Behind the Scenes

Each week, our students and coaches will take you through a day at Student Voices! Explore what kinds of projects and topics we’ll work on throughout the year.

Week #1: Meeting the students

Trina Simpson

How does the elementary school program differ from your other programs?

We start with Elementary where we begin to work on them with phonemic awareness and get them to be able to learn sounds, to begin to learn to read by the time they get to the middle school. Our hopes is that they’re reading at grade level. We know that if they’re coming in our programming for two years consistently, the there’ll be a grade level within those two years. And then again, moving forward to the school, the programs change a little bit, where they’re able to do more. We outsource, like with you, like, kind of like with you all coming in. And then we also have partnership with other communities where they are able to go out or have them come in. And then when, as we move on to the teen Tech Center is where they get a program with college readiness, so we’re able to talk more about college and let them see what it looks like. We do college visits, where they’re able to go on campus and kind of see how the college life is and get that experience.

How has the student voices program helped your kids the most that you have seen?

I’ve noticed this public speaking piece. A lot of them that are here were shy, and I feel like it’s more of a confidence thing. And ever since student voices started within MLK center, I’ve noticed those same students gain confidence. I keep thinking that way because I’m looking at one of our kiddos that is now like a public speaker. He speaks really well. He does really good with eye contact, noticing what it’s like to active listening and also speaking. So I’ve noticed that they’re more I would say they have more confidence within themselves.