City Year Sacramento: Bank of America Team Newsletter FY14 Edition | Page 3

Belief in the Power of Young People - Starfish -

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Math Interventions

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Victoria Flores,
Youth & Family Resource Center

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Rachel Jacobson
Math Corps Member

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@cityyearsacramento

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Beyond the
academic
piece, City
Year brings an
enthusiasm to
everything
they do on
campus. They
are there to
encourage
students to
succeed and have fun while at school.
Wherever you look, you can see a City
Year in yellow working, talking, or
playing with a Rosa Parks student.
Many activities that happen before
school, at lunch, and after school are
due to City Year’s commitment to our
students’ positive educational
experience. “It takes a village to raise a
child,” and City Year has become an
instrumental part of our village. I can’t
imagine Rosa Parks without them and
am grateful to have them serving at our
school.

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ELA Interventions

Working with City Year has truly been a
blessing in disguise. At the start of the
year I was placed to serve in an
English Language Arts classroom.
Going in, I assumed it would be a
regular English class; however, it
turned out to be a class set up for
English Language Learners. This gave
me the rewarding and inspiring
opportunity to work with students, like
myself, who did not grow up with
English as their primary Language. I
was able to build quality intervention
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The Rosa Parks
Community feels extremely grateful to
have had City Year on our campus for
the past two years. They provide an
invaluable service to our teachers and
students by providing extra help,
reinforcing lessons, and working oneon-one or in small groups with students
in need. Additionally, students who
attend the after school program have a
Corps Member who knows what is
happening in his or her classroom and
can
give
assistance in
homework or
studying as
needed.

Diana Curtaz
Site Instruction Coordinator

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time connecting, bonding, and learning
with my students since I also struggled
with English as a child. I am grateful to
know that my students were able to
improve by more than an entire grade
level in ELA over the course of our year
t o g e t h e r. T h i s c h a l l e n g i n g a n d
rewarding experience has inspired me
to work toward my teaching credential
with Teach for America next year.

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Karina Ayala
ELA Corps Member

- The Beloved Community - Level Five Leadership - Inclusivity -

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Backpack Drive
The backpack and school supply
donation from Bank of America meant
so much to the Rosa Parks community.
The backpacks and school supplies
provided Rosa Parks students with the
tools and resources needed to
successfully complete school and
homework.
Providing this valuable
resource to students and families in
need has helped Rosa Parks School
build trusting relationships with
students and families.
Often times
helping families with basic needs has
opened the door to providing more
intensive resources and assistance in
times of difficulty or crisis. Frequently,
our students carry heavy loads of
books and papers, as schools have
moved away from providing lockers.
Students often times need more than
one backpack a year, as straps and
zippers break. With this generous
donation we are able to keep students
going. Rosa Parks is so grateful to
have this wonderful resource to help
our students academically achieve.

If you were to ask an average Rosa
Parks Middle Schooler about his or her
most hated subject, the result would
likely be a resounding “MATH!” "Math
is hard!” "I don't get this.” "I don't need
to learn math, I want to be a singer.”
Assuaging my students' math anxieties
and convincing them that learning PreAlgebra is a good use of their time has
been a huge part of my job since I
received my focus list (my small group
of students who are off track in math);
but the biggest obstacle I've had to
face so far is my
students' lack of
foundational
skills. I often
found myself
asking questions
like "How do I
teach this kid to
work
with
fractions if he
doesn't know his
times tables?",
"How do I work
on addition and
subtraction with
a teenager
without making
her feel self-conscious or
inadequate?", and "Do I risk letting this
student fall behind in class by using all
my time with him to do basic skills
practice?" Finding the time to keep my
students caught up on their math
homework and work with them on
basic arithmetic all within a fifty minute
period has been the most challenging
aspect of math intervention; but
watching them absorb those
foundational skills and rise to the level
of their peers has been the most
rewarding.

Part of
Our Village

Page 3

- Seven Generations - The Shoulders of Giants -