RISE for STEAM education and Community Action

We are solving generational poverty through high quality education,  mentorship, and community action. Students who live in the most underserved communities have the lowest graduation rates in their regions, lack long term academic mentorship to walk with them through the transition from adolescence to adulthood and have the highest teacher turnover rates (Teachers College Record, 2015). RISE UEC targets Global Goal 4.4. to increase the supply of qualified teachers in developing countries and poverty stricken communities. In the 2 communities we currently serve: Pavas, Costa Rica has a 20% graduation rate (Ministerio de Educación, 2020) as compared to 80% throughout public schools in Costa Rica (OECD, 2020)  and Newburgh, NY has a 74% graduation (Public School Review, 2023) as compared to the rest of NY who has an 87% graduation rate (NY State Education Department, 2022). High quality teacher efficacy is the number one factor in student achievement (Hattie, 2018) and schools that serve Black and Hispanic students lack consistent, high quality educators and STEM enrollment for these communities suffers (Ed Trust, 2022). 

We are a collective of high quality educators who partner with community centers in areas of high poverty and low graduation rates to ensure all students graduate high school and move on to college, technical, or trade schools to break their cycle of generational poverty. We provide 1. STEAM courses that are linked to the United Nation's Global Goals and solve community and global issues 2. College and Career Readiness and Finance courses to ensure student independence through the transition from adolescence to adulthood and 3. Academic and language support and mentorship to ensure high school graduation and the development of English or Spanish. 4. Ongoing mentorship through the 2nd year of post high school graduation. We partner with community centers that provide food, physical fitness/sports, social and emotional support, and arts while we connect high quality teachers virtually who provide academic support and mentorship from 6th grade to 2nd year of university/trade school. This is our 3 year in Pavas, Costa Rica and we have had a 100% high school graduation rate for our students each of those 3 years and this is our first year in New York. 

Our target population is black and hispanic students from 6th grade through 2nd year of university in underserved communities in New York and Costa Rica. Gangs, drugs, violence, family incarceration, and  prostitution are constant threats to our students' safety and work against their ability to graduate high school and pursue their dreams. Our solution partners with existing community centers in these regions that are already providing the supports to meet their basic needs of safety, food, and social and emotional support. We ensure that each student's academic needs are met through providing high quality educators in Sciences, Mathematics, and Humanities to carry out community based action projects, critical thinking and problem solving skill development, language development, and mentorship to set goals and walk with them until they achieve those goals. We track their academic growth through evidence based portfolios and language development assessments and standards like ACTFL and WIDA. We build relationships with them and their families to ensure that all their needs are met and they can truly pursue their dreams. When we first began, our students did not dare to dream as no one in their family or community had attended college or pursued careers. Today, our students have big dreams of careers, homes, financial freedom, and a life beyond high school. 

Our small team of international educators have the experience and knowledge of working with students from rural, urban, suburban underserved and privileged communities, but the key to our success is our partnership with local teams that live and serve in the community. We choose these community centers carefully as they must share a common vision of breaking generational poverty through education, provide food and safe place for students to play and learn. Additionally, our team lead/executive director lives in or near the community for an extended period of time to build relationships with the staff and students to best develop a program that meets their community and individual needs. She lived in Costa Rica for 5 years and brought in other educators who grew up in that community and are now educators walking with them through graduation and university and trained local staff to best support students and the educators. This year, we have expanded to Newburgh, New York. The Executive Director/team lead now lives 5 minutes from the community center, attends the after school program daily from Monday-Thursday and is building relationships and the program with the local team and connecting educators that best meet their needs. We gather a wealth of data to best serve our students. The most valuable way is living in the community to best understand the struggles and needs of the community. Secondly, we partner with community centers that already serve that community and employ a local staff who know and support the students. We rely on the directors, mentors, coaches, social workers/psychologists, and extra-curricular leaders to help us develop community projects, adjust courses, and best support students. Additionally, we test and track students' reading and writing levels and english proficiency, check public school class grades, and state assessments and track student growth through evidence based portfolios to ensure students are passing classes and are on the path to graduation. 

We are applying to solve because we are a new non-profit organization and have grown quickly and have achieved great results in a short period and we need support. We are running 2 programs in 2 countries with an extremely small staff of education experts. We need support in all of the non-education areas (finance, leadership, business, fundraising, planning etc) to strengthen our network of experts who can help us build a strong foundation, so we can grow to support other communities in the future. We need exposure to be connected to higher ed partners, businesses, corporations, and trade organizations that can help support our students after graduation with jobs, scholarships, and internships. We need partners and investors who want to walk with us and help guide us financially how best to manage our resources. Our overhead costs are extremely low due to our partnerships with community centers, but we need to expand our investor and donor base to ensure we can recruit and pay our highly qualified educators well to ensure retention and avoid high turnover. Moreover, we need leadership coaching and advice in all above areas. 

