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Business as Usual: The Pittsburgh Promise

We are excited to wrap up the work week by welcoming Saleem Ghubril, Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Promise, to Business as Usual today. The Pittsburgh Promise promotes high educational aspirations among urban youth, funds scholarships for post-secondary access and fuels a prepared and diverse regional workforce. To date, more than 10,000 students have received $152 million in scholarships to pursue their academic dreams. Saleem will discuss how Pittsburgh Promise envisions a future where all our urban youth are equipped to reach post-secondary success, our public schools serve all children excellently, our city is flourishing in all its neighborhoods and our workforce is widely diverse and highly skilled to advance a region that is good and just for all.

 

 

Transcription: 

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So good afternoon, everyone. It is Friday the first week of March Cinco de Maya. It's Cinco de Maya. Wow, this is Audrey, I run the Pittsburgh tech Council. And today, I'm actually in our offices. So I'm pretty excited about that. And joined with me each and every day is Jonathan kersting. He is vice president of all things, media and marketing for the tech Council. And we have an exciting guest today. Saleem Ghubril and I will introduce him formally in one moment. But before we do, I want to thank our sponsors, I want to thank Huntington bank for their belief in us so that this almost year, and in all the work that we've been doing, keeping the community tethered together, and today is no exception. The topic at hand in terms of education, Pittsburgh promises something that is near and dear to all of our hearts in terms of education and opportunities. So in a moment, when I bring Saleem on, I just want to remind all of you that we've muted you. And we also have asked that if you have any questions, the questions are really just directed towards Saleem and the work that he's doing, this is not an opportunity for you to sell your wares. We have plenty of other ways to do that at the tech Council. so thrilled to jump in right now and bring Selene to the forefront. I'm really thrilled to have him with us today. And he's he is known as someone in this community. Once you start to hear about the topics that we're talking about and the passion that he has, I think you will have a deep appreciation for what we are trying to do here in Pittsburgh and how he has served as a national model for the work that they've done in the Pittsburgh promise, but I don't want to steal any thunder. I do want to bring Saleem Ghubril up and he's the executive director of the Pittsburgh promise. So we're gonna Audrey, we're gonna put the site up so people can go to it in case they don't know it offhand. And hey, Saleem.

a friend. Good to see you.

It is great to see you. Great to see you. I hope that you're faring well over this last exciting year, that you're healthy.

Well, I lost all my hair in the last year. I had a full head of hair 12 months ago and look at it now. Oh,

I wasn't gonna say anything about it. That I'm so glad that you brought it up first. Okay, so now that we've gotten off the hair issue, maybe we can get into a little bit about you. I want people to understand a little bit about your professional journey is Saleem, how did you get to what you're doing right now?

Well, the reason My name is Saleem Ghubril is because I was born in the Middle East. I'm an Arab, born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. My family fled when I was 16 years old, and came to the United States at that time, we fled because of the Civil War. And, you know, we took a few casualties as a family, three cousins and two uncles were were killed in the early days of the Civil War house was bombed, cod was bombed, my brother was kidnapped from our home at gunpoint. We got my brother back, thankfully. And then my father woke us up one night 3am He was then employed by the American Embassy as an accountant. And having served for 20 some years out of respect for my debt service. When the US government was evacuating American citizens, they snuck us into that convoy and got us out of the country. So dad woke us up. He said, The cars back get in the car. And that's how we found out we were leaving, and we ended up in, of course, the first place all immigrants come to when they come to the United States. And that's Iowa. That's a joke, Audrey. I know you are sorry, you're Yeah, but we ended up in Iowa City, Iowa, where I got thrown out of the first high school that I attended and got thrown out of the first college that I attended. It's remarkable to me that I run the Pittsburgh promise and I'm sending kids to college when I've been thrown out of more schools than most kids go to. I think that's part of I think that's part of kind of the the why the promise is so important to me and why youth work has been so important to me and why I've done youth development, all of my adult life. caring adults took me under their wings. I've been mentored very generously. I still have mentors in my life, even at my age and doors that I I shut others were gracious enough to reopen for me. And I've been given so many second chances, all of us have been given multiple second chances. And so through the promise, we are able to ensure that doors open before kids who deserve every opportunity, but don't have access to every opportunity and we're trying to do that by saying Let's get a high school education is no longer enough it once was for you to get a decent job and provide for a family that's no longer the case those jobs in those days are long gone. a four year degree may not always be necessary. But as a post secondary credential, whether it's in trade or technical or any of any certificate programs, you've got to have a post secondary credential to be able to compete in this marketplace. And we are going to make it possible for you to do that by providing every kid in Pittsburgh a $20,000 scholarship. So that's kind of the summary of how

long have you been at the helm of the promise.

