AVEY By the Numbers: 21-22 Annual Report

AVEY By the Numbers (July 1, 2022)

The past school year has been a challenging time for students, campus staff and families as schools have transitioned to in-person learning, even as the pandemic has continued. In addition to helping students close learning gaps caused by the pandemic, schools have also had to deal with health and mental health challenges, basic needs of families, staffing shortages, attendance and enrollment declines.

If ever there was a time for the district to partner closely with and leverage resources from the community, it has been this year. As a community partner, Austin Voices has collaborated with campus leadership at 18 AISD campuses, working to fill crucial gaps, as we stay true to our mission to improve public education and expand opportunities for students and families. With systems of support, organizing strategies and partnerships already in place before the pandemic, we have been able to quickly pivot to support additional families so that more children can be “in school, every day, ready to learn.”

As proponents of the community school model, Austin Voices has seen the power of bringing all stakeholders to the table to problem-solve around the significant challenges that schools face. This year, we have been able to bring parents and teachers together in community planning dinners, bring youth teams from 11 campuses together to discuss equity issues, and bring over 120 parent leaders together weekly in virtual trainings as part of our Community Block Leader and Promotora programs. Dozens of campus partners meet monthly in our community school alliance meetings, and last summer’s Community School Summit brought together over 200 teachers, staff and parents from 31 campuses for two days of problem-solving and planning for re-integrating students on campus.

Over the past 15 years, we have seen the positive impact of this approach on enrollment, attendance, graduation rate, and academic performance at some of Austin’s neediest campuses. The progress is not always linear, but we have found that stability is a key factor in the success of schools. Stable families mean that kids have better attendance and are able to stay in one school rather than move around. Stable leadership and staff means that teams are able to build and systems are established, as opposed to the constant rebuilding that many low-income schools face. Stable communities are thriving communities with strong relationships and social capital. Stability is a big reason why we invest so much in our Family Resource Centers, community-building strategies, parent and youth leadership training and partnership development.

We are grateful for the outpouring of public support that has allowed us to increase services, as well as the long-term partners, including the City of Austin, Travis County and Austin ISD, who have funded our work for many years.

Here are some of the ways AVEY has supported AISD schools and families in 2021-22:

