Brockton Projects
STEP UP
Step Up for Brockton is an after-school study program that will boost academic performance of grade 4-12 students many of whom face English language, cultural, and economic barriers to their academic success.
The City of Brockton is considered “the City of Champions” and has a great potential for economic development as the seventh-largest city in the Commonwealth. Brockton has been home to major investment, business expansion, and planning. The boom to the housing market and the migration of new families to Brockton have brought more than 50 spoken languages into the City. The Brockton Public Schools (BPS) serve approximately 17,000 students in grades K-12. The City has a high number of economically disadvantaged students.
Based on the 2018-19 school year test scores released by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Brockton Public School’s ranks 352 out of 365 Massachusetts districts. The graduation rate is 78%, which is considerably lower than the state average of 89%. BPS students’ educational performance is directly attributed to a number of factors such as English language barriers and poverty, which have further implications on more societal challenges such as crime control, public health, inter-generational poverty, business development, and property value. In addition, Brockton has suffered more than other cities in Massachusetts from the COVID-19 pandemic. Brockton city leadership has a great vision for social and economic development, and EDR believes that Step Up can contribute to the academic development of BPS students, providing a long-term positive approach to current academic challenges that many students face on a day to day basis.
Step Up for Brockton is an after-school study program that will boost the academic performance of grade 4-12 students many of whom face English language, cultural, and economic barriers to their academic success. While the program’s direct and explicit goal is academic development, the program integrates both teaching and mentoring to achieve positive academic as well as social-emotional/behavioral development. Step Up’s curriculum is differentiated from other after-school programs (such as Boys & Girls Club) which are not focused on academics.
The Step Up curriculum is designed to build students’ self-confidence in academic abilities and potential. The curriculum addresses both academic and emotional development by offering a rich and varied program to address students’ academic needs as well as their social/emotional development. Courses include Conversational English (for English as Second Language learners), Academic English (to improve students reading and writing), Math, Science, Computer/Coding and CIC Cybercrime Prevention, Music (optional course for middle school students), and Taekwondo (optional course for elementary and middle school students).