Our solution is innovative because we partner with existing community centers who best know children and community and connect the students to educators who can best meet their needs virtually. This ensures that the community center staff receives the best training to support kids and ensures that the community will always have consistent, highly qualified educators to support them. This has been replicated in Costa Rica and New York and could easily work in other communities throughout the world. In fact, our partner in Costa Rica has community centers in Kenya, Sri Lanka, India, Venezuela, and Romania that are ready to join with RISE Universal Education Collective. The partnership between RISE and other centers ensures that that center's needs are met as opposed to the center paying for random courses or classes for their students that is not cohesive or meet the needs of all of the kids. 

Our impact goal for this year is to ensure that 100% of our students graduate high school and 90% move onto the next grade We are aware that some students will require summer school or remediation classes to achieve this goal. We will continually monitor students' grades and provide academic support where needed. We monitor student growth bi-monthly to set goals with our students. We structure each of our STEAM unit's around a Sustainable Development goal that culminates in a community project. For example, this unit we are targeting Zero Hunger through the concept of  growth. The students are learning to grow healthy food in our community garden, track their growth, collect and analyze data about teen growth and well-being, and then take action in our community to help others understand the importance of nutrition. Our goal is to address all SDGs excluding 9, 16, and 17 as the targets are difficult to address at a community level. Our goal for the next 5 years are the same as above with an additional goal of financial sustainability. Before expanding to another center, we want to bring on 2 additional educators and partner with an investor to ensure that all core educators are paid employees rather than volunteers. 

RISE UEC is focuses specifically on 4.4 Quality Education as we are bringing qualified educators to developing areas of the world. Additionally, each unit is tied to an SDG specific target. The students select one community action that they can do in their community related to the targets for that unit. We share the take action suggestions as a starting point and brainstorm ideas. 

Our solution will help to break generation poverty through education because students will graduate high school and go on to study and work. Activities: partner with local community center. students will attend STEAM classes once per week, attend remediation or enrichment courses, complete 1 community service project per 6 week unit tied to an SDG, and participate in a college/career course. They will receive ongoing mentorship until 2nd year after HS graduation. 

Short term outputs: students will develop problem solving skills, improve their class grade, improve mathematical, science, and language skills, complete a community project tied to a an SDG target

Long term outputs: High school graduation, college/technical school acceptance and attendance, financial independence, break generational poverty for themselves and their family

We are using all Google Suite Apps as well as Kahoot, Khan Academy and many other educational apps to connect students and teachers in engaging ways. Additionally, each project uses it's own technology to tackle an SDG target. For example, our unit on Clean Water and Sanitation used data collection, water testing, local planning to select areas that were most in need of sanitation solutions that were affecting local water. Students measured areas and planned green areas and designed recycling spaces. 

Our team of educators are from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and live in different countries (U.S.,  Brazil, Costa Rica). Our team is Black, Hispanic, and White as those are the students we serve. This is our current non-discrimination policy

Non-Discrimination Policy
RISE Universal Education Collective (RISE UEC) acknowledges its ethical and statutory responsibility to afford equal treatment and equal opportunity to all persons and thus complies with all applicable laws and directives regarding non-discrimination and equality of opportunity.
As required by Title VI, Title IX, Section 504 and all other applicable U.S. federal and state laws,
RISE UEC does not discriminate and prohibits discrimination and harassment against its
employees, students, and applicants based on race, ethnicity, color, sex, gender, gender
identity, gender expression, genetic information, religion, creed, age (40 years or older), national
origin or ancestry, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, marital status, parental
status, pregnancy, military or veteran status, political activities/ affiliations, or other
impermissible reason in its programs and activities. RISE UEC does not discriminate on the
basis of any of those protected categories listed above in administration of its educational
policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and other school administered
programs. RISE UEC bars retaliation against an employee, student, or applicant who files a
complaint of discrimination.
Questions, reports, and additional concerns related to sex discrimination, Title IX, students with
disability, Section 504 questions, reports, or concerns, or any other inquiries regarding
non-discrimination policies please email Jennifer.Farrlley@riseuec.org.
Individuals may also file complaints directly with the Office for Civil Rights, within the United
States Department of Education by following the information on this website:
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/complaintintro.html

We provide academic support to students who attend community centers in underserved areas. We provide classes, tutoring, enrichment, and mentoring. Community centers pay a small fee of @$39 per student and we partner with businesses, donors and investors to cover the additional costs. Community center students need these services as they are not experts in education, so they outsource their support. Because their public schools have high turnover rates, we provide stability by connecting educators virtually. 

We provide free classes to students by charging a small fee to community center and finding investors and donors to cover the additional expenses. We are currently writing grants as well to bring in more funding. Our community centers cover overhead expenses (rent, internet, water, electric etc) and we cover the salaries or payment to educators. 

Last year, we generated $40,000 to serve 100 students and this year we are generating $100,000 to serve 150 students. The funding mainly comes from the 2 partner community centers, Newburgh Armory Unity Center and Hope Partners International and we have monthly donors that support the rest. We need a start up grant or an investor to help cover all expenses as many of our educators are currently volunteering their time.