Its that time of year again, where you get to help high school students from Hayward High School learn about your career and practice their networking skills. Please save the date and join us. There will be a little “happy hour” for adults after.
One of the things our Puente team wants our students to leave Hayward High with is a stronger networking ability. In that spirit, we are hosting our 3rd Annual “Grape Juice and Cheese” event on May 3rd from 6 to 8 pm in the Hayward High Library.
The idea is to bring professionals together from various fields and have students practice “working the room.” It could be a great opportunity for us to not only help my students grow, but it could serve to reconnect a lot of us and to extend our own networks. We are hoping to make this event something students not only remember but that gives them an edge when they are in similar settings in the future.
Two years ago Laura B. and Giovanni G. (founder of LAM) got inspired to make a difference in the life of young underrepresented students by pairing them with LAM members for a mentorship program. The program has evoled to include career fair participation at high schools and University visits for these students. We’ve paired over 100 mentors/mentees and hope to continue this growth!
With the help of LAM Member Masha as our pro-bono lawyer, we have been approved as a 501c.3 organization by the IRS!
What does this mean?
Section 501(c)(3) is the portion of the US Internal Revenue Code that allows for federal tax exemption of nonprofit organizations. An entity must be organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes. One of the biggest distictions is that donations are tax deductable and we can apply for various grants! This source of income will help our organization grow, hire individuals, and really make an impact.
With this, EDGE is currently in a high momentum stage of growth. EDGE is a three board-member organization: Laura, Giovanni, and Jorel with new upcoming volunteers as various Committee Chairs. We continue to look for qualified mentors and volunteers.
Interested in joining our team as a mentor or volunteer? Please send an email to info@myedgeucation.org!
For more information, or to give a donation, please visit click here.
If you’re part of a corporate organization that supports 501c.3, please send an email to Giovanni – giovanni@myedgeucation.org to discuss opportunities for partnership.
We are getting ready to work with our youngest cohort yet. We are looking for mentors to work with 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students in San Francisco from March – August. If you are interested please send us a brief paragraph describing your background, your current job, and your hobbies. [if you have done this already, please just reply with your full name so we can look up your application].
To be a mentor we require that you:
-Meet personally with your student at least once per month (could be at the student’s school)
-Communicate with your student 3-4 hours per month (could be through email, phone, chat, etc)
-Keep records of your meetings through EDGEucation’s website (will receive details once selected)
If you are selected to work with a student, you will be asked to complete a lifescan test, as well as get interviewed by the SFUSD staff during the month of February.
EDGEucation will host a mentor/student meeting, as well as other educational activities for other mentors and students to connect.
The mentoring program will run from March through August. In September we will start a new mentoring academic year
If you are interested, please send us your materials no later than February 20 at 5 pm to Laura Brady at laura@myedgeucation.org. Mentors will be selected by February 28th.
Last year, Mission High School organized two career fairs for Juniors and Seniors with 36 speakers conducting 45 minute sessions on a wide variety of career areas. The fair was highly successful and they are doing it again, this time for Freshmen and Sophomore students. However, they need your help in finding speakers.
Mission High School asked the Freshman and Sophomore students to complete a questionnaire identifying their career interests so that we could arrange for speakers in those areas. At present the school is looking for Speakers to cover the following career areas;
Law
Photography
Physician
Judiciary Services, preferably a Judge
Veterinary Science
Dentist
Pharmacist
Fireman
Police Officer
Social Work/Probation Services
Solar Technology
Zoo/Animal Control
The sessions run from 1:45-2:30pm on February 14 & 16 in individual classrooms supervised by a teacher. Speakers are expected to be at the school no later than 1:30pm. On the Tuesday, there is a lunch and orientation for the speakers which was a very useful networking time prior to the presentations.
Sessions can be done by individuals or groups and have involved audio visual aids, props (one speaker brought a skeleton),surveys, question and answer time and handouts. Our main wish is to engage the students and have them interacting with the speakers to learn as much as possible about different jobs and careers in a specific field. Career paths into the profession, qualifications required and examples of a typical “day in the life of…” are helpful. If speakers can do both days, that is helpful but we are aware of people’s time constraints.
Mission High School has a very diverse student body and both the teachers and students take pride in their school. Carlos Santana is a graduate of Mission High and gave a private concert for students in November, practicing with the music students and performing with them on stage. James Olmos spoke about the importance of staying in school and talked about all the possible jobs and careers that students could enter. We are trying to ensure that students see opportunities rather than limitations by bringing mentors into our school to share their knowledge.
If you are interested, please contact Evelyn Bealby at evelyn@bealby.com and be part of the change!
New report examines enrollment history, achievement gaps, and persistence in school for English Language Learners (ELL) students and reclassified ELL students as compared to non-ELL students. The study uses statewide individual-level data sets merged from students’ entry to exit in the state’s public school system for graduate cohorts of 2006, 2007, and 2008. Results show that after accounting for academic achievement, behavioral issues, background, and district contexts, the longer a student is designated as an ELL, the more likely he or she is to drop out. This relationship may suggest that protracted ELL status leads to higher incidence of dropping out of high schools.
The article was published last monthby the National CCenter for Research on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing (CRESST) titled “Relationships among and between ELL status, demographic characteristics, enrollment history, and school persistence”
We hope you are having an amazing holiday season, and that 2012 will be filled with great adventures. To wrap up 2011, we wanted to share a few of our accomplishments, and let you know what we have planned for 2012.
