The LSU College of Education was recently awarded a $5.4 million federal Department of Education grant to continue and expand the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP, in East Baton Rouge Parish and the Baker School System. This new grant will fund GEAR Up Baton Rouge for the next six years.

LSU has housed the GEAR UP grant since 2000. Since then, the program—designed to reverse the dropout rates of middle and high school students and encourage success in postsecondary education and careers—has helped reach 1,490 at-risk youth throughout the local community. Fifty-five percent of students who have participated in the program have graduated from high school, gotten their GEDs, or gone on to college.

The newly awarded grant involves not only LSU and the East Baton Rouge Parish and Baker schools, but also many community organizations such as The Young Leaders’ Academy, Volunteers in Public Schools, Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Teach for America, and the YWCA of Greater Baton Rouge.

The program will concentrate on raising student skill levels in English/language arts and mathematics, advancing thinking and problem-solving capabilities, and raising the educational aspirations of both students and parents.

“We know that we have made an impact and engaged these children through our past efforts in GEAR UP, but with the new post-Katrina challenges facing our state and especially our educational system, we knew that GEAR UP could be an even greater tool to empower underserved students to attain a better future through education,” said M. Jayne Fleener, principal investigator for the grant and dean of the LSU College of Education.

In addition to adding partnerships with long-standing community organizations, this new collaborative GEAR UP project will be more self-sustaining by following one cohort of seventh-grade students and concentrating on high-need middle schools. Baker Middle, Capitol Middle, Crestworth Middle and Kenilworth Middle schools are four of the schools chosen thus far to participate in the program.

These schools have several things in common: more than 80 percent of their student populations are on free or reduced lunch and less than 60 percent of their eighth graders go on to receive high school diplomas in four years. These schools also experienced the highest influx of students after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

East Baton Rouge Parish School Board Vice President and College of Education Instructor Noel Hammatt reported that the school system had ended the 2005-06 school year with more than 4,000 displaced students. With recent research suggesting that more than 80 percent of New Orleans’ African American population will not return, Baker and East Baton Rouge Parish schools could absorb increased numbers of displaced, at-risk students…permanently.

“The students that came after the hurricanes, came here in distress. We had a lot of help in settling them in and ended the 2005-06 school year with 200 additional students with us,” said C. Lester Klotz, superintendent of the City of Baker School System.

“Even with the NASA programs in place, we still feel that math and science scores are lower than what our students are capable of,” said Klotz.

Throughout the three-year NASA Explorer Schools program, Baker Middle could receive up to $17,500 in new resources and technology tools to bring engaging mathematics, science and technology learning to educators, students and families.

“The NASA program combined with the guidance, tutoring, and assistance we receive from LSU, we think this GEAR UP program will help our students move up to a higher level,” added Klotz.

“This was a unique opportunity for our children to receive the assistance and guidance that they need over a long term basis. LSU has been a tremendous source of support to the Baker schools in a real time of need,” added Klotz.

The LSU College of Education is impacting high-poverty school systems in urban and rural areas through collaborations with area schools and through federal programs like GEAR UP. But the College is expanding this impact through new partnerships with fellow education activists.

“While our organizations are different, our visions and missions are the same,” said Teach for America Executive Director Marion Johnson. “Our dedicated and talented teachers are already working in schools in need. Now Teach For America and GEAR UP can provide even more children with educational opportunities and services no matter what their socio-economic situation.”

With 13 teachers already in place in GEAR UP middle schools, Teach For America will contribute to the GEAR UP schools through monthly professional development teacher workshops on LEAP, GED, and GRE test preparation as well as familiarization with community and state/federal services and assistance programs.

While better preparing teachers indirectly affects the students, GEAR UP and its partners also will work with the students directly. A total of 1,199 seventh-grade students will participate in the new GEAR UP program, following each individual student as a cohort through the remaining middle and high school years until graduation. Each student will have one-on-one mentoring with assigned counselors and advisors throughout their six years in the program. In addition, the GEAR UP students, parents and schools will receive a tremendous amount of individualized services such as social and family counseling, educational achievement incentives, mentoring, and career and college planning.

