EDR Step Up is a year-long after school and summer study program designed to boost the academic performance of high needs students, particularly (but not limited to) immigrants and first-generation students. Step Up’s curriculum includes core academic courses focused on reading, writing, and math, as well as several activity-based electives. While the program’s direct and explicit goal is academic development, the program follows a mentoring-based teaching methodology to achieve social-emotional development as well, since students’ cultural/social environments affect their academic motivation and emotional development. Our model is not designed to replace conventional school programs, but rather to supplement them and allow students to meet or exceed expectations in English Language Arts and Mathematics.

During the school year, we focus on Academic Core Courses like English Reading/Writing and Math, with a small number of Activity-based Elective Courses, and all courses integrate social-emotional learning. Our summer programs also focus on ELA and Math, but offer a wider range of Activity-based Electives such as Taekwondo, Graphic Design, Music and Dance, and Coding and Cybercrime Prevention.

To achieve positive academic as well as social-emotional/behavioral development, EDR’s Step Up program combines both teaching and mentoring into an integrated methodology under the framework of Historically Responsive Literacy. Historically Responsive Literacy, introduced by Dr. Gholnecsar Muhammed in her book Cultivating Genius(2020): An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy focuses on creating a set of interdisciplinary learning goals to develop academic skills and intellectual insight while also building strong identity and developing tools to view the world through a critical lens. Acknowledging the significance of students’ historical and cultural backgrounds in shaping their worldviews and identities, Step Up has adapted Dr. Muhammed’s four-layered equity model, which emphasizes the following four qualities: (1) Identity, (2) Skill, (3) Intellect, and (4) Criticality. These qualities are intended to propel students from being passive consumers of knowledge to becoming independent thinkers who cultivate their own learning and become active contributors to their own communities.