EduCare’s Mission:
To inspire and empower young people
to become responsible citizens, compassionate leaders,
and to live their dreams.

ACE Program Details

For a basic overview of the ACE Program, click here.

Description of Services

Primary Services
The primary service of the EduCare Foundation is a student success program — ACE: Achievement and Commitment to Excellence. First offered in 1987, it is a comprehensive program for student success, leadership, and character development which addresses students’ barriers to learning (negative attitudes, repetitive failure habits, disrespect for self and others) and assists students in developing essential skills that are the foundation for behaviors and attitudes that promote successful learning (taking personal responsibility, goal-setting, time-management, conflict resolution, clear communication, self-reflection, building positive peer relationships, etc.).

To effectively support the student workshop described above and further student growth and learning, the ACE program includes the following:

• Workshop-type professional development (year-long) for a team of teachers and administrators to support the integration of the ACE student program strategies and activities into individual classrooms and the school as a whole
• Individual coaching for classroom teachers implementing ACE
• Parent workshops to train parents in preventive discipline, self-esteem development for children, and effective family communication
• On-site Consulting for Long-Range Planning and Site Action Plans

 

Program ObjectivesBack to top

EduCare’s primary contribution toward improving schooling and the educational experience of today’s youth is through presenting life-skills materials, experiences, and training to the major participants — students, teachers, parents — in a school organization. For descriptive purposes, we outline below the objectives or intentions the EduCare program has for each of these participant categories.

ACE Program Student-related Objectives:
The student-related objectives of EduCare’s ACE Student Success Program are — broadly speaking — to assist young people in achieving academic success, to prevent destructive social behavior such as substance abuse and crime, and to promote healthy relationships at home and in the community.

The ACE Program’s specific objectives are to show, after the completion of the program, an increase in the participating student’s level of:

• Academic achievement as reflected in grades and test scores
• School cooperation marks as reflected in teacher appraisal
• School attendance rate

ACE Program Teacher-related Objectives:

• Provide and coach teachers in use of classroom strategies and activities designed
  • to motivate and inspire students to higher achievement
  • to build student self-esteem and self-care
  • to create a climate for cooperative learning
  • to foster team-building in the classroom
  • to encourage student reflection, journaling
  • to diminish classroom put-downs, peer-teasing
  • to support time-management and project completion
• Assist teachers to integrate positive-attitude-building activities seamlessly into curriculum
• Assist teachers to create supportive classroom environment
• Encourage the teacher to model self-esteem, reflection, learning from mistakes, observation, life-long learning, and the joy of learning

ACE Program Parent-related Objectives:

• Teach parents specific strategies and activities
  • to build the self-respect and self-esteem of children in the home
  • to support children in reading, doing homework, completing projects
  • to prevent discipline problems
• Improve intra-family communication and listening skills
• Foster family cooperation
• Develop greater parent-school involvement

ACE Program Objectives for Schools-as-Organizations:

• Develop school-based teacher teams skilled in motivating students, teaching effectively to all students, and reflecting on their own practice
• Develop school communities which focus on developing and educating the whole child
• Encourage administrators to promote life-long professional growth for themselves, their faculty, and their staff
• Develop reflective practices among all stakeholders, such that communication is full, problem-solving is practical, overarching focus is on student achievement, and the school mission is maintained.

Nature of ServicesBack to top

As indicated above, ACE is a year-long student success, leadership, and character- building program delivered to students, teachers, and school organizations. It is designed to improve student achievement by addressing students’ barriers to learning and by teaching attitudes and behaviors which support success, including:

• Attitudinal development — positive decision-making, constructive choices
• Personal management — study skills, verbal skills, project and time management
• Emotional intelligence — managing anger, fear, rejection, and peer pressure
• Interpersonal skills — communication, conflict resolution, and team-building

EduCare’s ACE Program has five interrelated components, outlined here, and described in greater detail below:

1. On-site student workshops presented by highly trained and experienced EduCare facilitators
2. Year-long professional development for teachers (and administrators) selected by the school (or self-selected) for involvement with the ACE Program and trained to integrate activities in classroom
3. Classroom instructional success-building activities to be woven into classroom content curriculum; activities are selected by the teacher from a published Teacher’s Manual (and optional student workbooks)
4. Parent and/or family involvement events for the families of students and teachers involved in program
5. An off-site community service learning experience for student participants

The On-site Student Workshops:
The ACE Student Success workshops are delivered by EduCare facilitators directly to students at intervals throughout the school year. These workshops are generally held in a large room, such as a school gymnasium, where chairs may be set-up as well as moved. The well-paced design of the workshops include guidelines and groundrules; brief lecturettes; short demonstrations; movement (milling) activities; brief videos; interactive group educational games; brief reflection periods; and communication exercises. In these workshops, students work individually, in pairs, in student teams, and in adult-led small resource groups. Students have multiple opportunities to voice their points of view publicly; listen closely to one another; perform short presentations; and write and reflect on their experience. Depending on the age of the students, they may also be involved in drawing, or in developing portfolios.

