June 9, 2025 • 16 mins
City Year New York is a trailblazing, youth-powered organization, now expanding their partnership with SUNY—State University of New York—to prepare more young people to enter an increasingly competitive job market for bachelor’s degree holders. Our guest is Executive Director Annie Kessler for details on the expanded partnership, and how they are pivoting following federal budget cuts as an Americorps program. For more, visit www.cityyear.org/new-york/.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to get connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to get connected with City Year, New York.
They are a trailblazing, youth powered organization which prepares students
to enter an increasingly competitive job market for bachelor's degree
holders at the same time. Like many other organizations across
the country which receive federal funding, unfortunately, City Year is
one of the programs whose federal funding has been cut.
(00:34):
Glad to welcome back Annie Kessler to the show. She's
executive director of City Or, New York, to talk about
their innovative model and the impact of those budget cuts. Annie,
welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
You can find out more at CityYear dot org. And
let's start, Annie, I think with just a deeper explanation
of City Year's mission and how the program works.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Absolutely at City Year, our mission is really simple. We're
creating conditions to help young people meet their full potential.
We do this by hiring young Adult AmeriCorps members and
placing them in schools as student success coaches. So every
day in New York City public schools. These coaches are
working in classrooms with teachers. They're providing tutoring and literacy
(01:14):
and math, and they're helping to build and foster a
culture in schools where students are excited to show up
and they know they'll feel.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Seen and heard and celebrated.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
And we do this work not just during the school day,
but also during after school. Our student Success coaches are
there running after school programs, enrichment clubs, helping students to
discover their interests and everything from debate to musical theater
to basketball entrepreneurship. And what I think is most unique
about City Year is that while our student Success coaches
(01:44):
spend their year pouring into their students, they are learning
and growing and developing professionally over the course of the year.
And Citygear pours hundreds of hours of mentoring, training, professional
development into these young adults to make sure that this
year is a real launching pad for their career.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
How long has City or New York partnered with Sunny
and what does that partnership look like?
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, City or New York and Sunny have enjoyed a
partnership for a really long time. At the start City
or New York would recruit Sunny students who are graduating
to come serve for a year with Citier, and then
oftentimes City Year or Student Success coaches when they were
graduating from our program would go on to Sunny to
(02:26):
complete their undergrad or graduate degrees. More recently, we've been
able to deepen that partnership in a few key ways.
So under the visionary leadership of Chancellor King, who is
a huge proponent of City Year and of National Service,
he really recognizes the way that young adults learn and
grow and develop through a year of service. And so
now we have a partnership set up with Sunny where
(02:48):
our student success coaches who graduate from City or New
York can receive college credits for their service experience. And
the amount of credits and the type of credits really
varies campus by campus.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
But it's such an.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Exciting opportunity to be able to support young adults in
both shortening the length of time that it might take
to get to a bachelor's degree and decreasing the cost
and really recognizing the amount of just learning and growth
that happens over the course of the year with City
ar and with a service program.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And Is this a partnership that will be used for
other city year sites?
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Yeah so right now. Actually, the partnership with Sunny is
not just for student success coaches who are graduating from
city or in New York City or a city or Buffalo,
but really extends to young people who are serving at
any city or site across the country who want to
go to a SUNNI school.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Can you drive down a little bit more on how
this role as a student success coach prepares the graduates
to be competitive in the job market.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
So.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
We know that our student.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Success coaches are building incredible real world skills. I know
this because I experienced at firsthand. I started my career
as a student success coach, and our student success coaches
are building what some might refer to as soft skills
and hard skills.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Over the course of the year.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
So they're having the opportunity to interact with their peers
from across the city, across the state, across the country
and this really intensive sort of teamwork capacity. They're building
their communication skills, they're advocating for their students. They're getting
to sit down with CEOs of the Fortune five hundred
companies that support our organization. They are meeting with elected
(04:29):
officials to talk about the work that they're doing. In
some cases, they are getting to stand up and speak
at big events about the experiences that they're having. So
they're having a lot of these really big experiences that
they might not have otherwise. Then we're also really drilling
down and teaching some really technical skills, so they are
learning about project.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Planning and event planning.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
They're working on data analysis, looking at the way that
their students are performing on assessments and building out plans
using that data to help ensure that they can continue
to increase in their assessments by the end.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Of the year. They're even focusing on things like budgets
for events.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
So they're just gaining this really wide variety of skills
in such a short and concentrated way.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
So to be clear, these Student Success Coach positions, these
are paid positions, and why is that key to the program?
