CORO

EL Focused on Closing the Achievement Gap

In an effort to address the achievement gap, the Exploring Leadership Program is launching a new school-based hybrid program model to help close the achievement gap on the campuses of its 12 selected high school partners - six in San Francisco and six in the East Bay. It does so by engaging students in this important dialogue, exposing them to resources that will broaden and shift their perspectives, and coaching them to work closely with school staff and their peers to find innovative solutions to close this gap.

An achievement gap exists within Bay Area public high schools. There are inequities and disparities among students in accessing higher education due to race and class. In an effort to address this pressing issue, the Exploring Leadership Program is launching a new school-based hybrid program model to help close the achievement gap on the campuses of its 12 selected high school partners - six in San Francisco and six in the East Bay. It does so by engaging students in this important dialogue, exposing them to resources that will broaden and shift their perspectives, and coaching them to work closely with school staff and their peers to find innovative solutions to close this gap. The ultimate outcome is to build stronger, healthier, and more empowered school communities.

East Bay School Partners                                                  San Francisco School Partners

Berkeley High School – Community Partners Academy               Balboa High School

El Cerrito High School                                                           Burton High School

Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy                              Galileo High School

Oakland High School                                                             International Studies Academy

Oakland Technical High School                                               Mission High School

San Leandro High School – AVID & Social Justice Academy    The Academy of Arts and Sciences
During the Fall Component (September-December), the Youth Fellows will discover and learn what the causes and solutions to the achievement gap are by interviewing experts at their bi-monthly after-school seminars. To kick off this “discovery phase”, the East Bay Group will interview Linda Murray, Executive Director of Education Trust-West, and the San Francisco Group will interview Taisha Tucker, Senior Program Manager at Pacific Educational Group, to receive an overview of the achievement gap and the factors that influence academic achievement. After each of these fall interviews, the Youth Fellows will conduct needs assessments via surveys and interviews on their school campuses to determine how they can work with school staff and their peers to initiate change to help close the gap.
During the Spring Component (January-April), three Youth Fellows selected from each of the 12 Coro Campuses will “teach back” the leadership skills they have gained through a 12-week series of two and half hour after-school leadership workshops. They will recruit and select a group of 15 Youth Leaders in Training, 9th and 10th grade students at their respective high schools who are excited to not only develop themselves as leaders, but also interested in being change-makers at their schools. With the support of a part-time Coro Campus Manager, this group of 18 students will design and implement a school Community Action Project (CAP) to help close the achievement gap via the three change avenues of RESOURCES, RELATIONSHIPS, and RECOGNITION.