How City Year volunteers are making a big difference in Seattle schools

The “Teach for America” program that places recent college graduates as teachers in Seattle area schools, even though they didn’t have teaching certificates, drew a lot of local criticism.

Now there’s a new program aimed at getting young adults together with young students. This time the recent grads are paired with veteran teachers – and they’re not hired, they’re volunteers.

They’re just 17 to 24 years old but already they’re making a big difference in Seattle Public Schools.

“I’ve been super impressed by the level of maturity of all of the [AmeriCorps] members and just the different talents, gifts [and passion] that they bring to their work,” said Kristina Bellamy-McClain.

Bellamy-McClain is the principal at Emerson Elementary School in the southeast district of Seattle one of the schools served by City Year volunteers.

“I knew I always wanted to do something with education but I wasn’t sure whether that was in the classroom or if I’d want to work in administration,” said volunteer Sarah Cotter. “I’m having a set year where I can explore all sorts of education.”

Originally from Philadelphia, Cotter is a new college graduate spending 10 months in a classroom of third and fourth grade students. With the help of the school, City Year develops a focus list of students who show any one of the three signs they’re at risk for dropping out – poor attendance, low grades or bad behavior.

For example, Cotter has been working with a little girl who was having trouble with long division.

“I found a video with the Gangnam Style song. She just can’t remember the process, but they just kind of sang it out,” said Cotter. “She’s been singing it all during lunch.”

Kierra, 10, said her City Year volunteer helped her with math.

“I really didn’t know how to do my fractions my fractions were kind of hard for me. Mr. Collins, what he did is he broke it down for me, and while he was teaching me I got used to it, I started liking it.”

For Cotter and the other AmeriCorps members, their young age plays a big role in the relationships they are able to develop with students.

“The connection and relationship that you build with the City Year Corps member who is a near peer, someone who is closer in age than a teacher might be to a student – that feeling of connectivity is strong,” explained Seattle and King County’s executive director of City Year, Simon Amiel.

According to Amiel, City Year currently works with four elementary schools and two middle schools in Seattle, but hopes to expand the program to cover all schools in King County that are seeing a disproportionately high drop out rates.

“To ensure that by the time [students] get to ninth grade they are “early warning indicator free” and they can go from ninth to 10th grade without an early warning indicator all the data shows they go from 20 percent to 80 percent rate of graduation,” said Amiel.

The program is funded mostly through federal grants and fundraising. A small portion comes from the school itself. Emerson, this year, gave them $10,000. But Principal Bellamy-McClain said it’s worth every penny.

“Our focus list kids, the kids that City Year really works with in those small groups, they’re out-performing our other children because they’re getting that extended dose of purposeful intervention and adult mentorship.”

In the schools they serve, City Year has an AmeriCorps member in every 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classroom and in every math and language arts class in middle school.

The AmeriCorps City Year program has volunteers in 24 cities across the country.