I was privileged to be part of that design team for the Pittsburgh promise at that time, I was running the Pittsburgh project on the north side doing street level work with kids. And our then Superintendent of Pittsburgh public schools, Mark Roosevelt, the promise is his baby. And really, I am his nanny. So Mark, Mark came up with the idea of the promise he pulled some people together to, to kind of design the programmatic components put together the financial model, start raising money, and I was part of that design team. And then when the the design was complete, the financial modeling was done. The conclusion was made that we had to raise more than $250 million UPMC stepped forward, God bless UPMC with $100 million commitment over 10 years. So when that commitment was made, the promise really had been some muscle and some teeth. And then somebody needed to run it. And I was asked if I would. And that's been the privilege of my life.

So dare I ask you, dare I ask you why you were kicked out twice?

I was a bad boy, I did some things I shouldn't have done. And I'd rather not have them recorded. I'll tell you, when we can have a beer at the federal galley. That would be awesome. That's great.

Okay, but I mean, I think I do think that's really important not to get into the details of it. You know, why you were kicked out, but to just remind everyone that we're all human, and we have changes and we can still change the world.

So that was my I have to be gracious that you know, because all of us have received grace. But some some of us received grace, but then don't turn around and give it back. So you know, all of us have been given chances, and we ought to be generous in extending

chances, until when the promise was, was created and crafted and morphed into what you know, now what we know as we're there other cities doing this?

Yeah. So at that time, Kalamazoo, Michigan, was in the early phases of launching, there's the Kalamazoo promise is the first of the promise programs. After Kalamazoo It was a city in Arkansas called El Dorado. And when I'm with him, and I call it El Dorado, they correct me it's El Dorado Arkansas. So is the Kalamazoo promise, the Eldorado promise, and then the Pittsburgh promise was third. Today, there are 40 some cities that have promise initiatives. And we do work together and meet occasionally. Now, the college access business, of course, was around way before the promise. What differentiates the promise programs from general college access college access programs are about creating access for kids to pursue higher education, which of course we do. But the promise initiatives, the promise vision, about a place based program that's focusing on transforming the quality of public education in a place, and then helping kids who graduate from that system to pursue post secondary options, but then come back and participate in the economy of the place by gaining jobs with the companies that help support them in pursuing their education. So there's a little bit about like an economic development and workforce development components to the promise initiatives, in addition to, of course, the obvious college access.

There's a mission, right, there's a mission and a vision, maybe you can just articulate that a little bit.

Yeah, I'm gonna, if I may, I'm gonna articulate it by kind of using visual language. So if you were to imagine a bit of a bell curve with two tails and a hump in the middle, the, the two tails represent things that the promise really cares deeply about and invests in, but we don't own we don't control. We don't have authority over weekend influence, but we don't control the hump in the middle is our lane that we own and control. And that is raising money to send kids to college. That's the hump in the middle. But the two tails, which are very important to us, the incoming tail from the left side of the hump, is our influence on the urban public school system. We we have a bit of moral authority, we have a bit of a pulpit, and then we have this great resource, the hump in the middle that's available only to the public school system and we use it to every extent possible, ensure that the kids who are in that system are getting well grounded in identity and their identity are getting well prepared by educationally and well exposed to the demands of the marketplace. So that when they Get into our lane, they're able to maximize their opportunity. And then on the other end, the other tail is what many of you do, and that is the business sector that the, you know, the employer employer sector, where we want our kids to get jobs we, we discovered recently learned recently that about 700 companies in Pittsburgh have hired promised the lumps, some of them like UPMC, for example, UPMC has hired close to 800 promise alums, others have hired one or two but more than 650 Pittsburgh region, businesses have employed and are employing our alums. You know, a few years ago, Audrey, you are part of this, you and I together were part of this when the announcement was made that Pittsburgh projected to have about a shortfall of about 90,000 workers, you know, between retirements between growth, we kind of projected that we're going to be short 90,000 people. And then Pittsburgh made also another commitment to ensuring that we add racial, ethnic and national diversity to our region's workforce. And the language that was used at that time, the strategic line, which was we had to do three things, we had to elevate those we have we have to retain those we bring. And we had to attract those we now don't have while the elevate strategy, we think were central to it. The elevate strategies about the those we have here to prepare those we have here are the opportunities that exist here. And we're glad to play a role in that. And we think that if if the employers are serious about increasing the diversity of the region's workforce, and paying close attention to the public school system that educates the majority of black and brown kids, and the region is a strategically smart thing to do.

