Arete Hope Network
We are excited to announce that families in Arete partner schools will be able to join our Arete Hope Network program, an eight-week intervention for families in temporary housing to remove barriers for elementary and middle school students to participate in school.
Thanks to a generous grant from the RTW Charitable Foundation, Arete Education can provide wrap-around supports (stipends, groceries, hotspots and laptops, mentoring, daily attendance support) for up to 25 families in the South Bronx and Harlem with the aim to positively impact their children's attendance rates and grades during the spring term.
This is an 8-week pilot program we are eager to expand beyond March 2021. We have invited families at our partner schools in CSD 7 (Mott Haven) and CSD 3 (Harlem) to nominate families to participate in this program who 1) are currently in temporary housing (shelter, doubled up) and 2) would benefit from wrap around support to maintain attendance or to improve attendance for the new spring term.
We will accept families on a rolling basis until capacity is reached.
Throughout the pandemic, Arete Education has been expanding access to resources for families in Mott Haven and Harlem. With the support of our our Family Help Hotline and Family Advocate team, we have been able to support families with groceries, access to technology, and assistance leaving temporary housing. With the Arete Hope Network, we are actively expanding those efforts.
Meet Our Family Advocate Team
Lizzette Cheatwood
Family Advocate and Bilingual Family Help Hotline Staff Member
Gabriel Hernandez
Community Schools Director at 07X223 and Family Advocate Team Leader. Gabriel manages the Family Help Hotline, Family Advocate Program, and Arete Hope Network.
Amairany (Amy) Arizmendi
Arete Secretary and Family Advocate. Amy leads our communication and logistics for family access to technology and all program activities; alumni of 07X223 The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology.
David Gandolfo
Learning Advocate for middle school students and coordinator for Arete Hope Network family services.
Yennifer Torres
Learning Advocate for middle school students; alumni of 07X223 The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology.
Natalie Rodriguez
Learning Advocate for middle school students; alumni of 07X223 The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology.
Steven Ni
Learning Advocate for middle school students.
Using Videocasting to make Welcome Videos
Videocasting is a great way to add a personal touch to our digital communications. After options like emojis, bitmojis, gifs, or images, recorded video is one of the best ways to “be” with our students and colleagues. This video highlights some of the best practices for welcoming students back to classes and reminding them of the important information they may need to remember to jump back in. The video also gives them a nice way to ease back into school. It is overly demanding on their cognitive skills but conveys useful information. By adding text to highlight key points and visuals that add some spunk or humor, we engage students' senses in connecting with someone they know, their teacher.
Some key things to remember for best results:
- Be yourself: students want to interact with you. There are plenty of videos about plenty of things, but none of them are you.
- Keep it Simple: Give students just the information they need without overwhelming them, try to keep your info to 3-5 bullets.
- Appeal to the senses: Add visuals and sounds to support student engagement and understanding.
Our goal in everything we do is to make students want to come to class. Youth is a time of intense change and making sense of the world around you. Students will do the things they choose to and find the most ingenious ways to make it happen. Throughout this time, I am often brought back to a singular question: When students have every opportunity and avenue to choose to not be in class and not engage, how can I get them to look forward to, want to, and choose to be in class?
Arete 2020, A Look Back
When Dr. Ramon Gonzalez envisioned that a small non-profit could be the difference maker for kids in the South Bronx, he created a legacy in Mott Haven. Every student coming through the doors of The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology can and will reach their full potential.
Arete, the notion that excellence is virtue, that investing in human potential will create positive and lasting change: that is who we are. Those are the ideals we embody.
Before the pandemic, we served our community by providing free services that expanded the school day with afterschool programming in the arts, STEM, fitness, SEL, and academics; free services that expanded the school week through Saturday Academy; and free services that expanded the school year through our Summer Bridge Arts Institute. We expanded career pathways through internships, leadership programs, College Office staffing, and college visits. We served the Mott Haven community through food and coat drives, community events and celebrations spotlighting youth achievement, and providing greater access to technology. From 2012 to 2020, Arete dedicated itself to cultivating excellence in the youth we served.