In the 1980s, programs with similar ambitions targeted high school juniors and seniors to promote a college-bound future. Maria Pitre, PhD, said this was too late, “We are now talking to sixth and seventh-graders, letting them see how most jobs require some sort of postsecondary education so they can start taking courses and participating in activities that will help them achieve that goal of attending college.”  Pitre is the East Baton Rouge assistant superintendent for middle school instructional services.

While college planning is an integral component of GEAR UP and a natural draw for school systems, the College wanted to expand its impact and work with additional community organizations like the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Volunteers in Public Schools, The Young Leaders Academy of Baton Rouge, Inc., and the YWCA of Greater Baton Rouge.

“We help parents find ways to understand their children’s learning styles, not only to get them interested in going to college, but to find out what career they want to pursue once they get there,” said Deborah Jones, program director at YWCA’s Center for Family Empowerment—the group that will implement its Parent University program for GEAR UP.

“Parents are a child’s first and best teacher,” added Jones.

The Baton Rouge Parent University hosts workshops on active parenting, focusing on activities that offer help in preparing children for the ACT, provide tips on how parents can create environments that are conducive to learning, and pass along valuable information to parents about the many community resources available for families and children.

“For most middle class families, college is as natural as breathing. But for kids in high-poverty areas, with single parents, or living with relatives, college may not even be a dream,” said Tonya G. Robertson, executive director of The Young Leaders Academy of Baton Rouge, Inc. The Young Leaders Academy has been in operation for more than 13 years and focuses on developing the next generation of civic, corporate, educational, entrepreneurial, political and spiritual leaders.

Robertson said she is living proof how programs and services like GEAR UP can change lives. “It offers professional growth and development, networking and being prepared for doors when they do open up,” said Robertson. “It all boils down to access and opportunity.”

“Participating in community service, seeing examples of minorities who came from the same neighborhoods that are now managers and serving on boards of companies like the Shaw Group and ExxonMobil—this inspires the kids to get involved, to succeed, to start dreaming and preparing for their futures,” added Robertson.
Robertson said that these programs bring leadership to the foreground, and offer the best type of instruction, “They teach by doing.”

“And kids learn by doing,” added Judy Bethly, executive director for Volunteers in Public Schools (VIPS). VIPS has long been known for its “Everybody Reads” program in elementary schools, but now the organization is branching out to middle schools with the GEAR UP initiative called “Get Up and Go Breakfast Campaign.”

With the assistance of the guidance counselor, 20 seventh-graders at Capitol Middle School will participate in bi-monthly meetings with professionals not only to hear about possible careers but to do hands-on activities related to the jobs.

“We want to show the children that there are a so many things they can do with their futures. If they are interested in music, we want to show them there are careers beyond the singer or the actor. There is someone who writes the lyrics, produces the videos, films the movie, coordinates the lighting…” added Bethly.

“We believe that a child’s educational journey should include exposure. We want to take these seventh-graders out of their environment and expose them to positive things, things they may never know about,” added Bethly.

Through a partnership with Junior Achievement, VIPS will expose the students to lessons that teach skills such as oral and written communication, math calculations, and data interpretation.

Partners like the Baton Rouge Area Chamber will identify and connect GEAR UP students with professionals, exposing them to a variety of careers ranging from the expanding movie industry and music production to engineering and public service.

“The Chamber is a natural pipeline to business professionals in the community,” said Willie Johnson, senior vice president of community development for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber will be instrumental in mentoring activities such as job shadowing but will also serve as a conduit to established community volunteers and leaders, many of whom are graduates of the chamber’s leadership program that sit on boards and commissions or run for public office.

“We deal with kids who may not be reaching their full potential. If we can open their minds, and give them the tools to work with, they will dream bigger, think bigger, and achieve bigger,” Bethly said passionately.

“It is truly wonderful to see this transition,” Robertson said while reiterating how society will benefit from productive citizens and a new crop of ethical leaders and professionals.

With these established and powerful partnerships in place, GEAR UP seeks to progressively change teaching and learning in Louisiana. By increasing the access and opportunity for postsecondary education available to GEAR UP students and their families, the GEAR UP program will increase the number of low-income students prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education and, in turn, will inspire economic development.

Without additional help, many predict that these students could become part of a cross-generational cycle of childhood poverty, low educational performance, low educational expectation, and early exit from education. With an increased need of services for children and education in our state, LSU and its GEAR UP partners hope to serve as a resource and an advocate for underserved Louisiana schools and children.