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#itsourmoney Youth led direct democracy
The All-Star Program: Zoom Homework Help Me
Name of Your Organization:
YVote/Next Generation Politics
Overview of the Project - Please provide a brief description of the project.
As the pandemic continues to affect the lives of New Yorkers in every borough, schools remain remote. The immigration action group of YVote is aware of the struggles low-income, first-generation, and non-english speaking dominant household children experience when completing assignments or tasks for school while at home. Due to the nature of remote learning, time allotted for struggling students via Zoom may not be efficient for the needs of multiple students. Furthermore, two-parent working households may have had to make sacrifices due to the necessity of being at home with children while they are learning. This, in addition to a portion of immigrant parents facing a language barrier and subsequently, an inability to assist their children with homework, may further contribute to the distress that children are facing during this time. Additionally, with the cancellation of SYEP during the summer of 2020, alongside hundreds of paid summer programs and internships, high school students are also struggling to provide for themselves, contribute to their households, save for college, or support their extracurriculars due to their lack of income. Additionally, those interested in pursuing college face a setback due to a lapse in extracurricular work they may have wanted to pursue.
In order to resolve both of these issues, the YVote Immigration action group proposes “Zoom Homework Help Me” as a participatory budgeting project. Zoom Homework Help me will be implemented in two schools struggling in New York City. The program will hire twenty high-achieving high schoolers from two schools to zoom tutor struggling middle and elementary school students during after school hours.
An application will be sent out to high school students located in schools within the same district as the elementary and middle schools mid February. At the same time, parents will be notified of this opportunity and will be given an interest form. Teachers will also select students they think will benefit from the program and will communicate with their parents. The schools in which this will be implemented will have a team of teachers that look over applications and choose which students they think can serve their students best. In early March, they will meet with the program manager of this and confirm their tutor selection. In the second week of March, parents will confirm their interests for this program and then work with a teacher to fill out a form highlighting which areas their child needs the most assistance with alongside any supplemental technology or supplies they may need for tutoring sessions. By the third week of March, tutors will be paired with students. Tutoring will occur over zoom for 1,5 hours two days a week. The student tutor will meet with a child’s parent to understand what time works best to zoom tutor. This is to accommodate households that are experiencing issues that may cause scheduling difficulties. During this third week of March, teachers will write a report regarding each student being tutored, detailing which areas they believe the student needs most assistance in and what areas they would like to see improvement in.
In the first week of April, student tutors will submit their first biweekly google form report recording the activities they are using to tutor, the areas they see improvement in, and the areas that they wish to see improvement in. During the third week of April, and once every month after, teachers will evaluate the work the student is producing and record improvement in accordance to their initial report. They will then provide feedback back to the student tutor and program director. This program will begin on March 16 and end on June 15. The program will be a total of 15 weeks.
Student tutors will be paid an hourly wage of $15 per hour. As there are twenty students working twice a week for 1.5 hours, each student will earn $45 per week. Students will have the opportunity to earn around $675 for the duration of time that they are employed. For twenty students, this will cost around $13,500. $3000 will be set aside for materials such as laptops, white boards, printing, and internet connection. Each teacher assisting in this process will be given $100. The program manager, who is already a school administrator or teacher, will be given $2,500.
Which of the following issues does your project address?
- Issue 1 - Addressing Mental Health
- Issue 2 - Preparation for College and/or Career
- Issue 3 - Youth Advocacy Promotion
Issue 3
Youth Engagement - Please explain how you will engage youth in the planning and implementation of the project.
The Immigration Justice action group of YVote is composed of youth ages 14-18. These individuals have created this project in hopes of assisting many other young people struggling in school through empowering and utilizing student tutors
Budget - Your total project budget must equal $20,000 to be placed on the ballot for a youth vote. Please provide a brief description of what the funds would be used for to successfully implement your project. You will also need to download, fill in, and attach a full budget using this template.
See attached. Funds would allow for ensuring the continuation and success of the proposal. As we are advocating for an after school tutoring program and for a community resource development project that employs youth, all funds will be used to support the youth working in each project, paying administrators of each project, providing supplies, and providing supplemental income for teachers dedicating their time to these initiatives.
Timeline- Please describe the timeline for the implementation and completion of the project. All work for this project must be completed by June 30, 2021, which is the end of the city’s fiscal year and the deadline for the funds to be spent.
An application will be sent out to high school students located in schools within the same district in Astoria and Sunnyside as the elementary and middle schools in mid February. At the same time, parents will be notified of this opportunity and will be given an interest form. Teachers will also select students they think will benefit from the program and will communicate with their parents. The schools in which this will be implemented will have a team of teachers that look over applications and choose which students they think can serve their students best.
In early March, they will meet with the program manager of this and confirm their tutor selection. In the second week of March, parents will confirm their interests for this program and then work with a teacher to fill out a form highlighting which areas their child needs the most assistance with alongside any supplemental technology or supplies they may need for tutoring sessions. By the third week of March, tutors will be paired with students. Tutoring will occur over zoom for 1.5 hours two days a week. The student tutor will meet with a child’s parent to understand what time works best to zoom tutor. This is to accommodate households that are experiencing issues that may cause scheduling difficulties. During this third week of March, teachers will write a report regarding each student being tutored, detailing which areas they believe the student needs most assistance in and what areas they would like to see improvement in.
In the first week of April, student tutors will submit their first biweekly google form report recording the activities they are using to tutor, the areas they see improvement in, and the areas that they wish to see improvement in. During the third week of April, and once every month after, teachers will evaluate the work the student is producing and record improvement in accordance to their initial report. They will then provide feedback back to the student tutor and program director.
This program will begin on March 16 and end on June 15. The program will be a total of 15 weeks.
Project Activity Alignment - How does your project align with at least one of the following topics:
- Leadership skills development: organizing & advocacy trainings
- Stewardship of public spaces: public parks, transportation, etc.
- Youth and student engagement
- Civic education and advocacy
- Community outreach involving residents that have been historically underrepresented in or underserved by city government and its processes
1, 3, 4, 5. In hiring youth to be student tutors, we hope to assist students with leadership development and serving underserved communities.
What is your organization's area of focus?
- Children and youth related
- Advocacy and organizing
- Arts and culture
- Civic engagement
- Education and literacy
- Emergency management and disaster response
- Employment and workforce development
- Environment and sustainability
- Faith-based
- Food access
- Health and medicine
- Homelessness and/or affordable housing
- Human rights
- Human services
- Immigrants and/or refugees
- Justice related
- Legal services
- People with disabilities
- Senior services
- Women's issues
We address 1, 2, 4, 5, 15
Affirmations - Type "YES" below each statement to affirm that you are eligible to appear on the ballot for this process.
I confirm that my organization will be registered in the NYC Payee Information Portal and in PassPort, NYC’s online procurement system, in order to receive funding from the City of New York.
Yes
I confirm that my organization is able to front the costs of implementing this project. Organizations will be paid based on deliverables.
Yes
Completion of Deliverables: I understand all deliverables must be completed by June 30th, 2021.
Yes
I understand a condition of funding includes submission of a final report upon project completion, and participating in a debrief session with the CEC.
Yes
This idea proceeds to voting because:
Thank you for your proposal submission! Based on our review, your proposal is eligible according to the project guidelines and will be placed on the ballot for the youth vote to take place in February.
Please fill out the following survey to help us develop the language that will be used to describe your project on the ballot.
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This sounds like a great program! I'm sure it will be very helpful to those who need some extra support with their homework. Thanks for sharing this information! Also, I found this website helpful https://stemfixer.com/
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