This year we:
-Welcomed Jorel Guilloty as part of our external Board of Directors
-Had an amazing mentor mixer event at Charles Schwab’s headquarters and LAM, where we screened the movie ‘Miss Representation’ by Jennifer Newsom
-Worked with two new schools in San Francisco, including for the first time a high school
-EDGEucation submitted an application to become tax exempt! This will allow us to receive larger donations as a tax exempt organization, and help our programs grow
While we are very excited about our accomplishments, we understand that there is still a lot of work to do. In 2012, there are our goals:
-Create an internal Board of Directors that can take EDGEucation to the next level. Specifically, we are looking for strong leaders in the areas of events/programming, teacher/production, webmaster/communication, and a secretary. If you are interested and would like to get more information please email us at info@myedgeucation.org
-Increase the number of students in our program in San Francisco by 20%
Continue and expand our collaborations efforts with other organizations such as Charles Schwab, Twitter, and local organizations
-Start working on a university scholarship for graduating high school students
We thank you for all your support, and we challenge you to impact someone’s life by mentoring them. We would like to give special thanks to our speakers Laura Gomez (Twitter), and Claudia Galvan (Microsoft), keep on rocking ladies!
On December 1st we will be hosting private screening of Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s film, Miss Representation. This exclusive event will explore how mainstream media directly contributes to the under-representation of women and minorities in key leadership roles by cultivating demeaning stereotypes and rigid gender roles.
Following the screening, we will host a panel discussion on how to best empower our youth today.
Space for this event is limited and registration for is required. Please RSVP by November 28th
The current status of Latinos in the U.S. – Challenges and opportunities
The rapid growth rate of Latinos living in the United States has been a major center of controversy for the last couple of years covering heated debates around the numbers of legal foreign-born immigrants, U.S. born Latinos, and unauthorized immigrants. Aside from the debate, numbers don’t lie, and the numbers released by the 2010 census make Latinos the largest minority group in the United States accounting for 16% of the total population. What is even more powerful are the projections; according to the Census bureau, that percentage is expected to nearly double by the middle of this century.
While one in four American children is Latino, we have the lowest education attainment levels in the nation. According to the White House Report on Latino Education, more than 17.1 million Latinos age 17 or younger live in the U.S., comprising more than 23 percent of the country’s youth and nearly 22 percent of all K-12 public school enrollments. However, less than half are enrolled in early learning programs. Only half of the population earns a high school diploma on time, and when those students do, they’re half as likely to be ready for college. To date, more than 87% of Latinos do not hold a bachelor’s degree. Our college drop-out rate is 2.5 times higher than that of African Americans and 3.5 times higher than that of white Anglo Americans according to a report released by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in 2007.
The pressing questions are then: Why Should we care? What can we do?
As the second largest population group in the United States, the educational attainment of Latino students is connected to the nation’s growth and success. As the Latino population grows, the U.S. economy becomes more and more dependent on its success.
It is imperative that Latino students break the cycle benefit from full access to educational experiences of the highest quality.
When it comes to what actions to take there is a simple one: let’s give back. As professional Latinos with the drive, determination, and passion to excel we have a responsibility to cultivate the next generation of Latinos through mentoring and sponsorships. Mentoring has been proven to be highly effective in connecting students with leaders in the community, particularly in conquering the academic and social disengagement from school that leads to dropping out. An overwhelming number of Hispanic youth in the country does not have professional role models within their own family; mentors are important in ensuring success and providing the students with professional guidance, support, and access to resources.
We have started, are you ready to join us?
EDGEucation is a program that centers on inspiring and leading youth, through pairing students with leaders from their communities and educating students on the numerous options they have after high school. The goal of EDGEucation is to increase the graduation rate among underrepresented groups in California by leading and creating inspirational programs and connecting positive role models from within the community with students. Our vision is to level the playing field and aid underrepresented groups attain better opportunities after graduation by leading, inspiring, and working with prospective role models from within the community, to push education to the edge, and make education attainable for everyone.
If you are ready to make a difference or if you want to learn more about EDGEucation, we invite you to join us for our Mentor Mixer and Recruiting event.
Brazil has recently announced that it will be awarding 75,000 scholarships for young Brazilians to attend the best universities of the world!
“During the 2009–10 academic year, Brazil a nation of almost 200 million people, had fewer than 9,000 students at U.S. universities; China, by contrast, had more than 127,000, India 100,000 and South Korea 72,000. That’s a big reason that more than a third of the world’s research and development takes place in Asia today while less than 3% of it goes on in Latin America. As a result, countries across the region are working to get more of their best and brightest into top-flight institutions like Harvard, Stanford, Oxford and the Sorbonne. Ecuador last month announced its largest scholarship program yet, hoping to send more than 1,000 students overseas, while Colombia in 2011 will place more people abroad than in the past 18 years combined. Chile is expanding its own program to offer 30,000 scholarships by 2018, and even tiny El Salvador now has a study-abroad project.”
Join us on September 21 as we help Hispanics in Philanthropy celebrate Latino Leaders in the community at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Besides an amazing wine and chocolate tasting event featuring Casa de Chocolate and Mexican American Napa Valley Wineries there will be a preview of the latest report that analyzes philanthropic giving to Latinos and Latin America. The report, which will track investments in Latino communities as well as the growth in the Latino population, will highlight trends useful for foundations as they develop strategies for the next decade.
You can also check out the film “The Storm that Swept Mexico” from Director and Producer Ray Telles at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Screening Room.
