48,000 hours of virtual instruction time over the summer and school year. Working devices for every child. Real-time family social supports. Math and reading gains. A community built with hard work and hope.
The GO Project provided five weeks of remote academic intervention during the pandemic summer. More than 500 under-resourced K-8 students across NYC logged on daily for small group and 1:1 instruction, with nearly two-thirds of our youngest learners growing one level or more in reading. Our students are beating the summer and COVID learning slides and are ready for back-to-school success! This is how the day unfolded for students during GOSummer@Home:
Morning Meeting: teachers kicked off the day waking up their students' brains, setting expectations for the lessons ahead, and building a strong sense of community that kept kids coming back day after day. Guided Reading: classes moved from Morning Meeting to small group reading instruction, where students read leveled fiction and non-fiction books together to build foundational skills. Math and ELA 1:1 Instruction: our brilliant minds moved into individual academic coaching sessions, where teachers focused on math and literacy exercises like fractions and phonics.
We are filled with sadness, pain, and outrage over the senseless death of George Floyd and the loss of countless Black lives before him. The GO Project is unified with our community members in standing up for justice andf racial equality.
Our strength as an organization is in the diversity of our students, families, staff, and volunteers. One of our roles has always been to bring together diverse communities to challenge the structural inequities that allow for systemic racism and violence to persist. We will continue and deepen this work together.
GO's mission calls for equity in education, and we strive to provide an inclusive space for every member of our community in pursuit of that mission. We recommit with humility and intention to examine our work and practices, and to ensure opportunity and belonging for every child and adult we serve, as well as for those who work alongside us.
The GO community has been hit especially hard by the pandemic, and the organization has swiftly transformed its program model to meet the immediate needs of our students and families. Due to the nature of GO's existing high-touch case management support model, we were uniquely equipped to respond from day one of the citywide school closure. Essential support has included the following:
·Critical Information: Providing mult-lingual information sharing and crisis response on DOE school closure policy, food access, childcare support, rent moratoriums, and other city policiies affecting the vulnerable communities that GO serves.
·Technology: Ensuring each family and child has working devices and access to low-cost internet services.
·Academic Support: Developing an on-call technical assistance program for families to receive support with navigating public school learning platforms, as well as specific content and lessons. Our volunteer community has been tremendous with supporting our students with 1:1 virtual tutoring assistance through June.
·Family Social Support: The volume of pandemic-related hardships for families - food insecurity, employment loss, housing uncertainty, childcare, healthcare - are addressed by GO's social work team in collaboration with our network of partner service providers.
This will be a long, hard road ahead for everyone. The services we provide now to help families meet basic needs challenges and create the best home-learning environments will position GO to implement effective education recovery plans when students eventually return to their public schools and GO classrooms. We thank the GO community for its dedicated support.
We had a great summer at the GO Project! We will wrap up our biggest GO Summer program to date in August. Here are some highlights from our five-week summer program.
Our students are learning new strategies in reading, writing and math.
GO students also participated in fun enrichment activities for the body and mind such as capoeira, art, cooking and more.
We went on some amazing field trips to the Children's Museum in Manhattan and Brooklyn, Garden Lab and other museums.
We welcomed corporate one-day volunteer groups who lent their time to support our students in and out of the classroom. We're grateful to PwC, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, BlackRock, Flatiron Health, M&T Bank and TD Securities.
Our middle school students went on exciting career-exploration visits to the headquarter offices of Warby Parker and Chobani. They also participated in enrichment classes at SoulCycle.
They also had a taste of what it’s liketo be a grown up during Career Day. They met with our guests from Scholastic, Halstead, Columbia University Medical Center, NBC Sports, The Body Shop, Fordham Law, and Analytics Quotient.
Our middle school staff participated in a friendly basketball competition with their students. It was a close game, our staff won with a final score of 62 to 60.
Our high school interns called GO Getters participated in a public speaking workshop facilitated by GO’s Young Leadership Council Board Liaison Rebecca Hsu. Their internship culminated in a Hustle Project Presentation, where they showcased a reflection of their passions, interests, talents and expertise.
We are proud of the efforts and commitment of our students, families and staff. Thank you for helping our students learn and grow this summer! GO School, our school year program, begins on October 19.
