Greetings!
 Amy B. Cohen
 Director,
 Learn and Serve
 America

Summer has arrived in Washington, DC, and the activity at the Corporation for National and Community Service and Learn and Serve America, in particular, continues at the usual extremely rapid pace. We have been spending a great deal of our time working to detail Learn and Serve America’s Fiscal Year 2006 logic model as a part of the Corporation’s overall logic model. When they are finalized we will make them available to you.

We are, of course, continuing to work with you to finalize grant continuations and to make the new Homeland Security grants. If you did not see the announcement of these grantees in June, you can see it here. Congratulations not only to the grant recipients, but to all of the applicants for these funds. We were able to make awards to only 17.5% of those who applied.

The Corporation’s Board of Directors met here in Washington on June 21 and 22. (If you would like to learn more about the Corporation’s Board of Directors, please visit www.nationalservice.gov/about/role_impact/
organization.asp. In addition to many lively policy discussions, the Board reviewed a series of metrics designed to provide a snapshot of Corporation health and progress. The following chart, compiled from last year’s LASSIE (v.1), was among the metrics reviewed by the Board.I thought it might be of interest to you. The data we currently have indicates that 30% of all Learn and Serve participants are engaging in 20 or more hours of service annually.

Of course, there are several questions to ask of this information: Was the initial question clear? Did all respondents use the same definition of a service hour? Did respondents answer based on a calendar year, a school year, or a semester? I fully expect that we will be able to provide the Corporation Board, and other stakeholders – including your stakeholders – a much fuller, more clear, and more outcome-oriented set of metrics through LASSIE v.2.

Speaking of clarification, Learn and Serve AmericaRulemaking is coming. Those of you who receive funds from Learn and Serve are bound by regulations, provisions, guidance, statutes, and policies that govern the ways in which you conduct activities, use funds, and report on your program. The regulations (45 CFR part 2510 et. seq.) for Learn and Serve America will be updated and, in the process, will incorporate much of what now appears in application guidance and grant provisions. We will be reaching out to you and other stakeholders to allow you to help shape and comment on the updated regulations. A schedule for the rulemaking process, including conference calls and events, will be sent to you soon. We expect to have the new regulations in place in time for our new grants competition in 2006.

As you know, LASSIE v.2 is now open.Thank you to our direct grantees – 98% of you have now entered subgrantees into eGrants.Those entries have been used to generate the emails to your subgrantees to access the system.

If you have or receive any questions about the system, please look for answers on the system’s website: www.lsareports.org

Got the email opened the site without any problems. I am enjoying completing the form online. The form is AWESOME! I really love technology. Thank you for the quick response.

Learn and Serve America is interested in hearing about collaborations between our non-tribal grantees and tribal nations. Types of collaboration could include, but are not limited to, awarding subgrants, conducting training events, providing technical assistance, and selecting as service sites. For those of you who have already submitted your collaboration stories to Christa Chesley (LSA) in the last ten months, you do not need to re-submit your information unless you want to update it. For those of you who are collaborating with tribal nations and have not submitted your stories, please do so within the next three weeks by sending a description of your collaboration activities to Calvin T. Dawson, LSA Indian Tribes and U.S. Territories Coordinator, at cdawson@cns.gov.

All submissions should be based on collaboration activities conducted either under your current LSA grant or under your past 2000-2003 grant (if you had one of them) or under both grants. If you have any questions, please email Calvin.Your submissions will be useful for others who want to create similar collaborations and for updating two Learn and Serve America documents -“Native American Service-Learning: Learning to Serve, Serving to Learn” and “Learn and Serve America Programs in U.S. Territories.” If you do not have copies of these documents and would like to receive free copies, please go to the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse website at www.servicelearning.org/lib_svcs/ordering_publications/.

Learn and Serve America and AmeriCorps*VISTA are also very interested in hearing your stories of collaboration.We are working to compile program examples of Learn and Serve and VISTA collaboration that can be used by the national offices of VISTA and Learn and Serve America, by Learn and Serve programs interested in using VISTA as a resource, and by the Corporation State Offices, who manage the VISTA program.We intend to share your stories through this newsletter as well.We want to hear from you!Please email Amiko Matsumoto, Learn and Serve America Program Coordinator for Higher Education at amatsumoto@cns.gov.

