Buffalo, New York is the second poorest city in the nation (Census Bureau, 2008). It is also one of the most residentially segregated cities. Following these sad statistics, we also have extremely high drop out rates. I originally came to Buffalo as a graduate student in the Educational Leadership and Policy department at the University at Buffalo. I live in the city and am very active in the community. During my first few months here I came to realize how in need inner-city students were, particularly those in high school. Parents from my church and part-time job would call me asking if I could help their children with their homework. Of course I would help but I felt something else needed to be done. It was at this point that I decided to connect everything I was doing in school and create something practical: a college preparation program for disadvantaged high school students. I believe I am the right person to solve this problem because I already have the background knowledge as a doctoral student in education and the experience. I have seven years tutoring experience between Rochester and Buffalo. Many of the organizations I tutored for do not provide the quality services they advertise. If the company said they provided food the kids would usually go hungry. One program stated they provided quality instruction for every student, yet there were no worksheets or materials available when the students would come to the center. This is another reason I decided to start my own project.

Students Discover Academic Research (SDAR) will run from January 2009 to June 2009 in Bennett High School. This comprehensive research program will run on Mondays for two hours. The program is designed to introduce high school students to the elements of research skills by using personal interests and tying these interests to college majors. For example, a young man or woman may be very interested in basketball but may not have the motivation to go to college. Our program is designed to teach such students how to research college and business opportunities (i.e. sports management). I will look to recruit between 15 and 20 high school students. Half of these students will be in the 2.0 to 2.9 GPA range and the rest will be in the 3.0 to 4.0+ range. This is one step in the long journey of fighting inequalities in the public school system. When first introducing the project to the principal at Bennett she was very grateful for this support. She noted that many of her students go ill-prepared to college and have to not remedial courses their first year of college. Not only is this extending their time in the program, it’s also another year of tuition. With this project I hope to help urban high school figure out exactly what they want to study as well as help them figure out the courses they need to take in high school and their first year of college.

This project took about a month to create. I spoke with various community leaders, professors, high school teachers and administrators and parents to ensure that all stakeholders were accounted for. Although everyone thought the project was a great idea, many older adults were skeptical because I am so young. Some people looked at me as if to say “cute idea kid, but leave these big projects to us grown ups”. I’m aware that I’m very young but I’ve also put a lot of thought (and sweat) into creating this endeavor. After laying out a detailed statement, budget, and connecting with many other community members, those who first looked at me as a “cute kid” now take my project idea very seriously. I finally received approval from the principal to host the project in the school as well as a promise from the city of Buffalo to reimburse me for transportation costs.

I am in the process of establishing a partnership with a library sciences organization. They will help with the research component of the project. Others, especially college students, can help by volunteering their time to mentor these high school students, and tell them about thier experiences in college.