SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A Sacramento nonprofit that helps bridge gaps in student learning wants your help as it looks forward to the upcoming school year.
The mission of City Year Sacramento is "to serve and support students in underserved and often marginalized communities to advance educational equity and improve academic outcomes for students of all backgrounds," according to Macey Amissah-McKinney, the senior vice president and executive director of City Year Sacramento.
It does exactly that through its corps member program, where young adults between the ages of 17-25 act as full time tutors and mentors, giving back to their communities. Those who participate in the program also receive a bi-weekly stipend, as well as a Segal Education Award at the completion of the program to help pay for education expenses.
The education nonprofit has a partnership with the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD). It provides mentoring and tutoring support to six schools that have been designated as priority schools, or historically underperforming schools, by SCUSD. You can find the list of schools City Year Sacramento serves here.
"They might not have the same level of support and access to additional things beyond what is traditionally held in schools, so we think about how we are building and bridging some of the gaps that exist," said Amissah-McKinney.
Paul Quinones Jr. has been a corps member and student success coach since August 2022. He worked in construction before he started chasing opportunities to apply his college degree in sociology. That's when he came across City Year Sacramento. Since then, he's worked closely with students like Ifereimi Tabudovim Tabakece, a seventh-grader attending Fern Bacon Middle School.
"He's fun, funny, great," said Ifereimi when asked to describe Quinones Jr.
Ifereimi's favorite part about school is getting to see his friends, and his favorite subjects include science, language arts and history. He's grown to like math more with Quinones Jr.'s help.
"My base goal for a lot of my students is when they're asking questions and I can show them the process, that they're able to at least tackle some of the progress by themselves when they do their next problem. That's the progress I've seen with Ifereimi. Some of the things, he'll blow through the questions by himself," said Quinones Jr.
Corps members also lead focus groups and help with afterschool programs.
"Ifereimi has been a part of my small groups since I started it in October. Focus groups allow students to have more focused time in a smaller area because sometimes the classrooms can get loud and hectic," said Quinones Jr.
After classes, Quinones Jr. also spent time with Ifereimi in an afterschool sports club, where they played flag football, basketball and soccer together.
"I think it all definitely helped me with my general social and relationship building skills. One of the big concepts to help students is to build trust with them. That way when they need help with something, they trust that I'm someone they can go to," said Quinones Jr.
Now, there's a big emphasis on making sure students' social and emotional needs are met as well.
"Oftentimes, students might be sharing with (corps members) things that they wouldn't have the relationship to share with another adult on campus. That proximity in age allows our corps members to build relationships, since may of them are not far removed from being in middle schools themselves," said Amissah-McKinney.
The nonprofit is hoping to secure 66 corps members in order to fill up every second-eighth grade classroom in the schools they serve. The next application deadline is March 24. If you're interested in participating, you can apply here.
For anyone thinking of applying, Quinones Jr. had this message: "If you're wanting to get into education or anything adjacent to social work, this is a program you should at least look into because you want to maximize all the options that you have."
