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P17
December 2013
T
he Grand Canyon University Learning Lounge,
the crown jewel of an innovative private-public
partnership in education, provided an estimated
800 hours of instruction to dozens of high school
students during its first 10 weeks.
The Lounge, as it is known by the 30 GCU
student tutors working there and the Alhambra
High School students receiving free one-on-one
help in math, reading and writing, is part of the
University’s K-12 outreach program. Since the
Lounge opened on Sept. 16, more than 130
teenagers have come through the doors to study,
read, listen to music, and make friends in a safe
and welcoming environment.
“It’s a true ministry and wonderful opportunity
to help our neighbors,” said
Dr. Tacy Ashby
,
vice president of GCU’s strategic educational
alliances. “It was important to us, as we
aligned this project with the Phoenix Union High
School District’s mission of college and career
readiness, that this wasn’t a separate entity
planted on top of the district, but one that works
alongside the district.”
In November, the Lounge expanded to include
nearby Bourgade Catholic High School and
Faith Christian School in Mesa, participants in
GCU’s Canyon Christian Schools Consortium.
The Lounge is open afternoons to students of
the three schools, and tutors also visit the Faith
Christian campus weekly.
Ashby credited
Dr. Joe Veres
, director of K-12
outreach, and program manager
Arlin Guadian
with hiring GCU students who are natural
teachers and role models.
“The rallying behind this has been amazing,”
Veres said.
Other components of GCU’s K-12 outreach:
Concurrent enrollment
– Nearly 50 Alhambra
students take classes at GCU, the most popular
being Crime and Criminology, Philosophy and
Ethics, and a Saturday course in public speaking
for Alhambra’s Academic Decathlon team.
Professional development
–
Dr. Ted Coe
of
the College of Education meets quarterly with six
Alhambra master teachers on strategies to fulfill
new math standards. These teachers then train
the rest of the math faculty.
On-campus opportunities
– From summer
school and Health Sciences Day to the
Fall Festival and athletic events, Alhambra
students come to GCU to check out college life
and careers.
■
a “C” school. Coria praises the community for going all-in on
educating students, faculty, staff and parents.
“When I came here, I saw an enormous asset of tremendous
people,” he said. “What was needed was a level of
organization where we could harness one another’s talents
and passion and help shape the outcome for students.”
Education for all
Kaiser is among 160 Alhambra teachers who infuse
literacy, vocabulary and numeracy development into their
lessons. Even art and gym curricula have reading and math
components: Students in weight training calculate maximum
repetitions, and volleyball players determine their serving
accuracy. Art students read and create projects mirroring
the content and feeling in Edgar Allan Poe’s writings. They
learn about proportion and enlargement and build large
pieces related to Poe and his work.
Myriad learning opportunities for students exist outside class,
too. There’s tutoring before and after school, during lunch and
on Saturdays, and evening school on weeknights. In October,
more than 200 students spent part of fall break learning
English, boosting their grades or practicing for the AIMS.
GCU, less than a half-mile to the east, is one of Alhambra’s
primary educational partners. Last summer, 900 summer-
school students visited campus to see that college is for
them, too. And since September, when GCU opened
an after-school center called the Learning Lounge, 130
Alhambra students have received free tutoring in math and
English from GCU students.
“GCU students are inspiring Alhambra students with their own
stories and building a motivation within them to grow and
develop their own leadership capacity,” said Rice, who might
not have gone to college but for a basketball scholarship.
Kaiser said the best thing Coria has done is create learning
opportunities for Alhambra parents. They learn English,
attend programs on topics ranging from bullying and illegal
drugs to nutrition and social media, and learn to be involved
and to communicate with teachers.
Nuggets of success
Alhambra is on its way to “A” status, Coria and others say. It’s
a medical magnet school where students prepare for careers
in healing professions, a place where AIMS reading scores
rose 11 points, to 62 percent, in two years. Nine teachers
have gone the extra mile, completing a rigorous certification
and applying for advanced credentials from the National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
And in a paying-it-forward example that has Coria beaming,
nearly 30 juniors and seniors have begun tutoring nearby
middle-school students in the basics.
“We’ve got something going here, and we’re building on that
energy,” he said. “But we can’t be mediocre. We have to be
better than that.”
■
Arlin Guadian and Dr. Joe Veres are the GCU staffers who make the Learning Lounge
happen for Alhambra students. Photo by Darryl Webb
Learning Lounge
symbolizes K-12
outreach ef for t