NEWS FLASH!!!

We have some exciting news to share with you regarding 2 students from our Postsecondary Education Initiative Student Advisory Council…

1.   Patrick Breton, a YouthBuild Brockton graduate, has been chosen by America’s Promise to introduce former United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell. This event is to take place on Monday, March 1, 2010, in Washington, DC. The purpose of the conference is to announce the usage of Grad Nation by America’s Promise.  In attendance will be Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, America’s Promise Co-Chair, Alma Powell, and possibly President Barack Obama!!!! You can watch live at 10am via the America’s Promise website.

2.    Trevor Easley, a YouthBuild Columbus graduate, is a finalist in the “Take America To College” video contest that is sponsored by Purple States, a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grantee. If he gets enough votes he will be one of 5 students to be awarded $500 and a video camera to chronicle his journey through PSE. His story would then be included in a 5 part series that will be aired on a national television station. Let’s show him our support…
WATCH HIS VIDEO AND VOTE HERE!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO BOTH STUDENTS!

Hi everyone,

I am sharing adocument ( download the PDF here) that may help your YouthBuild program launch a successful “Parent Night”. This document (see attachment), developed by Ashley Wood,  provides useful insights around Brockton’s planning and implementation of the event.  YouthBuild Brockton’s Parent Night was a great success. 25 parents and guest and 14 students attended the event in which Brockton staff, students, and alumni shared students’ experiences and progress within the program and highlighted parents’ role in their child’s postsecondary success and the financial aid application process.

Please free to contact Ashley Wood at awood@oldcolonyymca.org or (508) 894-2816 if you have any questions.

All the best,

Krista Sabados
YouthBuild USA Education Resource Manager

If folks have celebrations of how well their students are doing in postsecondary settings, we would love to consistently share those in our learning community and PSE blog. We know that we ask for success stories and challenges in our reporting requests for the Gates Foundation, but if you have important news to share in the interim, we would love to more regularly celebrate the success and consider the challenges YouthBuild students/graduates are having in postsecondary settings.

For instance, our friends and colleagues in McLean County brought a huge smile to my face over the weekend with an email from a professor at Heartland Community College. The professor had just finished reading mid-term papers from four YouthBuild McLean County graduates in her College Success course and she wrote to Alicia Lenard to let her know how much she enjoyed having Thomas, Cory, Flavian, and Lavelle in her class. She wrote, “All four students are hard workers who are always on time or early, do all their work on time, contribute to every conversation, keep in touch with me to confirm they are on track or ask questions — I love working with them. I suspect that they are not only terrific students, but you and your staff have helped them to be prepared for starting college. Thank you! I’ll be having one-on-one conferences with each student this week before I post their mid-term grades and I’ll be telling them how well they are doing and how much I appreciate them and all the effort they are putting into this class.”
In a few short sentences, the email communicates much of what we are trying to accomplish in this initiative. First and foremost, these four YouthBuild McLean County graduates are deeply engaged in their own learning process, building relationships with faculty and excelling at their local community college. The faculty member recognizes and appreciates how the YouthBuild experience has contributed to these students’ readiness for postsecondary success. She also has a strong enough working relationship with YouthBuild McLean County staff to communicate about students’ success and presumably around challenges if and when they arrive. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, the professor who wrote the email knows each of these students well, conducts individual conferences with each student and communicates her appreciation for their hard work and progress.
I know that each of you have similar stories about students excelling in their postsecondary work, so please share them with us and post them on our PSE blog. Multiple programs have upcoming events, programs, and activities planned for academic faculty and student support staff members from their postsecondary partners to provide feedback on recent progress and challenges encountered with YB students and graduates. We hope that you can continue to share what you are hearing and learning.

We know that we are continuing to ask for quite a bit of quantitative data regarding student/alumni outcomes as they progress through postsecondary settings. But the anecdotal evidence and real stories about how students are doing prove every bit as meaningful and important.
We extend our most sincere congratulations to Thomas, Cory, Flavian and Lavelle for their success and continued good work at Heartland Community College

Dear All,

For those who I have not met, I am Krista Sabados, the Education Resource Manager at YouthBuild USA. I am responsible for developing tools and resources to support the education efforts of YouthBuild programs while documenting practices arising from PSE and NSI programs.
I  am currently helping Scott Emerick plan the upcoming spring PSE conference in Columbus. We would love your feedback regarding your greatest needs/ level of interests around key postsecondary topics so we can develop an agenda and invite relevant external participants and presenters.
Specifically, the PSE team is working with Jobs for the Future (JFF) to identify community college leaders and faculty within the Lumina Achieving the Dream Initiative to invite to the conference. Achieving the Dream colleges are developing and implementing various strategies by which to support low-income students’ postsecondary completion. You can learn more about Achieving the Dream by going to: http://www.achievingthedream.org/CAMPUSSTRATEGIES/STRATEGIESATACHIEVINGTHEDREAMCOLLEGES/default.tp.
Please let us know which of the following initiatives you would like to discuss, learn more about, and/or present your current practices at the upcoming conference. Further, let us know which information or topics within these initiatives you would like to be exposed to in greater detail (e.g. developmental math curricula). We encourage you to engage your postsecondary partners when selecting these initiatives. Also, free to share any additional topics not included in this list.  Given the time constraints of the conference, try to limit your suggestions to the two or three initiatives you feel are most significant.
Once we receive your feedback, we will collaborate with JFF to identify possible community college experts and practitioners involved in similar work. Your comments will also be pivotal to the development of the conference’s overall agenda. The initiatives are as followed:

1) Enhancing quality of college orientation and preparation courses

2) Developing curricular and cultural alignment between secondary and postsecondary institutions

3)Effective developmental education strategies including specific math curricula and instruction formats

4) Using data and early warning systems to ensure that students are “on track”.

5) Developing cohort and learning communities to support students through postsecondary

Please see Achieve+the+Dream+Community+College+Initiative — outlining examples and descriptions of each of these initiatives.

Take America to College Website

Take America to College, a Gates Foundation partner, is currently holding auditions for a television project they plan to air on cable in the late spring (May). I’ve included more information about the opportunity in the attached doc. file.

Congratulations to Trevor Easley, YouthBuild Columbus graduate, who has already submitted his audition video and was selected to write a blog on the Take America to College website! Pass this opportunity on to any students you feel may be interested. We here at YBUSA will be able to give you any additional information that you may be looking for.

ALSO: Please be sure to check the BLOG and the FACEBOOK GROUP periodically. Two really good threads have been placed on the facebook page by your colleagues and they could use your feedback.

The facebook group can be found –>>HERE<<–

Enjoy the rest of your day!

-Paladin-