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National Replication of University-Assisted Community Schools Highlights of the National Replication Project Technical Assistance to Interested university-community-partnerships National Conferences Earlier Phase of the National Replication—The WEPIC Replication Project Institutions of higher education have expressed significant interest in the university-assisted community school model across the country, originally referred to as the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps (WEPIC). From 1993-2004, the "WEPIC Replication Project" helped to adapt the model at 23 sites across the country. It also developed training workshops and follow-up technical assistance (2000-2006) to teams interested in the community school model. Over 75 teams were trained at Penn, and many received onsite visits from project staff. Netter Center staff has also worked with Richard Stockton University of New Jersey and the Atlanta Public Schools, which are developing a university-assisted community schools program at two high schools, with pilot programs starting in Summer 09. For more information, contact Joann Weeks, weeks@pobox.upenn.edu. |
| WEST PHILADELPHIA
IMPROVEMENT CORPS (WEPIC)— The University-Assisted Community School Program WEPIC originated in the spring of 1985 from an honors history seminar co-taught by then Penn President Sheldon Hackney and historians Lee Benson and Ira Harkavy entitled "Urban Universities-Community Relationships: Penn-West Philadelphia, Past, Present and Future, as a Case Study," Each student focused his or her research on a problem in the West Philadelphia community. Four students studied the issue of youth unemployment, and their research resulted in a proposal to create a better and less expensive youth corps – a youth corps that would utilize existing agencies and resources. WEPIC is now a year-round program that involves approximately 10,000 children, their parents, and community members in educational and cultural programs, recreation, job training, community improvement, and service activities. WEPIC seeks to create comprehensive, higher education-assisted community schools that are the social, service delivery, and educational hubs for the entire community. Ultimately, WEPIC intends to help develop schools that are open 24 hours a day and function as the core building of the community.WEPIC is coordinated by the West Philadelphia Partnership - a mediating, non-profit community-based organization composed of institutions (including Penn), neighborhood organizations, and community leaders-in conjunction with the School District of Philadelphia. Other WEPIC partners include community groups, communities of faith, unions, job training agencies, and city, state and federal agencies and departments. WEPIC supports evening and weekend, extended-day, and school-day programs. The evening and weekend programs offer a wide range of educational and cultural classes for children and adults as well as sports and crafts. Community councils provide guidance on program content. Classes are taught by public school teachers, community members, and Penn staff and students. Extended-day and school-day programs emphasize the integration of service learning with academics and job-readiness. WEPIC has developed service-learning programs that are integrated across the curriculum and engage students in creative work designed to advance skills and abilities through serving their schools, families, and community. Focus areas include health and nutrition, the environment, conflict resolution/peer mediation, reading improvement, desktop-published school/community newspapers, technology, and construction training. The academic work done with the WEPIC schools is based upon a community-oriented, real world, problem-solving approach. Activities are focused upon areas chosen by each school's principal and staff. In this neo-Deweyan approach, students not only learn by doing, but also learn by and for service. WEPIC schools serve, educate, and activate students, their families, and other local residents. The idea behind this approach is that schools can function as the strategic and catalytic agents for community transformation. Significant interest in WEPIC's work has been expressed by institutions of higher education across the country. Following a two-year planning period supported by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund that created the WEPIC Replication Project, the Fund awarded a three-year, $1 million grant to adapt the WEPIC program at the University of Kentucky-Lexington, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Miami University (the work focused on Cincinnati). The grant was also dedicated to strengthening the national network of institutions interested in this work. Second level funding for $932,000 was approved in November 1997. In August 1997, the Corporation for National Service (CNS) also awarded a grant of $500,000 to further develop this work. With DeWitt and CNS funding, nine sites were supported. With a new $1.5 million CNS grant in September 2000, the number of funded sites was expanded to twenty. Since January 2000, Penn has also developed a training and technical assistance program on the higher education-assisted community school model in collaboration with the National Center for Community Education through a five-year, $583,000 grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The Mott-funded workshops train more than 50 people annually and on-site technical assistance is provided to each partnership that attends. Local WEPIC replication efforts have also been supported by the CNS. In August 1997, the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND), then a consortium of 25 higher ed institutions, was awarded a three-year grant by CNS of $732,000 to develop service-learning courses at area institutions of higher education as well as support community-initiated projects that are assisted by a university or college. The PHENND consortium has now expanded to include 42 institutions of higher education in the Philadelphia region. While WEPIC works with thirteen schools, the major WEPIC sites have been Turner Middle School, Shaw Middle School, Sulzberger Middle School, Sayre Middle School, Drew Elementary, Wilson Elementary School, Lea Elementary and West Philadelphia and University City High Schools.
Joann Weeks
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