Speaker 4 (05:18):
All of our City or America members all America members
really receive a living stipend. This is money that they
can put towards housing and food and clothing and just
general sort of day to day living. It's not much
In New York City, it's about twenty five thousand dollars
for ten months of service. But it's key because it
(05:39):
does mean that folks are getting a paycheck, So it
opens up the opportunity for young people to serve and
earn money while they're doing it.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Ensuring that these opportunities aren't just for.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Young people who have family who can pay their rent
or who can provide for them.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
It really makes.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
This more of a universal opportunity that you people can
take advantage of.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Our guest is Annie Kessler, executive director of City Year,
New York. They train and develop student success coaches to
serve in member schools, acquiring valuable workforce skills as they
help prepare students with academic and life skills. You can
find out more at CityYear dot org. This is get
connected on one six point seven light FM. I'm Mina
del Rio and I'd like to talk about funding for
(06:22):
a moment. City Year is a partner of amer Corps.
AmeriCorps was designed as a domestic version of the Peace Corps.
Earlier this spring, the federal government under Doge, ordered a
significant reduction in AmeriCorps funding and staff. Annie, what can
you tell us about how those cuts have impacted City Year.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Yes, So unfortunately, City or New York was one of
the programs whose AmeriCorps funding was cut as of the
end of April. There were many grants that came from
the federal government through the state that then went to
programs like City Year in New York, and unfortunately many
(07:02):
of those across the country were cut.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
How will that force you to adjust or how will
you adjust your programs if necessary?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
So at City or New York, we are fully committed
to keeping our young adult members in schools to finish
the school year with their students. Were committed to keeping
them paid and keeping their medical benefits paid. However, the
way that we do that, in the way that we
pay for them has needed to shift pretty significantly. So
(07:31):
unfortunately this is meant that they're not spending as much
time in schools with students. We're just a little bit
more limited on the resources that we have. And for
the members, what it means is that a lot of
the benefits that they received from AmeriCorps have stopped, so
they won't receive the full education award, the scholarship that
(07:51):
they were working their way towards earning for the end
of the year. There's some other benefits like student loan
forbearans that were exclusive to AmeriCorps that unfortunately they won't
be able to continue with. And those aren't benefits that
has our own nonprofit that we're able to provide to them.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So if necessary, are you reaching out to your partners
or asking other parties to help make up a shortfall.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Yeah, we are connecting with both public sector and private
sector partners to ask us to help ensure that our
members can continue serving. So we've launched a continue Serving campaign,
a fundraiser that we're emailing out to all of our
supporters everyone in our newsletter, and we're really inspired by
(08:34):
the generosity that individuals and different companies are giving. And
we also know that it's a really difficult moment that
we're one of many critical programs whose funding has been
cut and that many parts of the philanthropic world feel
a little inundated with these asks, and a lot of
what we're asking is for alumni of our program, for
(08:54):
supporters of our program to just even if they can
give a little bit, it can really go a long
long way to helping to ensure that we can have
our members graduate this year and complete the school year
with their students.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
You can find out more about those opportunities to perhaps
support CityYear atcityear dot org. And if you have any
thoughts about it, what would you say about cuts to
AmeriCorps overall? America works in so many different areas. This
impacts an estimated thirty two thousand service members across the country.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
We know that the impact of AmeriCorps is so big
and so critical and so important. We talk a lot
about the double bottom line, right, So, these are young adults,
for the most part, who are supporting whether it's in schools,
in food pantries, with disaster relief, they're providing critical direct services.
And then they're gaining all of these skills over the
(09:44):
course of the year to help launch them into whatever
they're going to do next. They're learning about teamwork, they're
learning about project management, they're learning all of these skills
that are hard.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
To get in other settings.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
And so we just know that this is a program
that works, and we're fighting hard to make sure that
these programs can continue.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
In our last conversation you talked about I thought it
was really interesting you talked about how not all members
go into education. They take other career paths. As well.
Can you talk a little bit about that at how
this work might be a bridge to other fields.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Absolutely, about thirty percent of our America members stay in.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
The education field.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
They go into teaching, social work, they run after school programs.