• 5,836 unduplicated families received wraparound supports through Austin Voices’ Family Resource Centers, including food, clothing, housing and utility supports, access to health and mental health services, legal and immigration, and support for their children’s educational needs. These families have students at 106 AISD campuses, as well as other Austin-area schools. AISD’s funding provides approximately 1/5 of the cost of the FRCs, with Travis County, the City of Austin and AVEY fundraising providing the balance of the funding.
• We continued to provide long-term case management to 368 high-need families through our eight Family Resource Centers, providing services to 1,546 individuals. Without this support, many of these families would disappear from AISD schools.
• We sent home Family Needs Surveys to 18 AISD campuses, providing information on 2,124 families. These surveys are used to proactively contact families needing services, as well as provide important data for campus planning.
• FRC Directors and social workers worked with campuses to call and/or visit hundreds of middle school students who were not involved in virtual learning or who did not come back to school in August/September 2021.
• We organized 34 drive-through food distributions this year (in partnership with Central Texas Food Bank, Burnet MS, Dobie MS, Webb MS and Navarro HS), providing 8,974 families (37,726 people) with over 450,000 pounds of food, children’s books, school supplies and other resources.
• 539 families received a total of $392,163 (average of $728 per family) in direct financial assistance for utilities, rent or other basic needs.
• 4,166 unduplicated adults, youth and children participated in one-time community school events and educational workshops.
• 415 unduplicated adults, youth and children participated in multi-session education classes, including AVEY’s Community Block Leader and Promotora Training Programs, AVEY/Mexican Consulate (Plaza Comunitarias), AISD Adult Education (ESL), ACC Continuing Education (Computer Literacy), Phoenix House (Strengthening Families), Travis County Underage Drinking Prevention Program, Center for Child Protection (Parenting), CHASE (Financial Literacy), SAFE Strong Start (Parenting), Manos de Cristo (Computer and Citizenship), Austin Career Institute (HVAC), Samaritan Center (wellness sessions) and HEB Foundation (Family Camp).
• 845 volunteers spent 3,452 hours supporting AVEY events and programs (food distributions, festivals, teacher appreciation days, campus beautification, etc.).
• We organized large community school festivals/resource fairs including HopeFest and KidsFest (Northeast Vertical Team), STEAMFest (Eastside Vertical Team), and the Burnet Holiday Fair and Burnet Fiesta with over 7,500 participants, in addition to supporting dozens of smaller campus events.
• We trained 122 Community Block Leaders (mostly AISD parents) through weekly virtual training sessions. Each block leader supports an average of 20 families with information about resources, educational technology, parenting challenges and supporting student education, as works as an advocate at their child’s school.
• We trained 40 Community Block Leaders to be Promotoras (Community Health Workers) who provided outreach and health education in over 30 apartment complexes, supported pop-up vaccine clinics with partners and supported AVEY events.  A team of 25 Promotoras were trained to staff the AVEY COVID-Hotline and have made over 6,400 outreach calls to provide outreach and information about COVID vaccines to AISD families. Each promotora is paid for up to 20 hours per week of work, and is linked to continuing education that can eventually lead to a healthcare career.
• Through a federal COVID-19 outreach grant, we provided financial support to seven community partners (African-American Youth Harvest Foundation, Central Texas Food Bank, El Buen Samaritano, People’s Community Clinic, River City Youth Foundation, VaxTogether Austin, Worker’s Defense Project) to expand COVID-19 vaccination outreach efforts across Austin’s highest need communities.
• We collaborated with Walgreen’s and Travis County/Ascension to organize and staff 33 COVID vaccine community-based clinics, with 1,840 people vaccinated. Promotoras are continuing to support ongoing clinics, including weekly clinics at grocercy stores and flea markets.
• Our April, 2022 Youth Equity Summit, in partnership with Rundberg Alliance, Civic Arts and Dobie Middle School, brought together student teams from four middle schools and seven high schools to discuss and action-plan around AISD’s most pressing equity issues. 
• Community School planning dinners restarted this spring (after a break during COVID), with events at Burnet, Dobie, Martin and Webb bringing over 300 parents, teachers, students and staff together to strengthen their schools.
• We partnered with SAFE Alliance to begin a new 2-gen early childhood program to support families with children under the age of five, and who live in the 78752 and 78753 zip code area. This is in addition to our ongoing 2-gen adult education program in partnership with the United Way.
• Our 8-year partnership with the JKL Foundation (funded by Matthew McConaughey) continued to provide after school programming at Akins and Northeast Early College High Schools.

In addition to all of the above, we were able to provide the following through our network of partners:

• 2,830 coats at 12 schools through Coats for Kids.
• 27,573 new and used age-appropriate books for children and youth, in partnership with Bookspring and First Book.
• Support for Thanksgiving and Christmas events at five campuses, including 400 Thanksgiving meals at Dobie Middle School (in partnership with Celebration Church).
• 380 box fans provided to families during the summer heat, in partnership with Family Eldercare.
• School supplies and backpacks were given to over 2,000 students with support from Gaspedal, Austin FC, Celebration Church and Austin Chinese Church.
• Enrolled over 1,000 families in the Austin Police Department Blue Santa holiday assistance program.
• Provided diapers, feminie hygiene supplies and personal hygiene items for hundreds of families through donations from Superior Health Plan, Austin Diaper Bank and local churches.
• Distributed 112 bicycles donated by 100 Bikes for Kids at Austin Voices festivals and resource fairs.

Current locations of Austin Voices’ Family Resource Centers:

Burnet Middle School 

Dobie Middle School

LBJ High School*

Martin Middle School

Mendez Middle School

Navarro Early College High School

Northeast Early College High School*

Webb Middle School

*operated by AISD with support from AVEY

AVEY Report to the City of Austin, Travis County and AISD (Summer 2021)

Every year, Austin Voices delivers a report on its work to the Joint Subcommittees of the City of Austin, Travis County and AISD. The report includes data on the effectiveness of Austin Voices’ Family Resource Center strategy. Click here to see the 2020-21 report.