Our summer program kicked off on July 1 with more than 150 instructional staff hard at work helping GO students make critical learning gains during the five-week program. Most children lose anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of their school year gains during the summer months, and that summer slide is magnified for low-income students without access to high quality programming. At the GO Project, we make sure our 725 students don't become another learning loss statistic.
Reading proficiency is a big goal for all GO students, especially for our youngest learners. Last GO Summer, 77% of GO students in grades K-2 increased at least one reading level! Through individualized instruction and lots of independent reading time, GO anticipates even higher gains this summer.
GO Summer growth for students means more than mastering fractions or phonics. Exposure to new activities and cultural experiences is a critical component of GO’s holistic model of learning. We are thrilled to offer a diverse lineup of enrichment teachers this summer who are introducing students to activities like dance, martial arts, capoeira, improv, show choir, and more! Students will also explore the city through a series of field trips to Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Children's Museum, Children's Museum of the Arts, Columbia University, Dog Man: The Musical, El Museo del Bario, Garden Lab, Greenwich Village Historical Society, Museum of the Moving Image, Museum of Natural History, Rubin Museum of Art, South Street Seaport Museum, Transit Museum, and the Union Square Greenmarket. For our Middle students, we have exciting career-exploration visits planned to the headquarter offices of Chobani and Warby Parker.
One adult for every four students. That’s the ratio GO commits to in our classrooms, and our nearly 600 volunteers this summer will help us honor that 1:4 commitment. They include 75 high school students accepted into our GO Getters program (from more than 400 applicants!) – interns who dedicate their summers to giving back, gaining valuable life experience, and bridging communities. Our volunteers also include countless one day groups from companies including BlackRock, Brookfield, Flatiron Health, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, M&T Bank, PwC, TD Bank, and WarnerMedia.
None of this work is possible without our public-private school partnerships. A special thank you to our host site schools – Grace Church, Grace Church School, St. Luke’s School, and Berkeley Carroll, for giving us the space to create learning gains and helping our students and families trive this summer.
The GO School 2018-19 program year was one of our strongest to date. We served 722 public school students and their families across six campuses in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Throughout the school year, we engaged over 650 volunteers and Student Teachers who supported our Head Teachers in the classroom. The high amount of adult helpers enable GO to provide responsive and individualized instruction.
Literacy continued to be a main priority. Students participated in extended literacy blocks, eighth graders continued the reading buddies program with first graders, and a supplemental literacy remediation program for students in first to third grades were held on Saturday afternoons. Our young students had a meet and greet with high school students from Characters for Kids. Moana and Elsa read stories to our first graders and interacted with our young learners.
Now in its sixth year, we're pleased to continue our partnership with James French, who teaches Art at LREI High School. This year, a group of fifth graders worked with James and LREI high school volunteers to create various art pieces. Our students learned about the color wheel, drew self-portraits, carved their own stamps, and worked with many different materials.
The Department of Education launched a new online application process for both Middle and High School Applications this year. We worked diligently with our families in navigating the Middle School and High School Choice Processes. We offered two specialized parent workshops on Middle School Choice and Readiness for fifth grade families. In middle school, we offered workshops on High School Choice Process, a borough fair field trip, and a High School Choice weekly student group.
Early results indicate an increase in the number of students accepted into high-performing middle and high schools compared to 2018 – nearly 70% of our 2019 graduates report being accepted into high-performing high schools, including Baruch College Campus High School, the High School of Fashion Industries, and School of the Future.
Finally, we celebrated our 8th grade graduates with a commencement ceremony on April 27 that ended with a lunch reception with our proud families. While our GO alum will disperse to new schools and begin their high school journey, they will take with them the bonds formed with teachers, staff, and fellow GO students, and the incredible academic and social-emotional growth they made during their years with the GO Project. We wish them continued success!
We're thrilled to announce that we raised over $1,000,000, all of which will directly support our work with struggling NYC public school children and their families. We are grateful for your support!
At the GO Project, we work with over 850 volunteers each year who help support our students and families. On this National Volunteer Week, we want to recognize our passionate and dedicated volunteers for their commitment to our mission. Our important work in closing the achievement gap and promoting educational equity for New York City public school children continues in partnership with you. On behalf of the students and families we serve, thank you!