A City Connects Coordinator’s job is unique. They connect with teachers and parents, community partners and school administrators, to ensure each and every student in their schools has their strengths and needs nurtured and supported.
It’s a big job, and a rewarding one. But who supports the Coordinators? Behind the scenes, City Connects central staff work to support City Connects Program Managers. It is Program Managers who coach and support Coordinators day-to-day.
With a background in school counseling and experience as a Coordinator, Stephanie Sanabria makes for a perfect support system in her district. As the Program Manager in Springfield, Massachusetts, she supervises more than 40 Coordinators across more than 40 schools. Her support of Springfield’s Coordinators is vital to giving students opportunities to learn and thrive.
Born and raised in Westfield, Massachusetts, about a 10-mile drive from Springfield, Sanabria has been a member of the City Connects team for more than a decade. She joined in 2011, shortly after graduating from Boston College with her master’s degree in school counseling psychology.
It was at Boston College, home of City Connects and the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children, that Sanabria connected to the mission of City Connects: ensuring every student gets the right services at the right time, over time.
“I first heard of this model of student support through my graduate work,” Stephanie says. “Once I graduated and heard that City Connects would be implemented in Springfield, I applied to work at an elementary school. I served in the role of a City Connects Coordinator at the elementary level, middle-school level, and early-childhood level for nine years prior to obtaining my current role.”
Sanabria was intrigued by City Connects’ whole child approach. Founded on the deep principles of developmental science, she found that City Connects spoke to a lot of best practices from her graduate courses.
“That’s what counseling is: supporting the whole child,” she says.
According to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary of Education, Springfield Public Schools helps educate more than 22,000 students across 66 schools. It’s also considered a “Gateway City, home to lots of the state’s poorer students,” and Gateway Cities across Massachusetts saw “achievement levels continue to drop, making the achievement gap even larger now than it was before the pandemic.”
Since City Connects began in Springfield schools, however, the district’s graduation rate has increased from 56.4% to 84.6%; the dropout rate has reduced from over 10% to 3.9%; and achievement gaps have closed “in every subject and student category, establishing Springfield as the highest performing urban school high-poverty district.”
Those gains start from the ground up, and helping Coordinators understand the diverse backgrounds of the families and students in Springfield schools is key.
When Sanabria works with Coordinators, she explains that some parents may be absent from on-campus conferences because they’re working long hours or a second job entirely. She encourages Coordinators to make phone calls to parents,, especially when an announcement for an event hasn’t been distributed in Spanish or with optimal accessibility in general.
“The wealth comes from empowering families,” Sanabria says.
Sanabria’s role includes supervising, coaching, and supporting the professional growth and development of her team of Coordinators to implement the City Connects model. In consultation with central City Connects staff, and using City Connects professional development modules, resources, and technology, Sanabria coaches Coordinators to implement the City Connects practice, provides feedback, aligns with district priorities, and holds monthly professional development meetings, among other roles.
Knowing the Coordinators’ job helps Sanabria, give more personalized support to the range of experience levels and expertise of the Coordinators in Springfield schools.
“I acknowledge that my team consists of many Coordinators with four-plus years of experience, as well as Coordinators in their first three years,” she says. “Improving my differentiation of professional development material has been my main focus over the last two years so that all Coordinators are able to get what they need to continue growing. I am very aware of what it’s like to be in their shoes.”
Supporting Coordinators also means adapting to ever changing educational landscape. The pandemic brought its own challenges that still echo. To work in and these changing conditions, Sanabria maintains an openness to modifying one’s process when needed to respond to the dynamic nature of campuses and their communities.
“Every single week I’m out at schools. I take notes during observations [of Coordinators] and have key elements that I am looking for,” she says. “I pay attention to the flow of the conversation and provide feedback post-observation to give praise for areas of strength and constructive feedback for areas of refinement. These observations are critical to providing coaching and feedback to the Coordinators throughout the school year.”
In so many ways, big and small, Stephanie Sanabria provides development and support for Coordinators across Springfield schools. We are proud to shine a light on the important work she does as a Program Manager, and we are grateful for her leadership and commitment over her many years of service. Most of all, we are grateful for her dedication to supporting Coordinators and giving all of Springfield’s students opportunities to learn and thrive.
