The Youth and Education Department at ACCESS was awarded a $12.8 million grant for its 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC). The 21st CCLC program is the only federally funded source from the U.S. Department of education, dedicated exclusively to afterschool programs in the United States. The program’s focus is to provide expanded academic opportunities for children attending high-poverty, lower-performing schools in Metro Detroit.
The tutoring services and academic enrichment activities are designed to help students meet local and state academic standards in subjects such as reading and math. The program will serve 19 schools in Detroit, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck. These communities are comprised of a diverse student population including African Americans, Arab Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics and students from the Indian subcontinent.
A survey conducted by Michigan State University’s Outreach and Engagement Department revealed that regularly participating elementary school students of ACCESS’ 21st CCLC showed a 94 percent improvement in their reading and 98 percent improvement in their math scores during the school year. Teachers also reported that 98 percent of elementary students improved in both homework and classroom participation. Middle and high school students made similar improvements.
About 1,100 students in kindergarten through 12th grade will be served by approximately 190 program staff-program directors, site coordinators, teachers, instructors, paraprofessionals and tutors.
“We’re honored to have been selected to provide programming in 19 schools to assist students so that they may succeed in school,” said Anisa Sahoubah, Director of ACCESS Youth and Education Department. The relationships that we have forged with school districts, schools, the community, families and many other partners, have made this program a success in prior years.”
Principals, superintendents, teachers at the schools, and parents are involved in the planning of the program. Both students and their parents will be involved in the creation of an individualized learning plan and will be actively involved in setting short and long-term academic goals.
While the main goal of the program is to improve the students’ academics, in many cases ACCESS afterschool staff have been able to find and remedy other issues – poverty, absence of a parent, neglect, a family history of low literacy and educational attainment levels, being bullied or feeling undervalued. ACCESS’ Social Services and Employment and Training departments, were consulted and provided solutions for parents’ unemployment and financial difficulties resulting from it.
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