Maine Initiative Helps Students Understand
Financial Aid
The Obama administration is working to simplify the federal aid application system, and for many Maine students and their parents, it will be a welcome improvement. Fortunately for them, the Maine Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (MASFAA) created the School Support Initiative a year ago to help more low-income Maine families navigate the financial aid process, including filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Because low-income families file the FAFSA at a much lower rate than more affluent families — and also attend college at a lower rate — MASFAA established this initiative with the help of funding from the MELMAC Education Foundation in Maine. Financial aid administrators from most postsecondary institutions in Maine are working successfully with high school counselors on 30 teams that provide personal financial aid counseling to at-risk college-bound students and their parents.
“Maranacook was one of the pilot programs in 2008-09, and we learned a great deal about what works and what doesn’t,” said Shannon Bergeron, a counselor at Maranacook Community High School and a member of the MASFAA advisory committee. “I believe all students can continue on to higher education, and my interest in this program is to help knock down barriers for students and families.”
As a first-generation student, Bergeron knows firsthand how daunting and overwhelming the application process can be, particularly when trying to understand the complexities of financial aid. “My colleagues and I know the families in our schools, and we can personally identify those students who have barriers to accessing higher education,” she said. “They might be first generation, low income, emancipated minors or have a number of other circumstances.” Her role, says Bergeron, is to work with students who have little support at home, and find out who needs the most help. “Then I talk with the parents,” she said, “ and if they agree to work with a financial aid administrator, I coordinate a time for them to meet with our aid partner at my school. Once the connection is made, our partner works directly with the family throughout the process, on everything from filling out the FAFSA and CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE to going over the award letters with the families.”
“The partnership itself has increased access between high schools and colleges,” added Bergeron. “Both the financial aid and counseling communities have been enriched by this partnership.”
MASFAA is working to develop a robust evaluation mechanism to measure progress and determine matriculation success from year to year. Informal partnerships between high schools and Maine colleges have naturally evolved over the years. Many aid administrators know the counseling staff at nearby high schools and volunteer to make presentations as a matter of public service. Twenty-five MASFAA members volunteered to serve as financial aid counselors for the MASFAA School Support Initiative in the inaugural year, many with high schools they were already serving. Future teams will undoubtedly follow a similar pattern.
Meanwhile, the College Board’s state grant simplification study seeks to help participating states align their aid systems with the federal aid system. It will also allow more students to have access to the aid they need, along with helpful information far in advance of when they are ready to start college. The project is working quickly and directly with State Higher Education Executive Officers, along with an advisory committee including state representatives, state policy experts and members of the College Board’s Rethinking Student Aid study group. Read about the Rethinking Student Aid study group’s report and statements of support at: www.collegeboard.com/rethinkingstudentaid.
A Note from New England Region VP Mike Bartini
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 Mike Bartini |
There are many outstanding programs and events going on in our region, and we wanted to feature a few of them here on our regional page. The first is the Maine School Support Initiative, which helps low-income Maine families navigate the ever-complex financial aid process. About a year ago, financial aid professionals at many of Maine’s colleges and universities began to work with high school counselors, coming in and meeting with students and their parents and offering financial aid counseling. Another terrific program is the Boston Science Partnership, which has been working for the past five years to improve science education by helping to license more teachers who can teach more advanced science courses — including AP® Physics, Chemistry and Biology — to more students. Also this month, the New England Regional Office has begun to offer workshops on the College Board’s Student Search Service®, a tool that helps colleges and universities better identify and recruit prospective students. You can read more about these three items in separate pieces on this page.
This month, I want to highlight one individual in our office, Patty Blanchette, NERO’s senior director for K–16 initiatives, who is consistently committed to addressing the needs of, and providing excellent service to, NERO’s constituents. Because of New England’s unique geography and demographics, this position allows the entire NERO staff to build synergies between constituents in the K–12 and higher education arenas by facilitating and encouraging their collaboration. Patty’s position is particularly focused on the critical span between sixth grade and freshman year, which allows us to more effectively serve students by finding ways to help educators on both sides make the most of our programs, services and data so that they can help more students connect to postsecondary education, and be successful there.
I want to thank everyone in our office for another outstanding year full of triumphs and transitions. It goes
without saying that all of our region’s programs, workshops and events are the result of a lot of effort
from the outstanding people we have here at NERO, as well as the tremendous work of our many
wonderful constituents.
The Boston Science Partnership Is Expanding Science in an Urban District
The Boston Science Partnership (BSP) was created in 2004 with the goal of improving the quality of science education and increasing student participation and achievement across Boston. Five years later, nearly 800 students in Boston are enrolled in AP® science courses, which are offered in 66 percent of Boston Public high schools, and the number of licensed physics teachers has doubled. The BSP is featured as a model program in the College Board’s AP Vertical Teams® Guide for Science, which comes out in February, demonstrating how effectively urban school districts can engage their students.
The BSP was funded in September 2004 with a Math and Science Partnership grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The original partnership included two universities — the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Northeastern University — and the Boston Public School System. Supporting partners included the College Board, Harvard Medical School, Education Development Center and PERG. A supplemental NSF award expanded the partnership to include Roxbury and Bunker Hill Community Colleges.