Teachers and other volunteers serve variously as participants and observers in the student workshops.

The workshops are divided into complementary modules:

• Character and Leadership Development
• Teamwork and Communication Skills
• Conflict Resolution Skills
• Personal Management and Study Skills
• Peer Mentoring
• Community Service
• Goal Setting and Transitions

Professional Development
The second component of the ACE Program is the professional development accompanying the student workshops. This series includes the following:

• Introductory meetings with the teachers and administrators to explain the purpose and overview of the program, and elicit faculty commitment to participate
• Full-day (usually Saturday) experiential trainings with teachers and administrators which include appropriate adaptations for adults of some of the activities used with students; videos to motivate maintaining high student expectations; school team-building activities; opportunities for school-team reflection; and listening activities
• Teacher participation/observation of student workshops — EduCare highly recommends that teachers implementing the ACE activities attend the student workshops as part of their professional development and to assist with student groups
• Coaching of teachers in their classrooms regarding use of life-skills activities (Optional service)

Classroom Instructional Activities
EduCare has published a carefully organized book of follow-up activities for the classroom teacher to use to support and deepen the learning of students of the concepts gained in the workshops. This Teacher’s Guide, Making the Best of Me: A Handbook for Student Excellence and Self-Esteem by Stu Semigran and Sindy Wilkinson, contains about 130 classroom activities. These activities often require students to work together in teams or pairs, to listen to each other, to interview, to write, to share experiences, to respect differences. The activities are collected into seven units which focus on getting to know each other, building self-esteem, creating positive relationships, personal responsibility, achieving excellence, reaching out to your family and community, and developing a personal journal. The chapters and activities build upon one another, but they may also be used selectively by the teacher to emphasize certain skills and personal tools.

Parent /Family Involvement Component
EduCare’s ACE Program provides parents with activities and strategies to use in the home to support student success. The ACE facilitators work with teachers and administrators to plan and present two family evenings each year. These events include interactive processes in listening, sharing appreciation, requesting family support, and in ways to support the skills students are learning in the classroom.

Also included with the ACE Program is a Year-End Celebration for students and families to acknowledge their achievements and growth.

Community Service Learning
Finally, ACE Program students participate in community service projects as an avenue for them to develop a sense of community responsibility, make a contribution to society, and experience the value of service. The EduCare Foundation handles the arrangements for this project; in the past, the service experiences have been such things as an activity at a senior citizen center, providing food to the homeless, cleaning a beach area, refurbishing an aspect in the school (e.g., the bathrooms), or planting gardens.

Number of Service RecipientsBack to top

Since its inception in 1987, EduCare’s ACE program has been offered in over 200 schools, districts, and youth-serving organizations worldwide for more than 20,000 students. In addition to its service to LAUSD schools, programs have been offered in El Paso, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Imperial County, California; Aruba, and Israel.

In a typical ACE Program, direct services are provided for between 75-400 students per school. Since 1987, the ACE program has been variously offered in a single school within a district; to several schools within a district; and to a family of schools (following feeder patterns) in a district. It has been provided to single-grade groups (e.g., Title I ninth-graders in a vocational-technical high school) and to multi-grade groups (fourth & fifth graders in an elementary). The program is customized and appropriately adjusted to the age/grade level as determined by the school’s needs and interests. The professional development workshops for teachers and administrators which accompany the ACE Student Program have been variously offered for core teacher teams as small as 3 - 5; to full-faculty teams of 150; and to mixed groups of teachers from several schools.

Quantity and Quality of ServicesBack to top

Since 1996 the ACE Program has been delivered to approximately 2000 students, 1000 parents, and 200 teachers and administrators at 18 schools in LAUSD.

The quality of the EduCare ACE Program is assured by several means:

Facilitator selection and training:
ACE Program facilitators are carefully selected on the basis of their commitment to the concepts of the program, their ability to relate effectively to students and school personnel, and their level of experience in facilitating large and small groups. The lead facilitator and program designer is EduCare’s Director, Stu Semigran, a former public school teacher with extensive experience in facilitating group workshops for businesses, personal growth companies, schools, and colleges. (For credential and resume information please see Appendix L).