AVEY By the Numbers (June 24, 2021)

Since the beginning of the pandemic, here are some of the ways we have been supporting AISD families:

• In partnership with the Central Texas Food Bank, AISD Police and other partners, we have distributed food to 24,632 families at 68 drive-through food pantries at Burnet, Dobie, Webb and Navarro sites. Each distribution provides a family of four with enough food for three days. These distributions are continuing twice-monthly throughout the summer and into the new school year.

• We have given 40,000 high-quality age-appropriate new and used books from First Book and Bookspring to families.
• We supported 373 high-need AISD families with $368,416 in rent assistance and support for other crucial needs, as well as $20,000 in rent assistance through the Assistance League of Austin. 192 families were assisted in completing applications to other rent assistance programs, including the Texas Rent Relief, Travis County Rent Assistance and HACA RENT 3.0 programs.
• We have provided $724,889 in utility assistance to AISD families through the Austin Energy Plus 1 program.
• Austin Voices Call Center helped 1194 unduplicated families connect to resources and financial assistance since October, 2020. This effort will continue throughout the summer to assist AISD families.
• We helped families with homes damaged by Winter Storm Uri with $20,000 in grants through Powered by People.
• 475 volunteers have provided 12,500 hours of service in drive-thru food distributions and other events.
• Working with Coats for Kids, we provided 3,293 coats at 12 schools.
• 753 Thanksgiving turkeys and 350 Christmas family meals were provided. Over 2,000 families were connected with the Blue Santa Christmas outreach.
• AVEY and its volunteers contacted 67,250 people about completing the census.
• We sponsored drive-thru back-to-school events at Burnet MS, Dobie MS and Walnut Creek ES for over 1,500 families, as well as the drive-thru HopeFest event at Northeast ECHS.
• We have continued a full program of virtual adult education programs through our partnerships with ACC, the Mexican Consulate, Phoenix House and other partners. These included 22 digital literacy classes in partnership with ACC. 747 students total enrolled in 14 adult education courses.
• We awarded 150 refurbished laptop computers to families in partnership with the Mexican Consulate and AllTogether ATX.
• School supplies, including backpacks, were given to over 2,000 students with support from Gaspedal, Austin FC, Celebration Church and Austin Chinese Church.
• We have provided 500 box fans to families in partnership with Family Eldercare, as well as 44,400 diapers and other hygiene supplies through Austin Diaper Bank.
• We continued to case manage over 500 high-need families through our eight Family Resource Centers, and provided services to 2,397 individuals.
• We have worked with campuses to connect with difficult to reach families, including doing home visits to provide materials about virtual learning.
• We have distributed resource sheets and posters throughout northeast Austin, with QR codes connecting families to the most up-to-date information on resource areas, including health, housing, food and adult education.

• We organized monthly “virtual community school alliance” partner meetings, bringing dozens of resource providers and community members together to strategize during the COVID crisis.
• Our Community Block Leader program has 58 AISD parents from over 20 campuses taking part in weekly zoom training calls. Block leaders reach out, on average, to 20 other families each week with helpful information about resources, connecting to their schools, and advocacy opportunities, including voting and census registration.
• We held a student-led school board candidate forum in October, with students focusing on equity issues during the pandemic.
• In December, we held a Housing, Health and Hunger Virtual Summit with 225 participants from 50 organizations to assess pandemic needs going into the new year.
• On June 7-8, we held a virtual two-day “community school summit” to bring together AISD community schools, as well as community schools from around the state, with 225 attendees. 19 AISD campuses had teams of teachers, staff, parents and community partners focused on innovative strategies to re-engage students, parents, teachers/staff and community partners in the upcoming school year. Each team did a “Shark Tank” presentation, and Austin Voices will be working with teams throughout the summer to assist with implementation of strategies.
• We will be continuing food distributions, re-engagement block par$es and vaccination events throughout the summer to help schools maximize enrollment. Our summer health campaign is aimed at making sure students are ready with immunizations, sports physicals and COVID vaccinations as the enter the new school year.