Plans are underway for a Film Fest at the annual Learn and Serve America conference in November.Please gather the best of your videos and DVDs and pre-screen them.We currently plan to run films on an ongoing basis in the exhibit area, but I would also like to have a screening of some small number of films for a larger audience one night of the conference – with popcorn.Watch this space and your email inbox for the call for film for the conference…coming in the fall.

 Learn and Serve America
 Annual Grantee Meeting

Our grantee meeting will once again be held in the Washington, DC metro area.

The Corporation for National and Community Service, in cooperation with ACKCO, Inc., will sponsor the Fourth National Conference on Service in Indian Country on December 14-16, 2004 in Sparks, Nevada (just outside of Reno).The Conference will bring together tribal representatives, service programs, and potential partners.It will focus on national and community service as a means to strengthen local communities. The Conference will offer participants an opportunity to share ideas and experiences, learn about tools and resources that might help them create or enhance service and service-learning programs to meet critical needs, and make contacts and join networks for support and collaboration in the future.

The Conference will offer a variety of workshops. Some of last year’s workshops included: Service-Learning Basics: How to Develop and Maintain an Effective Service-Learning Program; Service on Common Ground: Creating Effective Partnerships; Learn and Serve America Performance Measurement; E-Grants and Reporting; Managing a Service-Learning Grant; Linking History and Civics with Your Service Program; and Intergenerational Service-Learning: Youth and Elders Serving Their Communities Together.As you can see from this sampling, workshops are applicable to tribal and non-tribal groups.Thus, Learn and Serve America recommends the Conference to all of its grantees and requires its tribal grantees to attend.

The Conference agenda will be finalized by late Summer/early Fall.At that time, Learn and Serve America will provide you with the link for the Conference website, which will contain detailed information on the event.

This sold-out event was attended by 80 people from community-based organizations (CBO) most of whom were not affiliated with Learn and Serve America. The organizations represented ran the gamut from large national nonprofits such as Center for Youth As Resources and the National Youth Leadership Council to State Commissions (including Mississippi, Kansas, Colorado and Tennessee) to small faith- and community-based organizations such as the Volunteer Action Center of Greater Lorain County, OH and the Interfaith Caring Ministries of League City, TX.

Attendees heard from: David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS); Amy Cohen, Director of Learn and Serve America; Patrick Doyle, Director, Youth & Family Programs at the Points of Light Foundation; and Brad Lewis, Learn and Serve America Program Coordinator for Community-Based Programs. They then discussed program issues over a lovely lunch and spent the last half hour reporting out on their discussions.

Sharing from the tables included identifying program evaluation and participant assessment methods as a common challenge, recounting successes in community partnerships (with schools, institutions of higher education and others), and a number of creative program approaches. Many resources were also shared, including a new CBO CD-ROM resource entitled: “Community-Based Service-Learning: Perspectives and Practices” which included information on definitions, developing partnerships, and other practical tools. (This resource is soon to be available at the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse – www.servicelearning.org). Additionally, resources were provided by the Center for Youth As Resources, the YMCA of the USA, and the USA Freedom Corps/CNCS – “Students In Service To America”.

For extensive additional information on Community-Based Service-Learning, visit: www.servicelearning.org or call: 866-245-7378.

The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, a program of Learn and Serve America, features timely information and relevant resources on service-learning in all sectors and at all levels of practice. Visit the NSLC website often for new resources and services. The LSA Grantee Page on the NSLC website features highlights and resources especially for grantees of Learn and Serve America. The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse shares news quarterly on its resources and services through nslc-resources.

You can have each issue of the LSA-News emailed to you. Visit LSA-News Online to subscribe, update your e-mail address, or remove your name and address from our newsletter list. Have questions or need help signing up? Contact webmaster@servicelearning.org.

