1 Month of Tutoring for 463 South Bronx Students

Summary

AmeriCorps members tutor one-on-one and in small groups during school hours and lead out-of-class activities that complement school instruction. Through focused literacy tutoring, working directly with each student to address their individual literacy needs, our AmeriCorps members help students get back on track to reading at grade level.

What is the issue, problem, or challenge?

Every 26 seconds a student gives up on school, resulting in more than one million American high school students who drop out every year. The South Bronx has a graduation rate of 49%, and 59% of children under the age of 18 living in households with incomes below the Federal Poverty Level (the highest percentage in New York City).

How will this project solve this problem?

City Year New York (CYNY) is dedicated to improving educational outcomes for low-income youth in four of New York City's poorest communities. Through our in-school and afterschool programs, full-time CYNY AmeriCorps Members (young leaders between the ages of 17 to 24 who dedicate a year of their lives to full-time service) offer tutoring, mentoring, social support, and engaging activities to improve attendance, behavior, course performance, and civic involvement among elementary and middle schools.

In the South Bronx, City Year New York works with eight elementary and middle schools, supporting students in grades 3-8. These schools are: Middle School 302, Intermediate School 123, Public School 130, Public School 154, Public School 48, Public School 75, Public School 55, Intermediate School 303 and the Bronx Early College Academy. During targeted literacy intervention, AmeriCorps members work with students in one of three areas: vocabulary, fluency or comprehension. From reading passages out loud together to introducing new techniques for note taking and comprehension, AmeriCorps members work to build the fundamental skills our students need to be strong, independent readers and writers.

Potential Long Term Impact

Students who progress to 10th grade with their peers are four times more likely to graduate than students who fall behind. City Year's Long-Term Impact goal is to ensure 80% of the students in the schools City Year serves reach 10th grade on track and on time, serving the majority of at-risk students in the locations where City Year serves. City Year focuses on the communities where the dropout challenge is most concentrated, ultimately serving 2/3rds of the nation's dropouts.

Dear City Year Champions,

City Year New York is grateful for your donations to support 89 corps members as they tutored 463 students in the South Bronx. Through these contributions, you assisted City Year in taking one step closer to achieving our mission to end the dropout crisis. Every 26 seconds a student gives up on school, resulting in more than one million American high school students who drop out every year. The South Bronx has the lowest annual graduation rate in all of New York City. By supporting these corps members you are helping the students of the South Bronx to stay in school and on track to graduate.

IMPACT

Your contribution played an important role in enabling our dedicated and diverse teams of corps members to support the students of the South Bronx Community through literacy tutoring. Our corps members -- young leaders between the ages of 17 to 24 who dedicate a year of their lives to full-time service --tutored one-on-one and in small groups during school hours and led out-of-class extension activities that complemented school instruction. Through focused literacy tutoring- working directly with each student to address their individual literacy needs- our corps members helped students get back on track to reading at grade level.

In the South Bronx, City Year New York works with seven elementary and middle schools, supporting students in grades 3-8. These schools are: Middle School 302, Middle School 424, Intermediate School 123, Public School 130, Public School 154, Public School 48 and Public School 75. Typically during targeted literacy intervention, corps members work with students in one of three areas: vocabulary, fluency or comprehension. From reading passages out loud together to introducing new techniques for note taking and comprehension, corps members work to build the fundamental skills our students need to be strong, independent readers and writers. When EOY Data is available we will share those updates with you. We anticipate having that information by Fall of 2014.

STORY FROM SERVICE

Perhaps the best way to share the impact of your contributions is through the stories from our Corps Members about the work they completed with the students of the South Bronx Community. Below are three stories highlighting the growth of students as they worked one-on-one with Corps Members.

PS 48

When I first met John**, he was shy, and didn’t talk often. He also did not enjoy morning greeting – when I would try to give him a high five, he would just walk by me. I wanted to learn more about John, so I spoke with his mother, and discovered that he had just moved to New York from Texas. One day I decided to talk to him about this big move. He shared that he missed all of his friends back in Texas and that New York was too loud. It was the first real conversation we have ever had.

 John was on my English focus list and after building our relationship I learned so much about him from his reading and writing. He likes mythical creatures and loves sugar cookies. He also enjoys drawing and building. The more I have interacted with John, the more I have seen him come out of his shell. He started giving me high fives in the morning. I also saw an improvement in his English work. He improved at reviewing the text to answer comprehension questions. He also began integrating his vocabulary words into conversations with me, as well as into his writing. His mother even said that she sees an improvement and thanks me so much for the work that I do with him. I can’t wait to hear how well John does in the years to come!

MS 302

Her name was Jessica**. Of all the students in Ms. Jaime’s bilingual class, Jessica was the least engaged. She kept her head down on her desk for practically the entire day and refused to answer any of the teacher’s questions. The only response she gave me was “No me hable” when I tried to speak to her. (Translation: Don’t talk to me.) This continued to be her response every day for the first week. I refused to give up though. I could see that this girl needed someone to help her and push her to do her schoolwork, so I kept at it. Every day I would go to class, try to get her to do work, and when that didn’t work I would resort to telling jokes to her in Spanish. Usually she would roll her eyes at me and not say anything, but one day something just short of a miracle happened: she smiled at one of my corny jokes. That’s when I knew that I had won.

 I don’t know if it was because of my persistence and constant presence in the class, or maybe she was just tired of putting up a fight. No matter what the reason, in a few short months she went from being my worst student to my best. The girl who refused to talk to me at the beginning of the year now asked me to pull her out of class for ELA Intervention every day. The girl who had to repeat the eighth grade because she failed the English Proficiency Exam now has fluent conversations with me in English and is even helping some of our other students to pick up the language. I couldn’t possibly be prouder of her.

**Student names have been modified to protect the identity of the students.

Links:

• http://www.cityyear.org/new-york