The Crew- Black Students Working Together to Reach Success

Youth economic advancement

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Under the war on drugs, black suffered disparities that negatively impacted their quality of life for generations to come. Policies put in place during the war on drugs were the beginning of a journey towards regression to slavery in which schools were complicit creating the school-to-prison pipeline. Black students are disproportionately represented within special education programs; they are 1.5 times more likely to be placed in specific programs without clear definitions than any other racial or ethnic group. Blacks represent 20 percent of suspensions in the US, surpassing all other subgroups (Civil Rights Data, 2020). Black students lag behind their White and Hispanic counterparts in graduation rates nationally. The Global Pandemic only increased an already large academic and opportunity gap.

We want to provide support to Black students currently in high school to help them be prepared for college or other post-secondary choices by 12th grade. Unfortunately, many students who reach 12th grade realize the lack of support and knowledge they have and realize they are not ready for life after high school. We want to eliminate that feeling and prepare students through our program "The Crew." We will prepare them through customized academic support with a credentialed counselor, bi-weekly Crew meetings, homework support, tutoring, college admission guidance, college visits, as well as internship opportunities.
We will enroll current 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. We will provide scholarships to our graduating seniors who commit to a college. Students in the program will participate in several pre/post assessment cycles, including but not limited to their leadership capacity, mental health, academic achievement, self-efficacy, as well as their experience in the program. We will also collect data from administration and faculty evaluating the student’s progress as well as the impact of the program. The frequency of data collection will allow is to make immediate changes to the program to consistently evolve with the needs of the youth.

Our goal for this program is to strengthen the academic achievement, self-efficacy, socio-emotional behavior, and youth leadership of Black students in Los Angeles through academic planning, peer-mentoring, social activism, harm reduction education, and financial literacy. When we reach our goal that effects will have the contagion effect on the Black community as a whole. There will be more Black college graduates, more Black business owners, more Black married couples populating the community and purchasing property and creating a new normal for Blacks in Los Angeles County.

Our team will build surveys, pre/post assessments, and likert scales that are relative for our youth and easy to understand. All data will be translated to understandable and accessible tables and charts that make areas of growth and strength obvious for all stakeholders. We will have monthly meetings with the entire team and partners to provide quantitative and qualitative data, making notes for specific students and making immediate changes to meet the needs of our students. Quartely, we will host longer meetings to recap progress and goals, student’s experiences, as well as needed changes to impose for the next quarter. Students in the program will participate in several pre/post assessment cycles, including but not limited to their leadership capacity, mental health, academic achievement, self-efficacy, as well as their experience in the program. We will also collect data from administration and faculty evaluating the student’s progress as well as the impact of the program.