PHENND K-16 Partnerships College Access Highlights

Posted by on May 08, 2012

AVID student leaders and the PHENND College Access Committee have worked hard this semester to address issues of college access and academic engagement in Philadelphia. Through service-learning, volunteering and coalition building.

Next Steps

The final “Next Steps” event, organized by the K-16 College Access Committee, will be held on Thursday, May 17th from 9:30-1:30 at the School District of Philadelphia. This event will feature two workshops designed by college students to address critical issues in the transition to college and will serve graduating seniors from South Philadelphia, Sayre, Fels and Lincoln high schools. All interested seniors were able to attend informational sessions at their schools led by project organizers and college student leaders have attend two Saturday workshops to prepare for this event. If you know of any students, administrators or young adults who attended Philadelphia high schools and graduated from college who would like to participate please email me ASAP!! This is going to be an amazing one-of-a-kind event.

eshriver@phennd.org, 215-573-2379. College students can sign up at: Next Steps: From High School to Higher Learning Application

AVID Tutoring 2011-2012 End of Semester Reflection

I am very proud of the AVID tutors of 2011-2012. These tutors have shown great strides in leadership and commitment to the AVID program and to their individual schools. On May 2nd several tutors presented their end of semester projects to their peers and to AVID teachers and administrators, demonstrating their unique perspectives and ingenuity in addressing the issue of college access and academic engagement at their schools. Projects included a “day in the life” video contest created by Miriam Traore, in which students created their own “day in the life” videos to share and contrast with a “day in the life” of a college student. A presentation and video by Miatta Goba and Jalen Blott which focused on how to be successful in high-school, including interviews of high school freshman at Edison. And a video created by Hsin-Yu Shih and Brittney Whitehead reflecting on the field-trip supported by Temple students and organized by Justin McCleary in the Temple Community Learning Network (CLN) which served South Philly, Arthur and Ben Franklin students. The trip featured a workshop on research, a trip to the Anthropology lab and a wonderful lunch at a Temple dining hall. It was truly a wonderful experience. In addition to these projects tutors like Chris Gruenwald, Rattanack Yin, Breanna Davis, Meg Stover, Kate Gibson, Grace Wang and Megan Monigle, Alison Greco and TJ Gibbs, Alex Keene, Brittney Sampson and Khadijah McCaskill have shown what it really takes to be an AVID tutor leader by tutoring two semesters and by being leaders at their schools and by serving as role models for future AVID tutors. I look forward to working with these student leaders and many other wonderful tutors from this semester who have truly shown what it takes to be dedicated to working with youth and coming up with creative solutions to many issues.