Facilitators are involved in on-going on-the-job training. Within a given year at a particular school, every effort is made to ensure that the same pair of facilitators (generally a male and a female of different ethnic backgrounds) leads all the ACE activities in a school, enabling the development of meaningful relationships with the staff and students. Facilitators meet before and after workshop for planning and assessment. Workshop activities are scripted (with lee-way for adaptations based on age of students and other conditions) to ensure all students are led through the same significant, proven activities.

Participant feedback
ACE Program evaluations are a means of quality assurance, and are distributed to students, teachers, parents, and administrators at the conclusion of each program. These data are used for program modification within the school and the feedback is used to strengthen the workshop and program design, as appropriate. (See Appendix K for samples of evaluation forms)

In addition, the ACE Program facilitators, through their monthly meetings with school personnel, become involved with discussions regarding implementation, improvements, and other participant feedback. At this point, there has been no systematic tracking of the degree to which classroom teachers actually employ ACE activities in their classroom, although at meetings with teachers, the ACE facilitators strongly encourage their use.

Research studies
Further assurance of maintaining and enhancing the quality of the ACE Program occurs through research projects focused on ACE. As funding and time has permitted, both statistical/formal and qualitative/informal research studies of the program’s effectiveness have been conducted. The conclusions from such studies inform program design and implementation. A listing of the research involving ACE follows:

The ACE Leadership Program at Hooper Elementary School: An Evaluation of Program Success, by PRA Philliber Research Associates, May 1997

ACE Student Success Program Assessment Results — 1998-99 Hooper Avenue Elementary School, compiled by Mike Shaw, Principal

ACE Program—Secondary Basic-Skills Demonstration Project 1990-91, compiled by the Office for Senior High Schools, School District of Philadelphia, June 1991

EduCare Foundation’s ACE Program Assessment Report for Four Continuation High Schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District, by John Whitaker, Sept. 1997

The Long-Term Impact of the EduCare Foundation’s ACE Student Leadership Program on the Lives of Selected Ninth Grade Public School Students: A Follow-up Inquiry, by Esther A. Jantzen, January 1998

Self-Concept Enhancement, Computer Education and Remediation: A Study of the Relationship Between a Multifaceted Intervention Program and Academic Achievement, by Lisa Klein, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1992. Available through UMI #9227700

Success at the Academy: The ACE Program at the Academy of Science and Technology [El Paso, Texas], prepared by Charlotte Endlich, Counselor, 1995

Program awards:
Finally, as an indication of the value of the ACE program, we cite the evidence that one of the Chapter 1-funded high schools which incorporated the ACE program as one component of its intervention program was selected by the Chapter 1 National Recognition Program of Compensatory Education Programs division of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education of U. S. Department of Education for recognition as a “1993 Unusually Successful Project.“

Sample Delivery Process and TimelineBack to top

The ACE Program, while maintaining fidelity to the program components, may be customized to the needs and wishes of the client school. All program scheduling and delivery considerations are made in consultation with school administrators. A typical year’s program includes:

• Three to four days teacher professional development
• Six days of student success on-site workshops
• Two family nights
• Curriculum
• Monthly coaching of staff

Below is a sample timeline of an ACE Program:

May-Jun ‘03	Confirm funding
	Sign Memo of Understanding
	Review Project Calendar for ‘03-’04 school year
	Selection of ACE Core Group of Teachers/Staff and ACE Program Coordinator
	Initial Staff Orientation
July-Oct ‘03	Student Selection
	Student and Parent Orientation
	Staff Development for ACE Core Group and/or other teachers and staff
ACE Student Success Workshops
	ACE Core Teacher Meetings
	ACE Mentoring/Follow-up Workshops
	ACE Curriculum Classroom Implementation
	ACE Family Events
	Community Service Activities
June ‘04	Closing Celebration and Family Event
July ‘04	Evaluation

Evidence of Alignment with Back to top
CA and LAUSD Standards

ALIGNMENT WITH LAUSD STANDARDS

The ACE Program, as a multi-faceted student success program, is aligned with Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Student Learning Standards in three areas: Career Preparation, Health, and Language Arts. Below are the standards, with the aspects addressed by the ACE Program underscored:

LAUSD Career Preparation Standards:

