Winning the ENB Grant for ACCESS: Our Process
Assessing
- Over the span of two months, I designed and conducted a community survey, interviewing 80 people at commercial establishments across Boston's Chinatown proper: restaurants, bakeries, salons, gift shops, and more.
- Among other important data points, this survey: 1) confirmed demand (62% were interested) for English language classes; 2) identified what was preventing most people from taking classes--namely time and scheduling conflicts (66.2% listing this as their primary obstacle): Over half of respondents stated that their employers did not give them breaks during the work day; 84% said that even if they were given a break, they wouldn't use it to attend a class due to the physical and mental fatigue of working 12-16 hour shifts for 6-7 days of the week, in addition to often long commutes to restaurants as far away as New Hampshire.
- I also gathered the operational data that would determine when classes could realistically happen: business opening and closing times; preferred days and number of classes per week, as well as preferences for morning versus evening.
- I also documented the survey's biases and limitations, including: 1) In approximately 25% of cases, managers answered on employees' behalf. Given many of those whom I attempted to survey owed massive debts to "snakeheads," the relevance of this bias is even more salient. 2) 20 people whom I contacted couldn't participate for lack of a shared language. These limitation findings went on to become separate recommendations: 1) potential students needed to be able to trust future surveyors (who ideally would have insider cultural knowledge); 2) surveyors needed to be bilingual (at the very least) in Cantonese & English or multilingual (ideally), with additional fluency in Fuzhounes ; 3) survey instruments needed to be translated.
Designing
- I mapped out the state of the ESOL field in Boston: a side-by-side comparison of every ESOL provider serving the community, including class levels, schedules, and fees across seven organizations in order to identify gaps in services / where needs existed.
- I then developed five possible program directions (college access, survival English, job-specific English, citizenship, and family literacy) and presented them to the ESOL Committee, along with evidence for each proposal.
- My survey data directly drove program development: 1) "survival English"—the primary need identified by 53.2% of respondents—would anchor a curriculum that had restaurant-specific components; 2) morning classes would end at 10:00 am to allow students, the majority of whom were restaurant workers, to catch a 10:15 van to work; 3) classes would run four days a week instead of five because respondents preferred a shorter instruction week given their 12-16 hour work days 6-7 days / week plus long commutes to and from work.
Funding
- The proposal asked English for New Bostonians for $29,574 to fund 20 full scholarships across three semesters—plus paid teacher preparation time; professional development through the System for Adult Basic Education Support [SABES]; and training to administer the BEST Plus oral proficiency assessment—all of which were documented needs.
- The award was the organization's first successful ENB grant, after prior applications had fallen short.
- This same needs assessment also anchored a successful $25,000 reapplication to the Chinatown Trust Fund and a successful $15,000 first-time application to the Lenny Zakim Fund.