specialists—current college students who have been hired and trained for the task by the Consortium—to ensure the graduates can and do in fact enroll, with a goal of increasing college enrollment rates among Hartford high school graduates.

Meanwhile, progress is finally being made on another action team related to longitudinal data analysis looking at the post-secondary success of Hartford graduates.

Back in April, the Hartford Public Schools (HPS) and Lincoln Financial Group signed an agreement—effective for two years, starting May 1—that has the potential to seriously improve the way data is used in shaping policy and practice in Hartford education.

Under this agreement, the district will be sharing seven years’ worth of unidentifiable student-level data with data scientists at Lincoln Financial, who will be conducting a rigorous analysis. From this analysis, they will produce a data dashboard and a predictive model over the next three months that will allow us to look at the correlation between factors such as geography, socio-economic status, high school of origin, GPA, and SAT scores and post-secondary completion.

“We are very excited to be partnering with Lincoln Financial Group and the Hartford Consortium for Higher Education,” says Kate England, Chief of Academics, Teaching and Learning, and Student Supports at HPS. “This collaboration will allow the Hartford Public Schools to use predictive analytics to identify attributes and experiences of successful college-going high school graduates, better ensuring their persistence at the post-secondary level.”

But HPS is not the only organization that will benefit from that information. While the data scientists complete their work, the All In! Coalition will be convening stakeholders to determine how best to communicate the results of this project to other decision-makers who need it – such as college prep programs serving Hartford youth.

Bottom Line

The potential impact of a predictive model on decision-making is difficult to overstate. It will create a situation where both service providers and funders will have access to clear and rigorous analysis on which factors are the largest predictors of student post-secondary success. The entire city is going to be presented with a unique opportunity to use this model to drive priorities in their funding and programming decisions.  We will have more on the findings in the fall.