October 2009 Newsletter

Good to Go: New Visions launches college and career readiness campaign

RU G2G?

Students in New Visions high schools will soon be greeted with posters posing this question in text-message language. Adults in need of translation: It means, “Are you good to go?”

New Visions this fall is launching Good to Go, or G2G, a college and career readiness campaign with an ambitious goal: to ensure that at least eight in 10 ninth-graders in its high schools graduate college and career ready in 2013.

Far too many students graduate from high school unprepared for the future. Four of every 10 need to take remedial courses, including 25 percent of new students at four-year colleges and universities and 60 percent at two-year institutions.

New Visions is committed to setting a new standard for high school graduation. For more than a year, the organization has been working with principals on setting higher expectations. Staff have established specific benchmarks that students must meet each year of high school to graduate “good to go.”

Now, it’s time to generate momentum among the most important stakeholders: our students.

This academic year, New Visions strives to reach all students and families in its high schools with the G2G message. In the next few weeks, schools will receive posters and brochures, to be followed later in the year with G2G T-shirts, notebooks, pens/pencils and other gadgets. The communications department has formed a G2G student advisory board comprised of teens from all five boroughs who are providing feedback on products and written materials prior to distribution. Development of a G2G Web site is underway, to include student-produced videos and a blog about students’ journeys to college or the workforce.

And that’s only the beginning. As the class of 2013 progresses toward graduation, New Visions plans to expand G2G to reach a wider audience by soliciting support from donors, reaching out to the media and building community partnerships.

In the end, the hope is that the campaign will not only benefit students in New Visions schools but will produce evidence of what’s possible for all of New York City’s public school students.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett Partnership encourages students to consider legal careers

As New Visions for Public Schools marks its 20th anniversary, its longtime partner Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is commemorating its 125th. In celebrating STB’s longevity as one of the nation’s premier legal firms, the firm’s diversity committee has launched an urban education volunteer initiative to support students in their college and career preparation process.

Volunteers from STB will work on a variety of college-readiness efforts. They’ll talk with students about their backgrounds and help them understand the everyday activities of a corporate law firm. Beginning in November, students will have opportunities to visit the firm, and firm representatives will visit classrooms.
The initiative’s pilot phase will run at six New Visions schools throughout the 2009-2010 academic year, with the goal of including additional corporate partners and more schools in years to come.

The six participating schools are: East-West School of International Studies, Bronx High School for Law & Community Service, New Dorp High, Hillcrest High, Collegiate Institute for Math and Science and Bronx School of Law and Finance. These schools have law themes and strong college and career readiness programs.

The STB initiative seeks to show students how the world of law extends beyond the courtroom to careers such as accounting, information technology, human resources and marketing.

"We look forward to our partnership with New Visions schools and to encouraging New York public school students to pursue opportunities in higher education and to explore a variety of career options,” said Pete Ruegger, chairman of STB’s executive committee.

Game school offers bold new approach

In 2006, New Visions approached the Institute of Play with an idea: Would they work with us to design a radically new kind of school – one where teachers would use technology and games to engage students in an education rich with the types of challenges that define the 21st century? With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, the two organizations began crafting a vision.

The realization of that vision is Quest to Learn (Q2L), which opened in September on the M47 campus in downtown Manhattan. Through its role as a New York City demonstration site, Q2L offers teachers and students access to unique new learning tools to support achievement, performance-based assessment, youth identity development, and preparation for college and careers. Indeed, the school is poised to become the demonstration site in New York City for innovative approaches to prepare students to live and work in the digital age.

Students at Q2L – or “q-dents,” as they have named themselves – are off to an impressive start in their first month of school, working in classes called “Domains” that integrate content from multiple subject areas. In “Codeworlds,” for example, q-dents have been developing their math and English/language arts skills as they apply to Systemia Academy, a fictional school that trains the best and brightest codebreakers.

Q2L students become inventors in “The Way Things Work,” a class integrating math and science. In this class they meet “The Troggles,” a community of small creatures who like to invent things but are not very good at it. Most recently the Troggles left students a package containing “blueprints,” pipe cleaners, and a letter asking the students to help them out with their latest dilemma. The plans, left to the Troggles by their lead architect who has mysteriously disappeared, contain only vague and wacky measurements, leaving the students with a lot of work to do. Students have each received a “Journal of Experiments,” a notebook where they will document work and progress.

Quest to Learn represents a bold new approach to education, one that utilizes digital media as a central vehicle for eliciting key higher-order thinking skills and engaging students in rigorous, collaborative learning experiences.

Bringing squash to the streets of Harlem

As far as after-school programs go, StreetSquash offers it all. The 10-year-old nonprofit, located in the heart of Harlem, provides youth enrichment for urban kids by combining coaching in squash with academic tutoring, community service and one-on-one mentoring. “Squash is just the carrot that keeps them coming,” explains Leah Brown, the program director for StreetSquash Inc.

Students come to StreetSquash from three main feeder schools. Two of them, Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change and Frederick Douglas Academy II, are New Visions schools.

Brown describes the program as one that does “long-term work.” StreetSquash focuses on the whole person and helps students reach their full potential. “It’s about setting specific individualized goals that are attainable for each student,” Brown says.

Low- or average-performing students, who do not automatically qualify for scholarships, comprise a large portion of the participants. “At StreetSquash, no constraints exist to keep them out,” Brown says. “StreetSquash gives them a leg-up.”

StreetSquash serves 150 students, ages 9 to 18, at a new, state-of-the-art squash court facility on115th Street. Any student from the three feeder schools is invited to apply, but students must commit to the program four days a week. Two days focus on homework and squash practice. One day centers on SAT prep, or reading comprehension for the younger students. Saturday is devoted to squash tournaments or community service projects. There’s also an “elite” training program that requires students to commit to a fifth day of training day but gives them the opportunity to compete in additional tournaments and matches provided they keep up their grades.

StreetSquash is one of nine members of the National Urban Squash and Education Association. Each year, practice leads up to participation in that organization’s individual and team tournaments, which give students the opportunity to visit other cities and meet students from other urban teams.

StreetSquash also secures scholarships for its students to attend squash camps during the summer. Students have traveled all over the country and the world for tournaments and summer camps. In the past decade, StreetSquash participants have gone to more than 200 squash competitions and done 60 community service projects.

Because of StreetSquash, “I have friends in Boston, Philly and the Bronx,” says Rakey Drammeh, a 16-year-old senior at Thurgood Marshall Academy. Rakey is in her fifth year attending StreetSquash. She’s the first to admit that when StreetSquash came to Thurgood Marshall to recruit students, she “thought squash was just a vegetable.” But since beginning the program in seventh grade, Rakey says she has become much more organized and motivated about her work. She likes the support from staff and says the program has made her think about her future. A future, she hopes, that includes playing squash in college.