By Connor Adams Sheets
A new initiative aimed at preparing Flushing students for college will begin to provide high school students with preparation tools for higher education this month.
Project Collegebound, launched last year by Asian Americans for Equality and the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families as part of Deutsche Bank America Foundation’s College Ready Communities Initiative, is a multi-faceted program aimed at connecting students with resources to make college education a real possibility.
“The whole point is to really try to help low-income [English Language Learner] students and their families in the community,” said Mitch Wu, project coordinator for the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families. “It’s not just direct services, giving them access to college. It’s also to do more advocacy work, to really have some students and parents who can become leaders in their communities.”
Serving Flushing and Flushing International high schools, Project Collegebound will provide resources beginning with direct service, which it first offered last fall.
Each school was assigned a full-time dedicated staff member who will facilitate workshops about college readiness and provide college counseling for upperclassmen looking at schools.
The workshops will educate students and parents about topics, including financial aid, filling out FAFSA student aid forms and reasons for going to college.
“We’re trying to deal with the financial barriers to going to college,” Peter Gee, resource development and program manager at Asian Americans for Equality, said. “A lot of students will drop out of high school to help their parents and we’re trying to help students and give them a cost-benefit analysis to see why going to college might actually lead to more earnings in the future.”
Teachers will also get in on the benefits of the program, through professional development courses that will educate them in ways to help students who are learning to speak and write English.
Project Collegebound facilitators will also train a core group of 40 students and 25 parents total from the two schools in leadership development in an effort to create readiness leaders in the schools.
“We’re training them to be leaders in their communities and make changes in their school cultures to support college readiness,” Gee said. “The idea is how can we focus on changing the school culture to provide more support for college readiness.”
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