Under its Learn and Serve America grant, The Community College National Center for Community Engagement (CCNCCE) convened 14 tribal college representatives for intensive training in writing and service-learning.From May 26-28, 2004, the representatives attended a one day writing workshop followed by a two day national conference for community colleges and service-learning practitioners.Both events were held in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The writing workshop was attended by representatives from: Dine College (AZ); Fond du Lac College (MN); Leech Lake Tribal College (MN); Sisseton Wahpeton College (SD); Turtle Mountain Community College (ND); Cankdeska Cikana Community College (ND); Wind River Tribal College (WY); Sitting Bull College (ND); Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College (MI); College of Menominee Nation (WI); Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College (WI); Stone Child College (MT); Salish Kootenai College (MT); and Northwest Indian College (WA).

The writing training, which used a storytelling approach, was conducted by Joseph Swaba and Adrienne Mitchell from Maricopa Community Colleges District.Presentations also were made by Calvin T. Dawson, Learn and Serve America Tribal Coordinator; Lyvier Conss, Executive Director for CCNCCE; Beverly Perry, Program Administrator for CCNCCE’s Learn and Serve America grant; and Ola Jackson, Associate Dean, Riverside Community College (CA).Also attending the workshop were Dean McGovern, Executive Director of Montana Campus Compact, and Karen Solomon, Assistant Director for Accreditation Services at the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

The tribal college representatives and James Tutt, President of Crownpoint Technical College (a tribal college in New Mexico that is a past Learn and Serve America sub-grantee), participated in CCNCCE’s 13^th Annual Conference.The Conference, which was attended by over 350 community college representatives and service-learning practitioners, was titled “Adapting to The Paths of Change: Service-Learning and Civic Engagement.”It featured numerous service-learning workshops and plenary sessions.Featured speaker was John Tagg, Associate Professor at Palomar College (CA) and author of “The Learning Paradigm College.”His presentation explored the role of learning outside the classroom in reforming the classroom.He outlined approaches to deepening and extending the curriculum and lengthening the time horizon of learning by engaging students in serious reflection on ill-structured problems.

After three days of intensive training and opportunities to network with service-learning practitioners from the United States and the U.S. Territories, the tribal college representatives returned home to either start or enhance service-learning programs on their campuses.

If you would like to have your policy, research, or practice news highlighted in the LSA Update , please send a short description to your program officer or to Amy Cohen. We publish the LSA Update on a quarterly basis.

At the Learn & Serve America project at Jackson Academy of Applied Technology (JAAT) in Marianna in north Florida , students are intensively involved in landscape restoration and water testing in the Chipola River watershed. They are now working with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide data on conditions in the imperiled Chipola River watershed. JAAT is the first high school in United States to be named a DEP/EPA water testing data center and a member of EPA's STORET data collection site program. STORET is a data management system for water quality information for the nation's waters--it is the EPA's largest computerized environmental data system. Short for STO rage and RET rieval, STORET is a repository for water quality, biological, and physical data and is used by state environmental agencies, EPA and other federal agencies, universities, private citizens, and many others.

The Learn & Serve program at JAAT started with a 5 Star EPA grant "Chipola River Restoration Project" and has expanded to involving students in restoration of forest areas along the Chipola River , building habitat for endangered species, and water testing. In fall 2004, the school will begin loading data into the STORET system and is working on a partnership with US Fish and Wildlife to complete a water study on the entire Chipola River , a local river which is the major tributary to the Apalachicola River.

In April 2003, the legislature passed a bill permitting school districts to add a community service endorsement to high school diplomas.  In addition, service learning is defined as a method of teaching and learning which engages students in solving problems and addressing issues in their school or greater community as part of the academic curriculum.  Also, the School Improvement Committee shall consider recommendations to infuse character education in the educational program.

A new Learn and Serve Higher Education grantee in 2003, NKU is organizing and implementing Freedom-Focused Service-Learning projects. Project Coordinator Barbara Wallace works with NKU faculty, NKU's Institute for Freedom Studies, NKU students, and Covington Independent School District teachers to plan and implement projects that explore freedom and the role of the Underground Railroad in the region. The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and the Community Action Commission are also involved with the initiative. Student-driven projects include an age-appropriate literacy development component for the K-12 students, and act to develop the civic leadership skills of the NKU students. Covington students were invited to campus to present their projects to the community at the first ever Freedom Day Celebration this spring.