We're seeing more and more that a lot are becoming
para professionals and staying at the schools that they served in.
About thirty percent are also going on to finish their
own education, so whether that's undergrad grad school, law school,
and med school, and then the rest go into a
lot of different fields. And this is where we're really
grateful to our partners and supporters in the private sector
(10:46):
who are really seeing the value of a year of
service and they're offering opportunities to our student success coaches
to work at their companies.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
So Deloitte is an example of.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
An incredible supporter of city heere who is starting to
look at city Or as they would one of their
college campuses that they recruit from. So they give student
success coaches a chance to receive mentorship, to learn about
careers in consulting, and to apply for roles that they
honestly might not have known about otherwise, especially if they
were not attending one of these very competitive schools that
(11:17):
Deloitte typically recruits from.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
They've been a.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Trailblazer in this work, and we're really excited to work
with other companies who are interested in doing the same.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
You mentioned your own career path. You were a student
success coach coming up. What was your experience and how
did it help you map out your trajectory.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
I had the pleasure of serving at an elementary school
in the South Bronx in a fifth grade classroom. I
came in thinking that I wanted to be a classroom teacher,
or thinking that this would be a gap year before
I went on into something in the private sector, and
really my experience opened my eyes into the whole nonprofit
world that I frankly didn't even know existed, and it
(11:57):
led to relationships. It led to me being able to
see the impact that nonprofits have in working in partnership
with schools and communities to provide programming and experiences for
students that they might not have otherwise but that are
so critical to a young person's growth and development. And
then through that, I've had the opportunity to just grow
(12:18):
my career in the nonprofit sector and now to be
able to come back full circle and get to lead
an organization that is really focused on providing more opportunities
for young people to serve and have an incredible impact
on the communities that they're working with.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
To talk about the very specific work they do in
the classroom, could you give an example of something that's
really been notable to you with a student in a classroom.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, absolutely, both in a classroom and thinking on a
whole school level. One of the schools that we work
that we've gotten to partner with for a long time
in the Bronx. It's an elementary school. At that school,
the student success coaches do a lot of one on
one pull out tutoring with the students in their classroom.
Coming back from the pandemic, the principal noticed that while
the ELA the attery scores were staying pretty stable, the
(13:02):
math scores had really gone down and students really needed
a lot more support in those basic math skills. So
for the past several years, our student success coaches have
focused on one on one math tutoring with students in
the school, and we've seen that the state test scores
at that school have increased from about nineteen percent of
students testing at proficiency levels to almost fifty percent of
(13:26):
students testing at proficiency levels, and that's only in a
couple of years.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And the principal and the.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
School staff really credit the partnership with City or to
saying that it's those fifteen twenty minutes of one on
one tutoring that happen almost every day that have really
allowed students to either catch up or keep up on
those skills that are needed to ensure that they can
be successful this year and into their future years.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
New York City schools, like so much of the country,
are experiencing a teacher shortage. If someone is really determined
to go into education, how is it useful for them
to go this route rather than going straight into teaching.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Absolutely, that's such a great question. So what we know
is that student success coaches who go on to become
teachers stay in the profession longer than their peers who
might go in right out of undergrad or right out
of graduate school. And we think that there's some really
key reasons for that. One is that once you serve
(14:23):
in a school as a student success coach, you understand
the environment that you're signing up to work in. You're
getting some real life experience. You're getting a lot of training,
You're building relationships with other teachers, so then when they
go on to a teacher certification program or a grad
school program, they're that much more equipped to jump into
the classroom and feel successful. Cited to continue expanding those
(14:45):
partnerships and have more young people go on to become teachers.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
And most people start the program after their bachelors after
high school.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
We bring in young people who are between the ages
of eighteen and twenty five. So about half of our
student success coaches have a I've graduated from high school,
and about half either have some college or they've completed
a bachelor's degree.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You can find out more at City year dot org.
Thanks again, Annie for returning to the show. I'm sure
these are very challenging times and I really appreciate you
taking the time to chat, So really thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
On Yeah, I appreciate appreciate the follow up because, you know,
the more that we can get out just about the
positive impact of these programs and the ways that people
can support you know, we're seeing that, we're seeing that
it's helping. You know, we're seeing both from a fundraising
perspective and just from a media perspective. The amount of
positive stories about AmeriCorps out there really showing how universally.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Positive these programs are. So appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Thank you very much, Annie, thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
This has been get connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light FM. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website. We're
downloads and podcasts at one O six seven and light
fm dot com. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to get connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to get connected with City Year, New York.
