By Rick Abercrombie
St. Andrews Optimists recently enjoyed a presentation by City Year Columbia. The speaker was Trey Glenham, Director of Development. City Year serves as the local hands and feet of AmeriCorps and is one of 30 such extensions of the parent organization.
The statistical fact of life that energizes City Year is if students are struggling in school attendance, behavior issues, or sup-par performance in Math and/or Language Arts by the 6th grade, their chances of high school graduation are only 25 percent. Further, drop-outs are eight times more likely to be incarcerated at some point.
City Year can step in and partner side-by-side with those students, working together to achieve a 100 percent graduation rate. It operates on the principle that, in Glenham’s words, “talent is equal, but opportunity is not.”
To wit, City Year’s statement of intent: “To advance educational equity by supporting students furthest from opportunity and to develop leaders through national service who can work across lines of difference.”
City Year refers to its in-school representatives as “Corps Members” (ACM). There are 25 ACMs assigned to each school, and those personnel spend the entire school day, every day, in the classroom with their assigned students. They also attend after school functions with their clients. In most cases, when those relationships begin, the students are operating two years below their grade level.
ACMs undergo a training regimen ahead of being assigned. They wear distinctive red jackets and form a type of greeting gauntlet (high fives) for students entering each morning. They range in age from 17 to 25. They commit to serving one year as ACMs. In Columbia, City year currently serves four schools.
The positive effects of City Year are borne out in the following measurements:
1,850 students served at the 4 schools.
171 students increased test scores.
More than 170 students on the verge of dropping out are now on-track to graduate.
2,200 hours of community service.
Pictured left to right are Optimist Club President Gary Boyd, Trey Glenham, and speaker sponsor Hannah Brewer, who presented the speaker with a copy of the Optimist Creed.
