Each year, Hartnell College tutors account for approximately half of the countywide tutoring workforce.  The Hartnell College AmeriCorps/America Reads program has grown from four sites in the Alisal Community to fifteen sites through out the college's district and has provided over 55, 000 hours of reading tutoring.

One of the primary goals of the program is to build the capacity for residents to address community needs.   The tutors are woven into the fabric of the school, working hand in hand with the home school faculty.  Success is gauged via a Literacy Assessment Profile that is administered by the tutor and home school faculty. Also, each tutor participates in one of three community service programs, which promote literacy and community involvement.

Currently, fifty-nine Hartnell College students serve as tutor/mentors who reflect the ethnic and socio-economic background of the community they serve. Each tutor/mentor works one-on-one with the same three to five tutees per week.

The tutors are placed in district schools after a rigorous screening, training and site orientation process. Great care is taken to place the tutors in schools that they have attended or have a family connection.

The Hartnell College AmeriCorps program also supports the development of the whole family.   Tutors conduct workshops to give parents an overview of the program and to demonstrate tutoring techniques. The parents’ reaction to these workshops has been so positive that schools want the workshops conducted each semester.

Middle Schools

Hartnell College is the only California Community College to administer two GEAR UP programs funded by the US Department of Education.  GEAR UP stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP). Throughout the funding cycle of the two programs six thousand six hundred students will be served through direct academic and guidance intervention services.  These programs build on our successes Hartnell College has had with primary schools.

By the end of a five-year funding cycle, the Hartnell College/ East Salinas GEAR UP Program will have provided services to an excess of 5,000 students in the Alisal community.  The total cost of these services will be 3.4 million dollars obtained through a federal grant and funds academic and counseling faculty and staff who offer services at El Sausal Middle School (ESMS), Alisal High School, Tanimura  & Antle (a large employer and GEAR UP partner) and the Boys and Girls Club of the Salinas Valley.

The main components of the program are: academic development through improved basic skills instruction; curriculum alignment with state standards; classroom size reduction in Math; resource teachers in basic skills that build the capacity of the faculty to teach basic skills; development of appropriate social skills – development of self confidence through appropriate behaviors in a social setting; a Parent Institute to communicate the requirements and opportunities available in American society through educational attainment and to enhancing their self confidence with appropriate parenting skills that promote educational advancement; private Industry partnerships so that employers support their employees through release time to attend parents workshops explained above. These employers have also contributed financially to the program through donations of gifts or funds to buy gifts given at student recognition events.

High Schools

On the third year of the program, the high school component was initiated with the following objectives: direct services to support the college going culture through counseling, advising, assessment, problem solving, motivation and goal setting, recognition; faculty staff development that reinforces those teaching skills, expectations, mentoring abilities that promote and maintain a “college going” culture among students; a parent workshops that continue clarification and communication with parents regarding the requirements and opportunities open to their children through educational attainment and to enhancing their self confidence with appropriate parenting skills that promote educational advancement.

On the fourth year of the GEAR UP program, one can observe the following achievements:

• Systemic School Changes.  The program has resulted in the systematic changes described above.  Instruction has greatly improved at the middle school level through a reduction of the class size in math and language arts disciplines.  The systemic change has also occurred through the alignment of the curriculum to state standards. Because of all of these systemic changes, Mr. John Ramirez ESMS principal states: "GEAR UP helped create a college going culture for all students and increase the number of algebra sections from one to six and eliminate basic math. Last year was a watershed year for El Sausal Middle School. Our Academic Performance Index goal was 17 points; however, we were able to achieve a 47 point growth and now we are no longer an under-performing school.”
• Healthy Psycho-social Development. GEAR UP has collaborated with the Boys and Girls Club of the Salinas Valley to consolidate all of the before and after school programs at El Sausal Middle School.  Faculty led tutorials are combined with personal development activities that meet a language standards objective. The after and before program has grown from about sixty participants the first year to over three hundred in the second year.
• Family support.   Activities and materials from the Institute for Quality Education are utilized to implement a Parent Institute. Each parent commits to attending

• eight, one  and a half hour workshops that are lead by fellow parents, educators, community advocates and adolescent development specialist. To date, Six hundred parents have graduated from our Parent Institute.
  

• Employer involvement.   One of the largest employers in the area, a salad retailer with sales of over $1 billion per year also supports the GEAR Up efforts.  As the employer of many of the parents of El Sausal Middle School, Tanimura and Antle release their employees to take part in GEAR UP activities with no loss of pay.  Additionally this firm has contributed thousands of dollars for our student recognitions.  Last year over three hundred parents and family members attended the Parent Institute.

This fall, Hartnell was awarded a second GEAR UP partnership grant for $878,990 over five years. The program will impact an excess of 1,600 students in the Soledad community. The Soledad Community student demographics are similar to those of the Alisal community; however, the need is high because the schools are rural and have fewer credentialed teachers. The GEAR UP partners in South County are Soledad High School, Soledad Middle School, Monterey County Free Libraries- Soledad branch and KDON radio station. The new GEAR UP program will provide the following direct services to students in Soledad: a full-time college counselor serving both the middle and high school, a basic skills resource teacher, basic skills tutoring, additional computers, scholarship for Soledad High School graduates to attend Hartnell College, and parent and staff development workshops.

The expectation of this program also is that the faculty and staff help underperforming students to redefine themselves into successful students with long term goals, high expectations, strong academic skills, social skills, vision of which you are becoming and options for the future.

The main objective of this intensive outreach effort has been attained.  From the beginning this was to contribute to the development of students; to assist them in forming a strong self-concept and begin to believe in themselves and to accept education as a transformation of the inner self and the outer self.   The faculty, staff and student mentors of both, America Reads and GEAR UP are guiding students to exhibit behaviors that are positive and conducive to citizenships, to develop positive relations with family members, to establish personal career/ occupational goals, to discuss career goals with counselors, to identify immediate and future career options and to make a tentative life-long learning plan.

Families, Faculty and Friends celebrate building strong communities