As a supporting partner to the BSP, the College Board worked with the project to create and offer Vertical Planning Institutes, based on the College Board model, which bring together college faculty, high school and middle school teachers to trace the content knowledge necessary for AP success through the years of middle and high school. The meetings allow an exchange of ideas and information that has proven meaningful to all who participate. Middle school and high school teachers get reinforcement that their responsibilities are critical in the path of future college students. College professors, in turn, have the opportunity to sit down with middle school teachers to understand the content and context of those grades, as well as the day-to-day challenges that teaching science in an urban setting poses. “These sessions have given college faculty a clear view of and respect for K–12 education they would never have had otherwise,” said BSP project director Jennifer Dorsen. “…[T]hey change their understanding of the prior academic experience of their freshman students — align better and draw from those curricula better. Not surprisingly, they often find that they share similar challenges and have a lot to learn from one another in order to reach their students at every level.”
The project explored ways to bring some of the Vertical Planning Institute experiences to a wider audience, both within the district and beyond. As editor of the forthcoming AP Vertical Teams Guide for Science, Hannah Sevian, associate professor of curriculum & instruction and chemistry at UMass Boston, included the BSP as a model of success for similar large, urban districts to follow both regionally and nationally when trying to build an AP science program and align content. The College Board plans to distribute the AP Vertical Teams Guide for Science to all science Vertical Team professional development participants, ensuring that the legacy of the BSP and the lessons learned will be accessible to hundreds of teachers and district curriculum leaders who use the guide as they implement Vertical Teams. The district also created a new product for teachers throughout the district: navigation guides. These two-page summaries of the recommended district curriculum kits (such as those produced by FOSS) underscore for school teachers the essential questions their students should be able to answer by the time they finish each unit. The vertical planning group and teacher leaders designed, wrote and reviewed 43 navigation guides, one for each kit and unit grades K–12. Once they are finalized, they will be distributed in each box of materials that goes out to teachers, and they will be available online as well.
Because access to and preparation for AP science was not even across the district, the BSP created the AP Science Support Program in order to support teachers and students. Their program was given a boost by Superintendent Carol R. Johnson, who has supported AP vigorously since joining the district in 2007. The BSP offered four core programs for teachers and students in order for students to have the best experience possible. Last year in the university lab sessions, 308 students spent seven Saturdays in labs on university campuses where AP students and their teachers conducted experiments for AP Chemistry (at UMass-Boston), AP Physics B (at Northeastern University) and AP Biology (at Harvard Medical School). A districtwide AP practice exam allowed 339 AP science students a realistic test experience and gave teachers targeted information about students’ strengths and weaknesses a month before the actual AP Exams. AP Summer Institutes have focused on teaching AP science courses in urban settings, and they have prepared 66 new science teachers to teach those courses in Boston. The AP Bridge program brought 350 AP Chemistry, Biology and Physics students to three of Boston’s college campuses for a total of nine days during the summer to give them a jump on the school year.
“Currently, 22 of the 33 high schools in Boston have an intensive, advanced science course, and enrollments are growing,” said Dorsen. “Furthermore, through supports like the AP Bridge program, the students get the time they need to do well — very well. Scores are also strong in schools that never had AP previously. And of course, a strong score can mean impressing an admission officer and getting college credit.”
For more information, visit the BSP website.
New England Region Offers Enrollment Workshops
As colleges and universities are working to increase diversity and attract qualified students to honors programs or specific majors, it is more important than ever for enrollment offices to evaluate current enrollment processes and develop innovative methods for targeting and reaching potential students. The New England Regional Office of the College Board has begun offering free workshops that demonstrate how participants can use its Student Search Service® and other tools to develop more strategic and cost-efficient methods to reach prospective students. At the first workshop, held Dec. 2 at the University of Maine at Augusta, attendees discussed tools, strategies and resources for addressing demographic shifts and economic challenges, as well as how to communicate the right message to reach qualified prospects for their institutions.
Most important, these workshops help admission administrators and counselors learn best practices for marketing and outreach. Using leading recruitment data, these professionals become more strategic and learn to utilize the new features of Student Search Service to implement cost-effective solutions, refine and target new markets to boost diversity across multiple metrics, and build a deeper applicant pool of qualified, college-bound students. To see future workshop dates or to register, please visit the website.
On Dec. 4 in Danvers, Mass., NERO held another free workshop, titled “Understanding the SAT®: What Role Should It Play in the Admission Process?” The SAT is the most widely discussed test in America, but many people find they know very little about the test, what it measures and how it should be used in the admission process. This workshop was designed for guidance, admission and other professionals involved in helping students transition from high school to college and explores the SAT’s development, content, validity, relevance to the admission process and affect on subgroups based on characteristics such as ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status.
College Board Members Elect New Trustees from the New England Region
At the Annual Meeting of the Members of the College Board, which took place Oct. 23 at Forum 2009, seven Trustees were elected to the 31-member governing board of the association. In addition, two Trustees who were appointed by regional assemblies last winter were installed.
In the New England Region, Adrian B. Mims, dean of students at Brookline High School in Massachusetts was elected to a four-year term as Trustee and will serve from 2009 to 2013. Donald M. Honeman, dean of admissions and financial aid at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., will represent the New England Regional Assembly, serving a one-year term from 2009 to 2010. Gary D. Meunier, counselor at Weston High School in Connecticut, is the newly installed chair of the Guidance and Admission Assembly and will serve on the Board of Trustees from 2009 to 2011.
The College Board's Trustees are responsible for assisting in legal and fiduciary decisions; approving the mission, strategic goals and objectives of the organization; establishing policies; and advising those responsible for the management of the organization. The Board of Trustees administers the not-for-profit association with guidance from three national assemblies and six regional assemblies. Member
institutions appoint a delegate to each of the three national assemblies — the Academic Assembly, the
College Scholarship Service Assembly, and the Guidance and Admission Assembly. Each national
assembly
provides the College Board with guidance on the issues and College Board activities related
to the professional areas represented.
Events & Workshops
Click here to see events and workshops in the New England Region.
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