Teaching how to network

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.

We are looking forward to your RSVP.

Thank you.
Lupe Santoyo, Puente Counselor
gsantoyo@husd.k12.ca.us
Joel Ochoa, Puente Teacher

We’re a 501c.3!

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.

Thank you for being part of this amazing journey.

Available Chair Committee Positions

We are looking for strong leaders in the areas of:

Events/Programming

  • Assist with event planning: University Visit, Career Day, Mentor Mixer
  • Work closely with participating schools on Career Day
  • Email mentors and students on a monthly basis
  • Represent the organization in events

Teacher/Production

  • Assist in the matching of mentors and students
  • Keep open and clear communications with all participating school
  • Keep schools/districts on schedule
  • Represent the organization in events

Webmaster/Communication

  • Lead all social communications for the organization
  • Regularly update website
  • Knowledge of WordPress [not required]
  • Knowledge of mailchimp.com [not required]
  • Assist in preparing and sending the newsletter
  • Represent the organization in events

If you are interested and would like to get more information please email us at info@myedgeucation.org with your resume and a cover letter.

Mentors Needed for our Youngest Cohort

Hello Mentors!

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.

Thank you in advance.

EDGEucation Team

Career Fair at Mission High School – Need speakers!

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!

ELL Status and Academic Achievement Report

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”

Happy Holidays and a Prosperous New Year!

Hello mentors and supporters of EDGEucation,

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!

Thank you all again for your continued support,

EDGEucation team

Where would you like to go to college?

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.”

So where are you planing to apply?

For a copy of the article and to find out more about these programs, you can read more here http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2094119,00.html?xid=newsletter-daily

Film and Philanthropy Celebration

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.

See you there!

Cine HIP

Invitation

5K Benefiting Education

Ready for a challenge before the holiday season? Then join us this Saturday September 17 for the Aztec Run! You can choose between a 5k or a relay race in Oakland. They’ll even have “The Mayors Cup”, a competition to find out which Mayor has the fastest relay team in the Bay Area! You cant miss this

All proceeds from the Aztec Run go to support the educational programs of the Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation, an Oakland-based non-profit established in 1965. The SSCF was founded to improve the lives of Latinos in the Oakland area and dedicated to the mission of empowering the community and the individuals of the community to improve their quality of lives while upholding their rich Latino culture.

So are you in?

For more information and to register check out the Aztec Run http://www.aztecrun.org/index.html