So we only cover Pittsburgh, the city of Pittsburgh, right, all the schools that are in the city of Pittsburgh. Yeah. What are the qualifications?

So the qualifications are really, it's really easy to get our scholarship. You have to live in the city, you have to attend Pittsburgh public for the four years of high school. And my Pittsburgh public, we include all of the charter schools that are received their charter as a part of Pittsburgh public. So live in the city, four years of high school in the public school system. And then graduate from high school with a GPA of 2.5 and attendance of 90%. And then finally, choose a Pennsylvania post secondary institution, of which there are close to 300, including an Ivy and some HBCUs. And then, of course, a plethora of great Publix and privates.

And so if they go out of state, there's no support for that.

Right? Well, we support them emotionally. Financially, the money has to stay in Pennsylvania.

Yeah. Okay. And so is there any schools that seem to take more of these kids are these kids gravitate towards? Are there any, like top schools? Yeah,

so we've we've sent more than 10,000 kids to college on a scholarship that have invested almost $252 million so far in private scholarships. So we have a lot we have 12 years of data, we know an awful lot about our students. And you know, Western Pennsylvania kids tend to stay close to home. So close to 20% of the of that 10,000 students and started their education at CCAC. Then the after CCAC, the schools, the five schools that have the majority of our scholars are not surprisingly Pitt and state. And then, you know, after Pitt and Penn State, kind of there's a bunch of schools that are in that fourth to sixth place, but more than one in each so like Slippery Rock, Clarion, Robert Morris point, Park. Chatham Carlo LaRoche, we have a bunch at CMU and a few at Penn. So we have kids that kind of like you name the opportunity, we've been able to place students there.

Have you seen any change in terms of COVID? Like with the hybrid models and schools, or are you seeing any delays?

Yeah, we're very worried frankly, about the impact of of this last year on on kids who already were behind the eight ball. So the chasm between high performing and and bless performing students was already wide. And that chasm was also kind of economic, so high performing kids than to have engaged parents who are educated who are invested. So you know, so the economic chasm, which correlates to the performance was already wide has, we believe it's only going to widen as a result of this? I was talking to a father this morning. And I said to him said, I really wish we had the ability To grant every kid, maybe not just in Pittsburgh, but every kid this to have them count this last year as a gap year, let's not pretend some kids were able to get a decent education and some are so self motivated and driven and were able to make the most of the virtual experience. Other on the other end, there are some kids who do not have access to technology. And I'm not getting about this did not have access to technology in a school year that was wholly dependent on technology didn't have access until until December. So from March to December of 2020. Education was happening, but not for them because they didn't have access to technology. So if we can count this last year as a gap year and then just say, enjoy, you had a gap year, you're not being held back, you took a gap year, we encourage college kids to take a gap year. I wish we could do that for all kids. I'm worried about what next fall is going to look like. We know, by the way, looking back to the class of 2020. Last year's graduates, they have three months of pandemic to deal with. And nationally, post secondary enrollment in the fall of 2020 was about 15 to 19% below what it was the previous fall. So across the country, fewer kids went to college. Now many of them many of them did that because of their choice to take a gap year recognizing they didn't want to start college virtually, I understand that. We think the enrollment for the class of 2021 in the fall of 2021. We're bracing ourselves for what we think will be really, really low enrollment. We're doing all we can to we announced two weeks ago that for the class of 2021, we are eliminating GPA and attendance, minimums, not because we don't think those are important. But we think in the context of this last year when it was largely largely virtual keeping track of attendance is a joke. And then furthermore, when some didn't have access to technology until December, how can we with any ounce of commitment to equity, say we're gonna hold you to a GPA for which you didn't have the tools to reach? So we told everybody Listen, if you can find a college, it'll accept you in Pennsylvania, you got a scholarship?

I mean, before we get to I think there are some questions before we get to some of them. I want to I would like you to just sort of tell us about programs because you do an array of things, right. Yeah, there's programs for students. And then there's also ways for community to get involved in terms of the work that you're doing. So yeah. Can you talk about that.

