Tutoring Program

Nueva Vida Para Pequeños

Access to academic support programs can be limited as well as cost prohibitive, especially for non-English speaking and low-income families. Nueva Vida wants to create a service that provides support for these families that need the most help. Our goal is to help students who are struggling to succeed in traditional school programs and need additional support. As a secondary goal we also strive to create a pipeline of educators in our community to support future generations.

Mission:

We will help students that are struggling in school due to language barriers to close educational gaps and create an even playing field for all the children in our community to grown together. Our target audience is low-income families, immigrant families, farmer families, and families with low or zero English language skills in the city of Gilroy.

Vision:

Our primary vision is to help families whose children are falling behind in school due to a lack of support needed to close language gaps. Also, this program will help students that join our community during the school year and lack necessary English language skills. Usually, these students are identified in schools as “Newcomers”. This program will provide families with the qualified highly trained educators and adequate resources they need to provide year-round tutoring.

Background:

The program will reinforce what students are learning in school, filling in for families that are not able to provide the necessary support at home. These families, in many cases, lack the language skills needed due to immigratory, work, or educational status. All the schools in our community have reading support programs but they don’t have any after-school, summer, or weekend programs for ESL (English as Second Language) students. Gilroy has a high Hispanic/Latino student population with over 70% of students in this demographic according to The National Center for Education Statistics. In our community we have few programs purpose built to support these students, and those that are available require a financial commitment that many families simply can’t afford.

Strategy:

Our program will consist of small working groups of 4 or 5 students. These students will be working to master the alphabet using a proven zoo-phonics program. There will also be a review of frequently used sentences and basic skills to successfully build conversational skills. Most of the material will be created by the teacher to meet the specific needs of their students. The teacher will consider the current ability of each student and their struggles when creating customized lesson plans. Students will be assessed in regular intervals and their progress will be measured. The data from these assessments will be utilized to determine the effectiveness of the program and drive adjustments to ensure we remain engaging and effective.

Goal:

Our program will help under served students achieve success in school and increase graduation rates. The benefits students receive from multicultural environments and the acquisition of language skills are enormous. We want to make sure students in Gilroy can grow together and have equal access to the support they may need.