Educational Momentum Update
Dear Colleagues,
As the executive director of Opportunities for Youth, I wanted to update you on a number of milestones we have attained. Many of you attended our Educational Momentum Breakfast the end of November where we spent time discussing and prioritizing the challenges you are facing today as educators. The top three challenges that surfaced were Services, Engagement and Sustainability.
Since November on the second Tuesday of every month, 28 individuals from the State of Arizona Department of Education, public school districts, charter, alternative, online schools, community college and ASU have been meeting to prioritize and address Services, Engagement and Sustainability.
To date, we have been working on the following outcomes:
Services – we are in the process of organizing a mobile fair, which would bring educational, recreational and health resources to different communities throughout the Greater Phoenix area.
Engagement – we have implemented a referral program where schools are able to refer students experiencing barriers and on the brink of dropping out to Opportunity for Youth’s social service partners case managers. We have been looking at a Customer Relationships Manager (CRM) program to streamline this referral process.
Sustainability – we have developed a Service Learning Model with ASU and the Maricopa County Community College District, both of which will engage college students in the recruitment and outreach to opportunity youth.
We are also featuring in this update information regarding Opportunity for Youth’s website –
www.opp4youth.org and our community resource referral process. It is our hope that you will consider attending one of our meetings and be part of reengaging Opportunity Youth on an educational pathway. We meet on the second Tuesday of the month at The Trust located at 333 East Osborn Road, Suite 100, Phoenix, AZ 85012. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at 602.534.8393 or jehoyt@asu.edu.
Best wishes,
James Hoyt
Executive Director