However, many are also recognizing the depth of support that students require to not only navigate the college application process, but also to obtain and maintain adequate financial aid and ensure that supports (including social and emotional supports) are in place to help them persist and stay in college.

Driven by the need to provide equitable and high-quality college advising services to all high school students in New York City, the Goddard Riverside Options Center and the New York City Department of Education’s (NYCDOE) Office of Postsecondary Readiness partnered to pilot a condensed six-day training series based on the Options Institute. The Options Institute is an intensive certificate course to train school and community-based professionals on how to guide students through the postsecondary process. The success of this pilot led to a larger effort to bring the Options-NYCDOE training program to the entire New York City high school system. From 2010–2016, the Options-NYCDOE training reached almost all high schools in New York City, serving more than 1,600 school- and CBO-based staff of various positions, expertise, and experience.

Equal Measure conducted a two-year evaluation of the Options-NYCDOE training program (completed in July 2016). Our evaluation was focused on answering the following question:

What is the impact of Options-NYCDOE training in helping to shift educator knowledge and practice in NYC high schools to support a greater number of students in achieving college acceptance, enrollment, and persistence?

To address that question, the evaluation team worked with program leaders to develop three areas in which participating school counselors, college advisors, teachers, administrators, and others were expected to experience change during and after the training: 1) Participant knowledge and practice, 2) Participant-student interactions, and 3) Participant-school staff interactions.

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In this first installment of a three-part blog series, we showcase findings from the first area of change:

We found that the training led to substantial knowledge gains — building the overall capacity of high school staff by equipping them to help more students reach college-going milestones and benchmarks, and preparing them to provide college advising services to all students. Pre- and post-tests showed knowledge gains among participants across all six sessions of the training series, indicating that participants left the training with new information and understanding to support college advising. Notably, 90% or more of the participants demonstrated knowledge gains on the topics of assessing postsecondary readiness, the financial aid application, and assisting immigrant/undocumented students. Even for those participants who felt well-versed and knowledgeable about college advising prior to attending, the training reinforced their knowledge and deepened their areas of expertise. The training sessions also provided participants with a stronger sense of the college access and success landscape, as well as of their roles and responsibilities as college-going champions. For many, the training opened up a “black box” of information and provided a series of “aha” moments.

“I think I might have learned more during these six days than I did in grad school.”

~School Counselor, Bronx

Educators who attended the training sessions gained new opportunities for professional networking, broader access to professional resources, and increased awareness of professional development activities focused on a range of policies and practices that affect postsecondary options. The training introduced them to professional college advising and admissions organizations, like the College Access Consortium of New York, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, and the New York State Association for College Admissions Counseling. It also linked participants to legal resources, such as the Legal Aid Society, which they could invite to attend their schools’ college fairs.

“I walk out [of the training] getting some emails, for resource contacts, because you never know when you’ll need the information…It’s a good way of networking here, by coming to Options.”

~Guidance Counselor, Brooklyn

At the end of the training sessions, participants were asked to reflect on the extent to which they and their schools were using best practices. Action planning prompted them to think about how to better support all students in making best-fit choices and to develop a specific, measurable goal in this area. The majority of 2014–15 participants who completed our survey indicated that they implemented one or more action plans that they created. In many cases, however, educators returned to their schools finding it difficult to carve out the time and space to implement new plans as they managed the routine challenge of handling large caseloads. Also, action planning that took place at the end of each training may not have been comprehensive enough to drive specific actions in schools. More intentional expectations of school action and change, post-training support, and engagement of school leaders would potentially help participants design implementable plans, and execute on these plans.

Participants primarily focused on using the Options-NYCDOE training as a way to increase their own knowledge (see figure below). This marked a first step in their journeys toward practice change to offer students better support.

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Thank you for reading!

Part two of this series will explore changes in how participating educators interacted with students in the college-going process after the Options-NYCDOE training. In part three, we’ll illustrate changes in how participants in the training program interacted with other staff members when they returned to their schools.

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