PENCIL Foundation

Our work is guided by the needs of MNPS, is student centric, and is achieved through partnerships and tangible engagements. As the PENCIL team, we will be collaborative and transparent, act with integrity, and demonstrate kindness and gratitude.

PENCIL Partners and Academy PENCIL Partnerships aim to accomplish the following goals:

1) Improve graduation rates by making school interesting and engaging to students.
2) Build relationships between students and positive adult role models through mentorship and regular class interactions with industry professionals.
3) Support positive outcomes after high school graduation, including further education and entry into high-wage, high-demand careers.

To reach these goals, PENCIL recruits partners – companies, small businesses, universities – and matches them with individual schools whose needs align with the partner’s expertise. There are 39 career pathways available for students to choose from, and each high school offers a unique menu of options. PENCIL’s role is to make a thoughtful match, onboard and train the partner, co-create an action plan for the year, support the school’s teachers and principals in managing communication, and work to sustain a positive relationship between partner and school over time. PENCIL Partnership Managers meet regularly with partners and school leaders to assess progress on the action plan compared to goals. We are skilled problem-solvers. Much of our recruitment is word-of-mouth, and we’re proud to say that our founding partners, including HCA and Ingram, remain PENCIL Partners today.

Ultimately, our work aims to fulfill the Academies’ goal of exposing and connecting students to high-demand career fields after college. Our long-term vision is that students are trained and ready to attain jobs that pay family-sustaining wages and help break the cycle of multi-generational poverty.

Data is key to effective decision making and PENCIL will track activities and student opportunities for purpose of program analysis and achievement of outcomes.

PENCIL uses several tools to assess the functioning and impact of program delivery:

a) PENCILMeIn (PMI) is an online platform that enables Partners, volunteers, school staff, and PENCIL staff to log and track volunteer hours and activities. This helps PENCIL communicate the value of each Partner's community investment per school annually. In FY19, Partners logged 54,509 volunteer hours, so we're targeting a 5% increase in FY20 in documented service hours to demonstrate growth in our Partners’ engagement with students.

b) The PENCIL team tracks and evaluates success based on the percentage of students who experience industry field trips and job shadows. In FY19 70% of 10th graders experienced field trips and 66% of 11th graders experienced job shadows. Our goal for FY20 and beyond is to exceed those targets so that eventually it’s common for 100% of students to have those impactful learning experiences. Likewise we evaluate both the number of Partners who participate in the annual Career Fair with freshmen and the number of career fields they represent, with the goal of having an increasingly broad array of options for students to explore as they make their Academies pathway decision.

c) Through annual surveys we assess Partners' understanding of the impact of their engagement on students as well as their comfort with the work.

d) We also closely follow test scores tracked by MNPS to assure that students continue to make progress on standard academic benchmarks like graduation rate, average ACT scores, and percentage of students taking and passing industry certification exams.

e) We measure success of our LP PENCIL Box through total value of product distributions annually; number of schools and teachers served annually; percentage of teachers served who shop in-person at the LP PENCIL Box; and number of volunteers who serve in the Box. We also know that access to school supplies is integral to student success.

PENCIL addresses the inequitable access to resources (community volunteers, funding for special projects) among Nashville schools through a collective impact model that harnesses the time, treasure, and talent of our rapidly expanding business community in support of individual schools through our PENCIL Partnerships, which allows us to meet and exceed our goals.

PENCIL is unique in that we are the only organization in Nashville specifically dedicated to link resources from the business community to our public schools. We are seen as a national leader in the field of business engagement in high schools with our work to support the Academies of Nashville and are regularly hired as a consultant to communities implementing the Academies model, which relies heavily on business partners providing experiential learning opportunities to students.

Accomplishments:

-In 2018-19, PENCIL recruited, matched, and maintained at least 711 PENCIL Partnerships with individual public schools, resulting in community investment of 54,509 volunteer hours and donated resources to MNPS valued at $5 million, including $1.44M in high-quality classroom supplies distributed to public school teachers through the LP PENCIL Box, PENCIL’s free teacher supply store, through which we solicit and distribute donations of school supplies to teachers and students.

-PENCIL has connected 346 unique partnerships who support the Academies of Nashville, a college and career prep program that gives students access to early college credit, certifications, and advanced classes.

- Through PENCIL Academy Partners at least 2,914 students experienced job shadows and at least 3,203 students experienced internships, or 70% of all Academy juniors.

- Partners provided mentoring, tutoring, curriculum advisement, experiential learning and employment to 15,538 high-school students in Career and Technical Education programs.

-The 16,000 students participating in the 39 Academies of Nashville grades 9-12 were served by 344 Partnerships with Nashville businesses for a total of $1.7 community investment. An increased 3,950 10th graders experienced industry field trips, and 3,557 11th graders experienced job shadowing.

-With the addition of a part-time delivery van driver last year, we have already surpassed our product distribution from the previous academic year by $60,000; by the end of March 2020, we will have distributed supplies worth $1.6 million to teachers in all 168 MNPS schools.

A list of goals includes:
Launch Together4Teachers (We will come together as a community to deliver up to 6,500 teacher supply bags ensuring that all teachers feel celebrated and appreciated as they build out their classrooms for the year and know about our LP PENCIL Box)
Expand our PENCIL warehouse to increase capacity to receive and distribute resources, as well as to open a volunteer center.