They are a trailblazing, youth powered organization which prepares students
to enter an increasingly competitive job market for bachelor's degree
holders at the same time. Like many other organizations across
the country which receive federal funding, unfortunately, City Year is
one of the programs whose federal funding has been cut.
(00:34):
Glad to welcome back Annie Kessler to the show. She's
executive director of City Or, New York, to talk about
their innovative model and the impact of those budget cuts. Annie,
welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
You can find out more at CityYear dot org. And
let's start, Annie, I think with just a deeper explanation
of City Year's mission and how the program works.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Absolutely at City Year, our mission is really simple. We're
creating conditions to help young people meet their full potential.
We do this by hiring young Adult AmeriCorps members and
placing them in schools as student success coaches. So every
day in New York City public schools. These coaches are
working in classrooms with teachers. They're providing tutoring and literacy
(01:14):
and math, and they're helping to build and foster a
culture in schools where students are excited to show up
and they know they'll feel.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Seen and heard and celebrated.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
And we do this work not just during the school day,
but also during after school. Our student Success coaches are
there running after school programs, enrichment clubs, helping students to
discover their interests and everything from debate to musical theater
to basketball entrepreneurship. And what I think is most unique
about City Year is that while our student Success coaches
(01:44):
spend their year pouring into their students, they are learning
and growing and developing professionally over the course of the year.
And Citygear pours hundreds of hours of mentoring, training, professional
development into these young adults to make sure that this
year is a real launching pad for their career.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
How long has City or New York partnered with Sunny
and what does that partnership look like?
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, City or New York and Sunny have enjoyed a
partnership for a really long time. At the start City
or New York would recruit Sunny students who are graduating
to come serve for a year with Citier, and then
oftentimes City Year or Student Success coaches when they were
graduating from our program would go on to Sunny to
(02:26):
complete their undergrad or graduate degrees. More recently, we've been
able to deepen that partnership in a few key ways.
So under the visionary leadership of Chancellor King, who is
a huge proponent of City Year and of National Service,
he really recognizes the way that young adults learn and
grow and develop through a year of service. And so
now we have a partnership set up with Sunny where
(02:48):
our student success coaches who graduate from City or New
York can receive college credits for their service experience. And
the amount of credits and the type of credits really
varies campus by campus.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
But it's such an.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Exciting opportunity to be able to support young adults in
both shortening the length of time that it might take
to get to a bachelor's degree and decreasing the cost
and really recognizing the amount of just learning and growth
that happens over the course of the year with City
ar and with a service program.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And Is this a partnership that will be used for
other city year sites?
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Yeah so right now. Actually, the partnership with Sunny is
not just for student success coaches who are graduating from
city or in New York City or a city or Buffalo,
but really extends to young people who are serving at
any city or site across the country who want to
go to a SUNNI school.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Can you drive down a little bit more on how
this role as a student success coach prepares the graduates
to be competitive in the job market.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
So.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
We know that our student.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Success coaches are building incredible real world skills. I know
this because I experienced at firsthand. I started my career
as a student success coach, and our student success coaches
are building what some might refer to as soft skills
and hard skills.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Over the course of the year.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
So they're having the opportunity to interact with their peers
from across the city, across the state, across the country
and this really intensive sort of teamwork capacity. They're building
their communication skills, they're advocating for their students. They're getting
to sit down with CEOs of the Fortune five hundred
companies that support our organization. They are meeting with elected
(04:29):
officials to talk about the work that they're doing. In
some cases, they are getting to stand up and speak
at big events about the experiences that they're having. So
they're having a lot of these really big experiences that
they might not have otherwise. Then we're also really drilling
down and teaching some really technical skills, so they are
learning about project.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Planning and event planning.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
They're working on data analysis, looking at the way that
their students are performing on assessments and building out plans
using that data to help ensure that they can continue
to increase in their assessments by the end.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Of the year. They're even focusing on things like budgets
for events.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
So they're just gaining this really wide variety of skills
in such a short and concentrated way.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
So to be clear, these Student Success Coach positions, these
are paid positions, and why is that key to the program?
