Middle-school students in Sacramento’s urban schools will be better equipped for college thanks to a landmark $1.45 million federal grant to UC Davis, and three educational partners.
With additional counseling services at its core, the pilot project is expected to serve almost 2,000 students from Kit Carson and California middle schools over five years. And project designers hope it will become a model for the entire Sacramento City Unified School District.
Led by UC Davis, the partnership also includes the school district, the College Horizons program of the Sacramento County Office of Education and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.
"The goal of our collaboration is to make sure that we don’t lose students as they move from middle school to high school and to provide the necessary support to prepare them to eventually attend college," said Daniel Roy, director of School/University Partnerships at UC Davis.
The $1,446,758 grant, to be awarded over five years, is among those provided to 80 new partnerships under Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), administered by the U.S. Department of Education.
GEAR UP aims to increase the proportion of students from low-income areas who are prepared for college. More than 75 percent of all students at Kit Carson and California middle schools and 60 percent at Sacramento High School are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch under the National School Lunch Act. And only 54 percent of freshman at the high school will graduate – more than 10 percent below the statewide average of 65 percent.
A chief component of the UC Davis-led project is a counselor who will begin serving seventh-grade students at the two middle schools and stay with them through their first year at Sacramento High School. Other key elements include information for students and parents about college preparation, tutoring and other academic supports, and curricula development.
Catherine Beckworth, principal at Kit Carson, said the project will boost efforts to assist middle-school students in making a successful transition to high school. "We are fortunate to be a part of the GEAR UP project and anticipate the important role that it will play in academic achievement."
The project will begin working with seventh-grade classes next fall, eventually providing services through grade 11 at Sacramento High School. New seventh-grade students will be added to the program each year.
"It is important to provide a bridge program for our incoming ninth-graders so they will feel comfortable attending high school," said Principal Judy Billingsley of Sacramento High School. "This project will do that."
Central to the project, the GEAR UP counselor will reduce the student-counselor ratio to 350 to 1 for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students at the participating schools. The current ratio of students to counselors at the two middle schools is 1,500 to 1 and at the high school, 950 to 1.
The counselor will work in coordination with school counseling and academic support programs to assist students in preparing both academically and socially for the challenges of transitioning from middle school into high school, the period when the greatest rate of attrition occurs.
In the first year of the project, the counselor will work exclusively with seventh-grade students. In the following year, he or she will continue to serve them in the eighth grade while taking on the new cohort of seventh-grade students.
When the first cohort enters high school, the counselor will continue to support the students in grade nine, and a second counselor will be hired to work in the middle schools. The first counselor will later resume work with middle school students while the second counselor follows a cohort to the high school.
Also through the project:
• UC Davis’ Reservation for College program will provide comprehensive curricula for college preparation in the language arts and mathematics for seventh- and eighth-grade students at the middle schools.
• Subject Matter Projects administered by UC Davis will help teachers develop sixth- to eighth-grade curricula in language arts and mathematics that will be aligned with college-preparatory classes at the high-school level.
• Another component of the Reservation for College program will provide in-depth information for seventh- and eighth-grade students and their parents about preparation for college admission, various forms of higher education and financial aid.
• The On Track program of the Early Academic Outreach Program at UC Davis will provide students and parents with a check on the student’s academic progress, an individual academic plan and individual advising sessions.
• Tutoring services, currently provided at Kit Carson, will be expanded to California Middle School through the School/University Partnership Office and student volunteers of the UC Davis chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.
• A program to prepare students for college entrance tests will be offered to eighth-graders, and a skills assessment test will be administered to every eighth-grade student.
• The College Horizons Program of the Sacramento County Office of Education, which offers information to high-school juniors and seniors regarding college options and the application process, will be expanded to the freshman and sophomore years.