Maximizing and Brokering Available Resources –
The East Bay Collaborative Model

The East Bay Education Collaborative (EBEC) is a group of eight small school districts who gathered together years ago to create a large enough body of schools to take advantage of economies of scale. Collaborative leaders sized up the task of bringing 100% of their students to proficiency and concluded that these goals would require bringing significant amounts of mentoring and professional development to their school communities. The EBEC has eight Field Service representatives from the Department of Education assigned to their districts and schools. RIDE’s Field Service is very useful at brokering information and resources, but those eight individuals could not possibly bring enough capacity to re-tool the 60-some East Bay schools. Similarly, the Collaborative had established relationships with several facilitators from Rhode Island College (RIC) who could provide much expertise, but only on a limited basis.

Working together with Field Service, the RIC facilitators and with the 41 individual schools who agreed to participate actively, EBEC set about to develop their own internal capacity. They began by identifying those professionals already working within the eight districts who could mentor, teach specific skills, or had experience with working through reform initiatives. Having assembled an initial portrait of the in-house capacity, the partners worked on finding ways to fill the unmet needs with outside help. By no means could all needs be met, but when a request had been heard several times – for classroom management or instruction in teaching to standards – the Collaborative could call on its partners to arrange a professional development opportunity that could be used maximally.

The RI Parents Information Network

Only a little more than a year ago, a determined, but loose confederation of disparate parent initiatives managed to secure the resources to band together under one roof, as the RI Parents Information Network (RIPIN). RIPIN does not promise to solve a parents’ problem, but they will continue to help until parents have enough information to solve it themselves. The directors of such programs as Parents as Teachers, the Right Question Project and Family Voices, among others, help parents connect to whatever information, services, advocacy, support groups and training that would help them help their child. RIPIN works closely with the state PTA to spread the word of the available resources. This kind of statewide parent network is a first in RI. RIPIN’s number is: 727-4144.

The Bell Atlantic Education Exchange Website