Speaker 4 (05:18):
All of our City or America members all America members
really receive a living stipend. This is money that they
can put towards housing and food and clothing and just
general sort of day to day living. It's not much
In New York City, it's about twenty five thousand dollars
for ten months of service. But it's key because it
(05:39):
does mean that folks are getting a paycheck, So it
opens up the opportunity for young people to serve and
earn money while they're doing it.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Ensuring that these opportunities aren't just for.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Young people who have family who can pay their rent
or who can provide for them.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
It really makes.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
This more of a universal opportunity that you people can
take advantage of.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Our guest is Annie Kessler, executive director of City Year,
New York. They train and develop student success coaches to
serve in member schools, acquiring valuable workforce skills as they
help prepare students with academic and life skills. You can
find out more at CityYear dot org. This is get
connected on one six point seven light FM. I'm Mina
del Rio and I'd like to talk about funding for
(06:22):
a moment. City Year is a partner of amer Corps.
AmeriCorps was designed as a domestic version of the Peace Corps.
Earlier this spring, the federal government under Doge, ordered a
significant reduction in AmeriCorps funding and staff. Annie, what can
you tell us about how those cuts have impacted City Year.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Yes, So unfortunately, City or New York was one of
the programs whose AmeriCorps funding was cut as of the
end of April. There were many grants that came from
the federal government through the state that then went to
programs like City Year in New York, and unfortunately many
(07:02):
of those across the country were cut.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
How will that force you to adjust or how will
you adjust your programs if necessary?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
So at City or New York, we are fully committed
to keeping our young adult members in schools to finish
the school year with their students. Were committed to keeping
them paid and keeping their medical benefits paid. However, the
way that we do that, in the way that we
pay for them has needed to shift pretty significantly. So
(07:31):
unfortunately this is meant that they're not spending as much
time in schools with students. We're just a little bit
more limited on the resources that we have. And for
the members, what it means is that a lot of
the benefits that they received from AmeriCorps have stopped, so
they won't receive the full education award, the scholarship that
(07:51):
they were working their way towards earning for the end
of the year. There's some other benefits like student loan
forbearans that were exclusive to AmeriCorps that unfortunately they won't
be able to continue with. And those aren't benefits that
has our own nonprofit that we're able to provide to them.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So if necessary, are you reaching out to your partners
or asking other parties to help make up a shortfall.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Yeah, we are connecting with both public sector and private
sector partners to ask us to help ensure that our
members can continue serving. So we've launched a continue Serving campaign,
a fundraiser that we're emailing out to all of our
supporters everyone in our newsletter, and we're really inspired by
(08:34):
the generosity that individuals and different companies are giving. And
we also know that it's a really difficult moment that
we're one of many critical programs whose funding has been
cut and that many parts of the philanthropic world feel
a little inundated with these asks, and a lot of
what we're asking is for alumni of our program, for
(08:54):
supporters of our program to just even if they can
give a little bit, it can really go a long
long way to helping to ensure that we can have
our members graduate this year and complete the school year
with their students.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
You can find out more about those opportunities to perhaps
support CityYear atcityear dot org. And if you have any
thoughts about it, what would you say about cuts to
AmeriCorps overall? America works in so many different areas. This
impacts an estimated thirty two thousand service members across the country.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
We know that the impact of AmeriCorps is so big
and so critical and so important. We talk a lot
about the double bottom line, right, So, these are young adults,
for the most part, who are supporting whether it's in schools,
in food pantries, with disaster relief, they're providing critical direct services.
And then they're gaining all of these skills over the
(09:44):
course of the year to help launch them into whatever
they're going to do next. They're learning about teamwork, they're
learning about project management, they're learning all of these skills
that are hard.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
To get in other settings.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
And so we just know that this is a program
that works, and we're fighting hard to make sure that
these programs can continue.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
In our last conversation you talked about I thought it
was really interesting you talked about how not all members
go into education. They take other career paths. As well.
Can you talk a little bit about that at how
this work might be a bridge to other fields.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Absolutely, about thirty percent of our America members stay in.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
The education field.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
They go into teaching, social work, they run after school programs.
We're seeing more and more that a lot are becoming
para professionals and staying at the schools that they served in.