1, (13, 25, 37). Manage time and set priorities to meet demands of the workplace; apply key concepts in group dynamics, conflict resolution, and workplace ethics in order to work cooperatively, share responsibilities, accept supervision, assume leadership roles, and demonstrate working relationships across gender and cultural groups. (Personal and Interpersonal Skills)

2, (14 ,26, 38). Evaluate and apply principles of effective communication using oral, written, keyboarding, and telephone skills, for various purposes and audiences, (e.g., interviews, presentations, advertisement, letters, resumes). (Communication Skills)

LAUSD Health Standards:

5, (14, 23). Assess the legal, social, economic, and psychological consequences of using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs and demonstrate interpersonal communication skills—including assertiveness, refusal, negotiation, and conflict resolution—that can be used to avoid involvement with harmful substances. (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs)

26. Specify behaviors that protect health and safety by reducing the risks of being involved in potentially dangerous accidental or violent situations that may result from one’s own actions or the actions of others. (Injury Prevention and Safety)

31. Identify behaviors that students can exhibit to support positive family interactions such as listening to and following directions; following family rules; showing care, concern, and respect for family members; and using effective communication skills in nonviolent conflict resolution. (Family Living)

LAUSD Language Arts Standards:

1, (10, 19, 28). Comprehend, interpret, and evaluate literal and implied debates, dramatic presentations, and readings from literature and poetry.

2, (11, 20, 29). Speak to achieve intended effect using formal and informal conventions of the English language appropriate to varied purposes and audiences.

ALIGNMENT WITH CALIFORNIA STATE STANDARDS

The California State Board of Education Standards are content standards related to subject-matter in English-Language Arts, History-Social Sciences, Mathematics, and Science. Because EduCare’s ACE program is cross-discipline, it does not directly focus on the subject-matter of the Standards.

However, the ACE Program encourages the integration of many classroom activities, to be used at the teacher’s discretion, which address communication. These activities are in alignment with elements of the English-Language Arts Standards, including the listening and speaking component, and the writing process emphasis (which include autobiographical writing, response to literature, and reflective composition).

Further, the ACE Program clearly aligns with the following statement from the introduction of the English-Language Arts Content Standards for California Public Schools (K-12):

“Language skills are essential tools not only because they serve as the necessary basis for further learning and career development but also because they enable the human spirit to be enriched, foster responsible citizenship, and preserve the collective memory of a nation.”

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ALIGNMENT WITH NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR SCHOOL COUNSELING PROGRAMS

In addition, EduCare’s ACE Program is in alignment with the National Standards for School Counseling Programs (1997), specifically the standards in the Personal/Social Development area:

Standard A: Students will acquire the attitudes, knowledge, and interpersonal skills to help them understand and respect self and others.

Competencies:

Students will:

• develop a positive attitude toward self as a unique and worthy person
• identify values, attitudes, and beliefs
• learn the goal setting process
• understand change as a part of growth
• identify and express feelings
• distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors
• recognize personal boundaries, rights, and privacy needs
• understand the need for self-control and how to practice it
• demonstrate cooperative behavior in groups
• identify personal strengths and assets
• respect alternative points of view
• use effective communication skills
• learn how to make and keep friends

Standard B: Students will make decisions, set goals, and take necessary action to achieve goals.

Competencies:

Students will:

• use a decision-making and problem-solving model
• know how to apply conflict resolution skills
• demonstrate a respect & appreciation for individual & cultural differences
• identify long- and short- term goals
• develop an action plan to set and achieve realistic goals

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ALIGNMENT WITH CALIFORNIA STANDARDS
FOR THE TEACHING PROFESSION

Finally, the ACE Program’s professional development component is aligned with the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (1997). In the ACE training, specifically addressed standards include:

Standard for Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning
—through these Key Elements:

• using a variety of instructional strategies and resources to respond to students’ diverse needs
• facilitating learning experiences that promote autonomy, interaction, and choice
• promoting self-directed, reflective learning for all students

Standard for Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning
- through these Key Elements:

• Promoting social development and group responsibility
• Establishing and maintaining standards for student behavior

Standard for Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students
— through these Key Elements:

• Drawing on and valuing students’ backgrounds, interests, and development learning needs
• Establishing and articulating goals for student learning
• Developing and sequencing instructional activities and materials for student learning

Standard for Developing as a Professional Educator
— through these Key Elements:

• Reflecting on teaching practice and planning professional development
• Working with families to improve professional practice
• Working with colleagues to improve professional practice

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