Dear Friends,
I write this note to you from a student desk at the Silberman School for Social Work where our 6th, 7th and 8th grade students are taking classes. 2022 marks The Exam Schools Partnership Initiative’s (ESPI) 6th year of summer school sessions! It’s been a wonderful and at times tumultuous ride and I am proud to say that despite the two and a half years of this pandemic, ESPI has never stopped offering its courses and servicing the academic needs of our students.
The Exam Schools Partnership Initiative has nurtured creativity and academic excellence among academically advanced middle school students coming from low income, racially segregated neighborhoods. We remain committed to our multi-year program, providing excellent free academic courses for our students and preparing them for rigorous admissions exams in hopes of enrollment to competitive high schools. Over these six years, we have had significant achievements in promoting a more diverse student body among NYC’s elite high schools. On average, an outstanding 29% of our students are accepted into the elite exam schools, while less than 2% have entered a high school with a graduation rate under 90 %.
A quick snapshot - ESPI currently has 13 students enrolled in Hunter College High School and 15 at Bronx Science - two of the best public high schools in the country.
Below is a recap of our spring semester and update of our current program.
Please allow me to thank you in advance for your continued support, we remain a small, yet impactful, organization and could not have achieved what we have without your generous support.
With sincere gratitude,
Vizhier Mooney
President, ESPI: City Smart Scholars
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During the entrance interview as 5th graders, scholars take their first step on the road towards their high school academic career. This interview is the first stamp in their passport towards high school readiness. We want to hear directly from candidates. We are most interested in their willingness to commit to a 4-year program and their understanding of the expectations that follow. Preparing our scholars for the Hunter College High School admissions test begins the moment they commit to ESPI. This year’s test date was May 26th, a month earlier than last year. We provided a 4-week intensive course for an additional 16 students who qualified to take the test but would not otherwise have had access to the necessary preparation. As a result, we had over 30 students sit for the test. While the outcome of the test weighs heavier for some, we are exceptionally proud of our City Smart Scholars and all the dedication and perseverance they’ve embodied leading up to test day. We remind them that it is an achievement to have qualified to take the test at all!
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Mind the Gap: School's Out for Summer |
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NYC schools are officially out for summer break! While that is exciting and a rest is much needed, there’s still work to be done. Summer learning loss is a known risk for lower income families, while their more affluent counterparts have multiple opportunities for math camps, adventure programs, and the like. The disruption the pandemic caused within the last two years has widened the achievement gap for many. As a result, there is a heightened need for students to receive some sort of academic stimulation during the summer months, now more vital than ever, in the attempt to close that gap.
ESPI ran 5-week summer sessions beginning in July and through into August. Our rising 6th grade scholars received support in creative writing through our partnership with Writopia Labs, as well as math intensive studies with our esteemed Russian math specialists. Rising 7th grade scholars embarked on a novel study of the book The Hate You Give by author Angie Thomas, and poetry studies to address a consistently missed area of opportunity on standardized tests. Rising 8th graders buckled down in their seats for SHSAT preparation.
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2019-2022 Admissions Report
by ESPI Founder Andy McCord
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With the class entering 9th grade this September, 239 students who have been with ESPI during their journey through middle school have now advanced to high school. The oldest of these joined our first class of 5th graders in February 2016 and now our seniors. This year's cohort of 8th graders showed the highest success rate in exam school admissions yet, with 35 percent of 69 students admitted to a specialized high school or Hunter College High School.
With students now in high school, ESPI is able to recruit our “alums” to do their schools’ community service hours with ESPI, and the majority of high schoolers who are ESPI near-peer mentors are now former ESPI middle schoolers. They are paired with small groups of students guiding them through math problem sets and giving close responses to their written work. Along the way, they build relationships and in their own life stories as students project relatable futures for ESPI middle schoolers.
Next spring, ESPI will have its first class to graduate high school and receive college admissions offers. Their stories will be important real world indicators of ESPI’s results and we’re excited to learn their news when it arrives. In the fall, we will offer support for college application essays of our students, but we realize we need to build our contacts with and support for ESPI “alums” in high school beyond the ad hoc work we have accomplished so far. Our hope is to soon be able to describe a more robust initiative for high school students, and we are working with institutional supporters in defining its structure and content.
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Let’s Talk Near Peer Mentors!
Our near peer mentors join us from Hunter College High School and many of the specialized high schools across the city. Being a near peer mentor gives students in high school an opportunity to support their community through tutoring, workshops, and enriching the social development of scholars in middle school. Through ESPI, students can also complete approved service hours. It is our hope that in the coming years, as our near peer mentor program expands, we can reach out and support scholars at their community-based schools in addition to their class time with ESPI. Overall, the benefit of having near peer mentors has strengthened our program, and we are delighted to welcome back ESPI graduates as Near Peer Mentors, as those who we’ve served come back to support our village.
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Thanks to our continued success and the tireless work of founder Andy McCord, ESPI has been awarded grants from Capital One, The Lauder Foundation, The New York Community Trust, HCHS Alumnae/i Association, Con Edison, Foley Hoag and more. As an organization that sprang from a grassroots effort, and still considered a start up, we are grateful for their support. This is much needed funding and we are truly humbled by the recognition these grants signal. Our grantors understand how our program broadly benefit the citizens of New York City, bolster upward mobility among underserved communities, and specifically address the issue of diversity in NYC’s exam schools. |
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