City Year Los Angeles

With Keck Foundation support, City Year Los Angeles (CYLA) is expanding its “Whole School, Whole Child” program model into Gompers Middle School in Watts. Young leaders, called corps members, participate in a year of full-time service as tutors, mentors and role models to help students stay in school and on track. The program addresses three early warning indicators that have been identified to lead to high school dropout: poor attendance, negative behavior and course failure in math and English. Corps members currently work in 14 Los Angeles Unified School District elementary and middle schools providing targeted intervention to the students who are deemed “off-track” and most at risk of dropping out because they exhibit a combination of the early warning indicators. In each of the next two years, CYLA will deploy a team of 17 corps members to Gompers to provide in-classroom academic assistance to the 324 sixth graders most at risk, organize after-school programs for 136 youth, and run events and initiatives to engage the entire student body and enhance the school climate.