So the most recent program offering that we launched in the fall of 2020, just you know, at the beginning of this school year, we deployed what we call promise coaches, we identified three high schools, where the promise utilization rate was low to extremely low. So three high schools will be placed nine professional promise coaches, and they are embedded inside the school building. Now sadly, they started virtually and will be embedded inside a school building. As soon as school school doors are open. And their job is to help kids do five things. One, help them discover what they are good at, to what they care about three, what resources are available to them for, what pathways are in front of them for taking what they are good at what they care about, and the resources that they have to match up with a post secondary plan, and then five, what the region's marketplace is calling for. So perhaps they can align their skills and their passions with what could become a job. So we have coaches who are doing hand holding work one on one individual, highly relational high touch work that is all about these five priorities. So we're doing that as a four year pilot hoping to see promise utilization, in other words, college going rates among our most vulnerable populations of kids in schools that need the additional supports. So we're hoping to see those numbers grow dramatically over the next four years. Another program that is small in numbers, but but pretty significant in reach. And it's a sweet, sweet little thing. And that is our promise Ambassadors Program. We hire high school seniors every summer, the summer before they become high school seniors, we they work in our office here where I am. And we train them in all things kind of post secondary planning and applying. We take them to visit 30 to 40 colleges over the course of the summer. And we hope that they become fluent in that language so that when the school year begins, they stay on our payroll, but then they become peer to peer mentors and coaches and counselors helping their their peer group learn about the FAFSA application and the college search and the financial aid and, and the 40 schools that they visited. So that promise ambassadors like I said it's only we hire 30 seniors, they represent every school in Pittsburgh, but their reach and their relevance to the population that they're serving is so much greater than my relevance my relevant data Behind me and becoming increasingly irrelevant, Audrey.

I mean, it's it. Yeah. It's, it's amazing the amount of support that it really takes to help people navigate. I mean, when I went to school, it was just like, just go to school, right? Just go to college. And now, now the amount of support that all of us need. And so, you know, I want to jump before we dive into their questions there because I don't want to ask another question without acknowledging the ones that we have

a couple of fast wins, I think would be great for the conversation and slim. Thanks for hanging out with us today. It's great to learn more about the Pittsburgh promise. array. Hebrew has two questions he wants to do other cities have something like this. And what are the qualifications to do B to be part of the Pittsburgh promise? Yeah,

there are 40 some cities right now in the country that have something like this. The ones that are top of mind are Kalamazoo, Michigan, El Dorado Arkansas, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut now West Hartford, Connecticut. Yeah. All right, thank you. And then New Haven, also. Oakland, California, Denver, Colorado. Those are Corpus Christi, Texas. Those are some of Peoria, Illinois, some of the other promise cities. And most promised cities have some criteria that includes GPA and attendance we do all of them require residency in the city and enrollment in the public school system.

Because it exists sistent encouraged wants to know, has COVID affected your fundraising for the promise?

Yeah, so we shifted a little bit of our fundraising focus in the early days of COVID, because we recognized we needed to safeguard our investment in kids by supporting their emerging needs as a result of COVID. You know, kids, for example, who because we fund their post secondary education, including room and board, schools were closing that also meant that they would lose their room and board. So we needed we get we raised some money to do emergency grant making for for food and for mental health services, as well as to make up for losses of jobs and internships. Parents lost in jobs who were bridge scholarship paying their kids. So that fundraising did extremely well, our fundraising for the scholarship fund has slowed down a bit. And that is something of course that we're concerned about. Now, thankfully, we our fundraising is always about a something a few years down the road, our commitment every fall is to ensure that the class that's beginning their freshman year in college that fall, we are fully funding fully, fully able to fund for four years. So that's always we're always looking kind of four years at and we're okay with the kids who will start this fall.

Any more questions, Jonathan? No. Okay, so how so sleep? How can the Pittsburgh Technology Council members, and all those that are in the innovation ecosystem? How can they be helpful? What do you wish you desire? How could they be helpful? Yeah.

Our what our kids graduate, like I said, it's a priority for us that they come back to the Pittsburgh market and get jobs here and 700, some companies have hired our students. So please be among those who when you have a job that you're trying to fill, if you would let us know, we would be delighted to post it. And if you're interested in adding diversity to your workforce, we are a good place to consider especially for entry level jobs for your senior positions, you know, where we have 22 year olds who need experience as opposed to those who can bring experience. So in that vein, for entry level jobs, don't demand three to five years of experience, leaves hire kids straight out of college. You know, if the job really demands it great, but if it's like a luxury to have more experience, because right now you can hire that way. We hope that you will consider hiring straight out of college. And obviously, if you have some daughters that you want to be charitable with, help us send kids to college.

What about internships? Do they do you? Are there opportunities for internships? So before they graduate?

Sure. So another thing that we do, it's, it's periodically once or twice a year, it's an event that we call a career launch, where we bring juniors and seniors in college as well as recent graduates. And we try to give the numbers small 100 250 students at a time so that that can be a highly relational event. And usually 40 or so companies, they send their recruiters, either campus recruiters or just, you know, recruiters for entry level jobs to to attend our career launch, spent an entire day with a couple of 100 young people, some of them end up some of them are there because the companies are looking for interns or they haven't or they have a kind of a rolling internship program that they tell our young people about, some are looking to hire. And that's how many that's how so many of the hires were actually made.

