Bright Futures has been a shared program with the Park City Education Foundation designed to empower low income, first-generation students to prepare for, succeed in and graduate from college. Having reviewed recent publicity campaign materials issued by the foundation, including on its website, and by the Park City School District, I continue to have significant concerns about the proposed revamped program they call Bright Futures 2.0.
Over the past nine years, Bright Futures has proven itself as hugely successful in offering willing first-generation students attending Park City High School the hope, opportunity, guidance, experiences and financial assistance necessary to attend a two- or four-year college. It has opened new frontiers for these students and their families as it has ushered them not just through high school but college as well.
Many who succeeded in Bright Futures have remained in or returned to the Park City area, joining the its work force or that of the larger Salt Lake City community. Some have continued their education to seek further credentials. Since the Park City Education Foundation has never questioned Bright Future’s track record, it is hard to understand why it (apparently with the district’s blessing) is making changes that seem to significantly weaken the program rather than enhancing it.
For example, foundation says that it is not just keeping the Bright Futures program intact but “expanding” it and making it more inclusive by hiring a full-time counselor dedicated to all first-gen students in the district in grades 1-12.
Without question, the foundation and the district deserve credit for expanding outreach to all first-gen students. And, having known the new counselor for about seven years, I believe she is caring, qualified and committed to meeting the challenges that lay before her. But how can one person responsible for counseling all 265 first-gen students in the district — not to even mention the 100+ students (and growing) already in college — replicate by herself the attention and benefits Bright Futures provided to the first-gen high school community?
How can she alone reasonably be expected to substitute for the extensive process Bright Futures developed over nine years to serve its mission to provide personalized guidance and support to first-gen high school students who aspire to admission to college and a successful career once there? Put differently, why does this new district-wide counseling effort have to come at the expense of the original, authentic Bright Futures program? Why can’t they both co-exist?
Park City Education Foundation’s recent descriptions of its vision for Bright Futures 2.0 obscures these questions and leaves them unanswered despite its claim that “1:1 coaching” will continue. It does not acknowledge that one person in this new counselor position cannot substitute for the infrastructure refined over nine years to blend trained professionals and volunteers focused on delivering on the Bright Futures promise to the first-gen high school community.
The foundation also does not acknowledge how many components Bright Futures 2.0 eliminates from the original program that were key to its success. And it seems to ignore that, in a very real way, it has pulled the rug out from under the approximately 60 juniors and seniors who committed to the promise of Bright Futures having no idea that the foundation would simply abandon its most important elements.
Here are just some of the things that apparently will no longer happen. Incoming first-gen 10th graders will no longer have the opportunity to attend the Bright Futures “Academy” — an orientation program spanning a week in August before school opens. There, they (and their parents, in two of the sessions) learned how Bright Futures worked, what the ground rules were, and what was expected of them as participants. “Crews” of about six students each were created as mutual support and accountability groups, each with its own mentor drawn from a group of 10 to 15 trained volunteers. The students engaged in exercises and activities that built relationships, cooperation, and trust.
Over time, and even as students sometimes switched crews or mentors, this structure produced bonds that provided invaluable support, often enduring through students’ college years. It was an indispensable component of the foundation for students’ success over their seven-year high school and college experiences.
Just as important, the part-time staffer who was the face of Bright Futures to the first-gen community is no longer involved. In addition to her efforts in connection with the academy, she hosted forums during evenings (important to many working parents but outside the new counselor’s workday) to answer questions and address concerns of students and parents.
Her fluent Spanish (a skill the new counselor does not have), combined with her knowledge and experience with Bright Futures almost from its inception were invaluable in earning the trust of the first-gen community.
In short, she was irreplaceable. As far as I know, the Park City Education Foundation has not even tried.
In the past Park City Education Foundation/Bright Futures also had two other paid part-time staff, one of whom provided substantial support to the college counselor by assisting students in completing their applications to both in-state and out-of-state schools.
Beyond the professionals, Bright Futures relied heavily on the 10-13 volunteer mentors who were constantly available for the students, including after hours and once they were in college. That staff commitment seems to be gone now, and the volunteers have withdrawn for a variety of reasons, in some cases including the foundation’s clear intention to discontinue the original Bright Futures concept and philosophy.
The Park City Education Foundation claims that it will maintain the needs-based funding plan that has been in place throughout the history of the Bright Futures program. Again, it remains unclear who — if anyone — will monitor the needs of the college students? Sustaining connections had been a constant part of the ongoing guidance supplied by the staff and the volunteer mentors.
Without the support system of the crews, the mentors, and the relationships with the staff, no one but students’ parents will know students’ needs, and not all parents will be in a position to lobby for those needs to be met.
The answers to these questions won’t come easily or quickly. The Park City Education Foundation has ignored them throughout the 18-19 months of heated debate over the evolution of its strategic plan to radically change the Bright Futures program. I think the foundation may have hoped I would just abandon my commitment to the authentic Bright Futures effort and dream so many contributed to creating and maintaining. It almost seems as if the foundation simply wants to shed responsibility for administering the driving vision Bright Futures established and nurtured.
While I may step back from the public debate for now, questions do need to be answered — especially the one asking why the expanded counseling services have to come at the expense of the first-gen high school students perched at a fulcrum that could determine so much of their future, instead co-existing symbiotically.
Although the first-gen community and the larger Park City community deserve meaningful answers, I am afraid that they will only emerge over time — at the end of each school year, when we see if the number of first-gen students who attend college and who graduate grows or shrinks.
The foundation and the district do not keep or report these numbers. But you can count on me and the dedicated founders of Bright Futures, who are in constant contact with these students, to report those facts and to still be there to help the students that we have bonded with and committed to.
For more information and any updates, please feel free to continue to follow the website, thefutureofbrightfutures.com.
Tommy Tanzer
Park City