The LSU College of Education’s GEAR UP program gathered its partners for a retreat on Friday and Saturday, January 19 and 20, at the Lod Cook Alumni Center.

GEAR UP, or Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, is a program designed to reverse the dropout rates of middle and high school students and encourage success in post-secondary education and careers.

Representatives from Baker and East Baton Rouge Parish schools, along with LSU faculty and staff, met to discuss ways to increase students’ academic performance. Community partners representing Volunteers in Public Schools, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Teach for America, Big Buddy, and the YWCA of Greater Baton Rouge also joined the College for its first meeting and strategy session for the project. LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe and LSU Head Football Coach Les Miles also joined the group to highlight GEAR UP’s importance to the University.

The College of Education received a $5.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to expand the services and outreach made available by the first GEAR UP grant.

GEAR UP helped reach 1,490 at-risk youth in partner schools as they moved from grades seven through 12. The new GEAR UP grant will start with approximately 1,350 seventh-graders and follow the same group of students through high school.

Preliminary findings from GEAR UP show that 55 percent of students who have participated in the program have graduated from high school, received their GED, and/or enrolled in college. With the additional $5 million in funding and the expanded list of community partner organizations, the new GEAR UP program will reach students in five schools in need of assistance in both the East Baton Rouge Parish and City of Baker school systems, especially schools which experienced the highest influx of students after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“We know that we have made an impact and engaged these children throughout 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 would be an even greater tool to empower under-served students to attain a better future through education,” said M. Jayne Fleener, principal investigator of the grant and dean of the LSU College of Education.