So how do you so once they graduate Way to have 12 years under your belt is do you have like this alumni group? Do they get together? Are there ways that we could connect with some of the alumni,

we do have an alumni group, it's still in the nascent phase, and it's alumni LED. We provide support to the alumni leaders. So they call themselves promised legacy. And I think they're about 75 or 100. Strong right now. They they meet together socially, they also have asked us at the promise if some of our donors or board members can be mentors to them. Some of them already have their first job, but they're thinking about their second job and could use some some guidance about that. So our board members, and some of our donors have made themselves available to the promise legacy group for those kinds of things. But yes, so there are opportunities for engagement there as well.

Good in Jonathan, I think there's some more questions that we'll do

about that my mute button was stuck. So here's the from Karen Tobin, what's new, um, how does your organization work with parents of the kids who are working with you for the promise grants?

Yeah.

I wish I could. I wish I had like a really good answer for that question. Obviously, parents play a very central role in terms of getting their kids thinking through and planning for what they do afterwards. The question was, how do we work with parents, we don't we, we we work. You know, we create opportunities for students. And we try to be fairly light on program, because obviously, every dollar we spend on program is $1. We're not spending on scholarships, and there are 2000 nonprofits in the Pittsburgh region that work with kids and provide programs and services. But there are very few that are able to do what we do at scale with with the scholarship. So we try not to kind of duplicate programmatic things. So the answer is really not much. But we love dance.

So is there any? And what about degrees? Are you seeing students go into some of the sciences? and technology in the engineering and math? Are you seeing Do you have any data on that?

We have some, we have an incredible data on our kids for the four years during which they are in college. So we know about their majors and so on. The data that we have on them, once they graduate from college, like any college or university becomes voluntary, if they want to share it with us and stay in touch with us, we'd love that. And we work hard at that. But we can't mandate that we absolutely can and do mandate it during while they're while we are paying for their education. We promote STEM careers, because obviously, the need is great. And the market is ripe with opportunities for that. We also want to give every kid the opportunity to do that, which they care about. So we don't obviously we don't limit their choices, but we keep them informed about where the opportunities live. And they live right now, at least in our region, heavily in STEM.

So maybe when we all come back into the the maybe hybrid world or the vaccinated world, that we can host this alumni group and let them get connected to people across the region. In terms of the work that's going on, that they might not know about.

Let's consider that a plan. Audrey, I love that. And you have a beautiful shop over there and no place. That's where you are right now. Right.

Right. That's where I am right now. And I think I think it's important. There's lots of ways that people want to help and they don't know how to help. And that's one way that we can help bridge the relationships and open up the pathways. So is there anything that you think I should have asked you that you wanted to convey? Do you think I missed anything?

You know, there are, if any of you live in that city and care about the subject of public education, maybe you'll be involved either in running for school board or, or supporting some of the existing campaigns that are happening right now. primaries are in May. And school board positions. My goodness, they are so important. I get so unglamorous that they are like they're so important. And oftentimes that's on the on the bottom of the ballot. So folks don't even get that far and they're voting. So just think seriously about school board, support candidates that you think have the best interest of kids in mind and candidates who are tooled to do a good job and that massive system. The budget of Pittsburgh public schools is bigger than the budget of the city of Pittsburgh. So like, you know, put chew on that for a little bit and think about how important that school board is.

So Selene running the the Pittsburgh promise is definitely a great fit for you. I can't thank you. Enough. I can't thank you enough for just being so candid about your life. And you know the journey that you've been on, that's probably why you're so passionate about the work that you do. Because you know, and you've experienced it, and it's easy to be written off in the system. It's easy to be written off. And not everyone has has the supports and access and mentorship. So thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your time, we will stay connected. And when we're all together, when we're all together again, we will see what we can do about connecting with the alumni. This

sounds great, Audrey, thanks for your friendship, and thanks for the opportunity to be here with this really special group of people today. Just to you all.

Thank you and Jonathan, what do we have on board next week,

we are kicking off the weekend style because we have Mike Doyle, Congressman Mike Doyle, stop.

That's great. That is so great. Well, I am thrilled to be you know, hosting the show today live from our offices and Nova place. It feels great to be here and I hope to see many of you but stay safe and stay connected. Thank you again Saleem.

So long

Transcribed by https://otter.ai