This innovative system will ensure that more middle school students have access to quality learning opportunities after school, however, this project is still in great need of community support.  We need community leaders to own this project, funds to support development and growth and volunteers to use their expertise and time to keep this wonderful community effort off the ground and flourishing.

LTOTN would not have formed without the eagerness of our community to support out of school time learning and the healthy development of Asheville teens.  It is amazing that our community pulled together to support and build this project, but this is only the beginning and success will depend on collaboration from all levels of our unique and vibrant city.

Check out the awesome Fall programs!

ABYSA (Soccer)

UNCA Craft Campus

The Health Adventure

Asheville Art Museum

FEAST (teacher club) (organic gardening and healthy cooking classes)

Our Voice-Climbing Towards Confidence

YWCA

NC Outward Bound

Torch Club – Boys & Girls Club

NC Stage Company

Cougar Mountain Club (teacher club)

Directing Ourselves Movie Making

POETIX

French Club (teacher club)

Roots + Wings School of Art

Cougar Creativity Club (teacher club)

Delta House (academic support)

LEAF in Schools and Streets (music from around the world)

WNC AIDS Project

Building Bridges (relationships across divides)

LTOTN will offer three 8-week sessions

Fall:  September 20th - November 19th

Winter:  January 10th – March 12th

Spring:  March 21st - May 27th

Middle school students have aged out of most of the after school and special summer programs and, under current laws, they are too young to work. This leaves them potentially vulnerable and bored. The number of hours they may be without constructive activity over the course of their middle school life (from 3:30 – 6 PM five days a week and 2 ½ months in the summer for three years), is 10,000 hours! (It is ironic that this is the total number of hours that Malcolm Gladwell found were necessary to create mastery in any given area.) Left on their own, without affordable, healthy options, these curious and independent kids are often drawn into drugs, violence, and other risky behavior (not exactly what we want them mastering!).

What Asheville discovered in it’s 85 interviews with a cross section of the school’s student population is that young teens, age 12 – 14, are full of a sense of maturity, independence, and competence. They have great ideas about how they can serve their community and support younger children and 60% of them would like meaningful opportunities for service after school and in the summer. This is the age when children pass into young adulthood and their sense of who they are and how they can contribute to their families and community changes significantly. They hold great promise for most communities—if we can find meaningful ways to engage them.

In Asheville, a team of volunteers interviewed a cross-section of 85 youth in the middle school, facilitated focus groups with 5^th and 9^th graders, interviewed parents and facilitated parent focus groups.  This was followed by a 1½ day Appreciative Inquiry summit. Cheri Torres of Collaborative by Design worked with the Asheville City Schools to design a process that would ensured the following:

• voices of youth were heard
• best practices and strengths found their way into the conversations
• participants collaborated
• shared outcomes and a vision were generated
• collaborative future action was taken

More than 80 community members, including parents, students, service providers, government and school officials, police officers, and business members attended the summit. In just a day and a half, they generated a vision, a commitment to a community collaboration, and formed four Action Teams for moving forward in creating out-of-school programming for middle school youth.  Here is the Listening to Our Teens Network (LTOT Network) vision:

The Listening to Our Teens Network delivers a coordinated menu

of highly experiential and relevant after-school and summer programs

designed and evaluated with student/young teen input.  These

programs are made possible by a collaboration of individuals,

community organizations, businesses, and government pooling

their resources so all middle school youth are empowered by

opportunities to find their voice and realize their potential.

The hallmarks of every LTOT Network program are:

• Fun
• Creativity
• Enrichment
• Service
• Access

The actions team spent the last part of the morning on the second day developing a plan of action for the upcoming month and a follow up meeting was scheduled.  The action teams hard at work this summer are:

• Network Communication and Coordination
• Engaged Community Leadership
• Research for Development
• Mapping Our Current Resources

For those of you interested in the LTOT Network progress, updates on this community collaboration will be posted as they emerge.  As we learn more from our research, we will share it with others.

For further information about the LTOT Network, contact Kate Pett or Hanna Woody at the Asheville City Schools Foundation or Cheri Torres.

For information about how Providence RI has responded to the same need in their community, you can find out about the Providence After School Alliance. You can also view a number of videos about their program at Edutopia.

Another exceptional program that surfaced in our research was Citizen Schools, an apprenticeship program for middle school students.

Collaborative by Design is hoping to surface public/private partnerships from around the world as well as service provider collaborations that offer new and more sustainable practices for serving young people. Please add to this conversation if you are aware of other collaborative community efforts to create meaningful opportunities and programming for middle school youth.