Fran Rudoff, Executive Director of the KIDS Consortium, gave us a promising update on Maine 's Citizenship Education Policy. As a result of a Legislative Study Commission's look at the scope and quality of K-16 Citizenship Education in Maine , recommendations were made to the Maine Department of Education. Recommendations include integrating opportunities for real-life experiences and the development of civic participation skills throughout all content areas of Maine 's Learning Results (the state's academic standards); a focus on teacher education and certification; providing resources on best practices; the civic mission of colleges and universities; and voter education and registration. View the full report.

On May 6, 2004, Maine Governor John Baldacci signed legislation called, "Resolve, To Implement the Recommendations of the Commission to Study the Scope and Quality of Citizenship Education," that directs the Maine Department of Education and the Maine State Board of Education to create a Task Force to begin its work during the summer of 2004, and report to the Legislature in December 2005.

The Resolve also directs the Maine Department of Education to consider the Legislative Commission recommendations as they review the Learning Results (required by state law) beginning this year. Finally, the Resolve directs the Legislative Youth Advisory Council to "conduct a series of statewide public forums on issues important to youth and invite Legislators from the various regions of the state to participate in these public forums." **

[** Note: The Maine Legislative Youth Advisory Council, created in 2002, is directed to advise the Legislature on proposed and pending legislation, state budget expenditures and policy matters related to youth, and advise the joint standing committees and study commissions, committees and task forces on issues related to youth. The Council reports annually to the Legislature and is authorized to submit legislation. More information.

Due to the state's severe budget constraints, state general funds were not appropriated for the work outlined by the Resolve. Existing federal grant funds provided by the Maine Department of Education and the Maine Campus Compact will help begin this initiative. Additional grant funds and other sources of income will be sought by the Department and key partners over the coming months.

In addition to the Resolve, Governor Baldacci also signed into law a bill giving 17 year-olds the right to vote in primary elections (beginning in 2005) when they will be turning 18 prior to the general election in November. This law will be an important step toward integrating voting into the curriculum of high schools across the state.

For additional information, please contact Liz McCabe Park at Maine Campus Compact (epark@bates.edu) or Fran Rudoff at KIDS Consortium (frudoff@kidsconsortium.org).

In addition, the Tennessee service-learning coordinator is crediting the student service-learning activities to an increase in state and national testing for science and social studies.

Also from Tennessee , Jan Bushing, the Tennessee Department of Education LSA Director, just sent us some positive results from their 2000-2003 Learn and Serve formula program evaluation. Jan indicates that the study has captured analytically the results teachers have reported anecdotally for years. For more information, please contact Jan Bushing at 615-741-0345 or jan.bushing@state.tn.us.

From the executive summary of the evaluation, authored by Dr. Molly Laird:

“Teachers in Tennessee who led students in service-learning projects collected student pretest and posttest data that showed significant growth in life skills, school, career, work motivation, and civic responsibility for participating elementary, middle and high school students. Student changes in attitudes and projected behavior were strongest for those students who, before service-learning, were at-risk of academic failure and yet improved after service-learning. Comparison students, who did not participate in service-learning, had no improvements in either attitudes or behavior.

When students participating in service-learning were compared to peers in the same or similar schools who did not participate in service-learning, there were several outcomes. Students who participated in service-learning were the only ones to increase their social competency, career, leadership and citizenship assets. Comparison group students who did not participate in service-learning showed no significant changes on these important life dimensions.

Students in an at-risk academy had behavioral change and school performance increases. Over three years of the project, they doubled the number of students involved in service-learning and some behavioral results included an improved attendance rate from 2001 to 2003 from 91% to 97% and for the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment, the Writing Assessment passing rate increased from 70% in 2001 to 79% in 2003, and perhaps as a culmination of the improved student attendance and students writing reflections for service-learning, the yearly reading grades for students involved in service-learning rose from 79.04% to 86.36%.”