About thirty percent are also going on to finish their
own education, so whether that's undergrad grad school, law school,
and med school, and then the rest go into a
lot of different fields. And this is where we're really
grateful to our partners and supporters in the private sector
(10:46):
who are really seeing the value of a year of
service and they're offering opportunities to our student success coaches
to work at their companies.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
So Deloitte is an example of.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
An incredible supporter of city heere who is starting to
look at city Or as they would one of their
college campuses that they recruit from. So they give student
success coaches a chance to receive mentorship, to learn about
careers in consulting, and to apply for roles that they
honestly might not have known about otherwise, especially if they
were not attending one of these very competitive schools that
(11:17):
Deloitte typically recruits from.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
They've been a.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Trailblazer in this work, and we're really excited to work
with other companies who are interested in doing the same.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
You mentioned your own career path. You were a student
success coach coming up. What was your experience and how
did it help you map out your trajectory.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
I had the pleasure of serving at an elementary school
in the South Bronx in a fifth grade classroom. I
came in thinking that I wanted to be a classroom teacher,
or thinking that this would be a gap year before
I went on into something in the private sector, and
really my experience opened my eyes into the whole nonprofit
world that I frankly didn't even know existed, and it
(11:57):
led to relationships. It led to me being able to
see the impact that nonprofits have in working in partnership
with schools and communities to provide programming and experiences for
students that they might not have otherwise but that are
so critical to a young person's growth and development. And
then through that, I've had the opportunity to just grow
(12:18):
my career in the nonprofit sector and now to be
able to come back full circle and get to lead
an organization that is really focused on providing more opportunities
for young people to serve and have an incredible impact
on the communities that they're working with.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
To talk about the very specific work they do in
the classroom, could you give an example of something that's
really been notable to you with a student in a classroom.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, absolutely, both in a classroom and thinking on a
whole school level. One of the schools that we work
that we've gotten to partner with for a long time
in the Bronx. It's an elementary school. At that school,
the student success coaches do a lot of one on
one pull out tutoring with the students in their classroom.
Coming back from the pandemic, the principal noticed that while
the ELA the attery scores were staying pretty stable, the
(13:02):
math scores had really gone down and students really needed
a lot more support in those basic math skills. So
for the past several years, our student success coaches have
focused on one on one math tutoring with students in
the school, and we've seen that the state test scores
at that school have increased from about nineteen percent of
students testing at proficiency levels to almost fifty percent of
(13:26):
students testing at proficiency levels, and that's only in a
couple of years.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And the principal and the.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
School staff really credit the partnership with City or to
saying that it's those fifteen twenty minutes of one on
one tutoring that happen almost every day that have really
allowed students to either catch up or keep up on
those skills that are needed to ensure that they can
be successful this year and into their future years.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
New York City schools, like so much of the country,
are experiencing a teacher shortage. If someone is really determined
to go into education, how is it useful for them
to go this route rather than going straight into teaching.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Absolutely, that's such a great question. So what we know
is that student success coaches who go on to become
teachers stay in the profession longer than their peers who
might go in right out of undergrad or right out
of graduate school. And we think that there's some really
key reasons for that. One is that once you serve
(14:23):
in a school as a student success coach, you understand
the environment that you're signing up to work in. You're
getting some real life experience. You're getting a lot of training,
You're building relationships with other teachers, so then when they
go on to a teacher certification program or a grad
school program, they're that much more equipped to jump into
the classroom and feel successful. Cited to continue expanding those
(14:45):
partnerships and have more young people go on to become teachers.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
And most people start the program after their bachelors after
high school.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
We bring in young people who are between the ages
of eighteen and twenty five. So about half of our
student success coaches have a I've graduated from high school,
and about half either have some college or they've completed
a bachelor's degree.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You can find out more at City year dot org.
Thanks again, Annie for returning to the show. I'm sure
these are very challenging times and I really appreciate you
taking the time to chat, So really thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
On Yeah, I appreciate appreciate the follow up because, you know,
the more that we can get out just about the
positive impact of these programs and the ways that people
can support you know, we're seeing that, we're seeing that
it's helping. You know, we're seeing both from a fundraising
perspective and just from a media perspective. The amount of
positive stories about AmeriCorps out there really showing how universally.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Positive these programs are. So appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Thank you very much, Annie, thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
This has been get connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light FM. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website. We're
downloads and podcasts at one O six seven and light
fm dot com. Thanks for listening.
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