Aaron Brooks Foundation Programs
Academic Success
The tutoring component of the program will work collaboratively with the school to address the academic, social and physical barriers that restrict young people from excelling academically in school. Creating strong partnerships with teachers, academic counselors and tutors is critical to the success of the program. The program will act as a support to the classroom by monitoring each student's academic records, in an effort to make sure these students performs at his or her potential. The Academic Coach will work with a team of volunteers and mentors to create a sustainable after school tutoring program. These volunteers will be recruited from a cross-section of the community. The tutoring component of the program will start at 3:00 P.M. and end at 3:45 P.M. The Academic Coach will be responsible for recruiting and training the tutors, tracking the students’ academic progress, and other duties as assigned by the Program Director.
Social Development
The second component of the program will focus on developing social competencies in the participants though a yearlong series of workshops managed by the Social Coach. These one hour workshops and discussion sessions will take place every Tuesday starting at 5:30 P.M. and ending at 6:30 P.M. The workshops will focus on the students’ intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. The participants will gain skills in self-motivation, self-esteem, goal setting, communication, assertiveness, dealing with peer pressure, cultural education, and conflict resolution. The Social Coach will be responsible for recruiting and training volunteers, managing the yearly lesson plan, tracking improvements in the youth’s social behavior, and other duties as assigned by the Program Director.
Leadership Skills
When helping anyone develop skills you need real opportunities to practice and reflect on these skills. The program will develop strong leadership qualities in the youth we serve by leveraging sports activities to practice, model and reflect on the skills they have learned during the program. The youth will be placed in environments where they will work on diverse teams, resolve conflicts, lead teams and develop each other’s skills. These sessions will start at 6:20 P.M. and end at 7:45 P.M. The sports coaches are responsible for managing this process. The day will always end with fifteen minutes of reflection.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
Pacific Middle Referral Data
(Reported by Theresa Bradley, School Youth Counselor)
At Pacific Middle School, our building assessment showed that the majority of our students, 73% did not feel that they were meaningfully engaged in school. Sixty-nine (69%) percent of the students felt that they didn’t have an adult/mentor that they connected to. During the 2009-10 school year, behaviors that warranted disciplinary referrals were at an all-time high. Our students deal with significant social problems. Without meaningful participation in school and without feeling meaningfully connected to a least one adult, our students were at-risk of falling victim to their life circumstances. In the 2010-11 school year, the Drills and Skills program was implemented as an intervention to reduce the number of disciplinary referrals and to provide a healthy and supportive activity for youth to engage in. As you can see by the data below, we have experienced a marked decline in number of students who are referred to the office for misbehaviors.
Needs
The hours of the Drills and Skills program at Pacific Middle are 3:00 PM until 7:00 PM. Based on these hours, some students that would like to participate in the program can’t attend the program due to transportation issues. The Drills and Skill program has purchased a minivan to address this concern, but the attendance of the program has out grown the seats in the van. The program could serve the schools better if we had a 17 passenger van.