The past nine months of the pandemic have transformed the terrain of the afterschool sector and presented a call to action for Arete to respond to the dramatic humanitarian, mental health, and economic development needs of our students, families, and neighborhoods.
We have learned that in the current pandemic setting, youth can reach their full potential, and we have to work differently to set the conditions for youth to flourish.
We have had limited access to school buildings to run Extended Schools programming. When the school buildings are open, we run program at just 15% of the capacity of pre-pandemic operations. Instead of 350 students in the building afterschool each week, we have 70 students.
We are working remotely; we are engaging volunteers; we are hiring and training youth. We have seen an outpouring of public financial and volunteer support from individuals and foundations who are dedicated to the success of youth in Mott Haven. We have channeled new funds from individual donors and foundations to feed our families, staff our family help hotline, provide wifi and computer access, and expand our paid internship programs for youth.
Our older students do not have the luxury to attend afterschool programming online; they are caring for siblings inside all day, struggling to connect via dropped cell and wifi connections, overwhelmed by the amount of time they are asked to be learning in digital spaces, and supporting caretakers who have lost jobs and homes during the pandemic.
Our approach to nurturing youth excellence in the pandemic has been to provide new, one-on-one tutoring and small group afterschool instruction and to pay, train, and hire our students and graduates to offer those services; to continue providing essential academic afterschool offerings (credit-bearing courses, book clubs, 8th grade algebra, debate); and to seek outside investments to provide food, PPE, school supplies, computers, and hotspots to our families.
The results have been inspiring. The creativity, passion, and expertise of our more senior staff has been funneled into our academic afterschool offerings and our expanded career pathways in teaching, the arts, and STEM for our students and graduates. Half of our staff are program alumni who work alongside our 35 high school and middle school students in paid internships to provide peer-tutoring and youth advocacy through the arts. We have raised over $120,000 (10% of our annual budget in 2020) in new funding sources to provide humanitarian aid and digital access for remote learning to our families in Mott Haven.
There is so much more to do in 2021.
Our work begins with gaining financial stability in 2021. We have weathered significant financial losses in 2020 due to unprecedented strains on state and city budgets due to the pandemic. Delayed reimbursements from the city and state agencies who provide roughly 75% of our program budget have threatened our ability to continue our programs uninterrupted in 2021.
We have not yet cut services to families based on the economic crisis in the city. For nine months we have thrived despite city and state budget cuts to the non-profit sector and specifically afterschool programming. We continue to seek public support for our work in 2021 through partnering with the Robin Hood Foundation, Hayden Foundation, Heckscher Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Gen Next, and the Tracy Family Foundation and through individual donor support. In 2020, we saw a $200,000 increase in foundation support (200% increase from 2019) and a $40,000 increase in individual donor support (200% increase from 2019). We are eager to see those numbers continue to soar in 2021 as we work to expand investment in Mott Haven youth.
We believe we have the talent, history, and vision to continue cultivating excellence in Mott Haven youth. We are eager to grow our programs to support our neighborhood in the South Bronx and explore new collaborations in Harlem to support schools and families interested in partnering with Arete in 2021.
Looking back, looking ahead, we are committed to training, empowering, hiring, and bringing out the full potential in our youth.
Teaching Internship 2020
Teaching Internship Program Description
The Arete Internship Program recruits outstanding middle and high school students, as well as, alumni from the Lab School who are interested in pursuing careers in the field of education. As interns, they develop job readiness skills and experiences that enhance their college applications and job resumes. Interns are specifically trained to provide up to 5 hours per week of tutoring and mentoring services to middle schoolers who are struggling with remote learning assignments. The free virtual Tutor Program takes place during after school time (Monday - Friday, between 4 and 7 PM) in secure grade-level zoom supervised by Arete staff members.
Each student who participates in the virtual Tutor Program is recommended by their teachers and approved by their guardians. Intern-tutors are provided with access to Google Classrooms and communicate with the teachers on a weekly basis in order to better prepare for their tutoring sessions. In order to keep teachers and families informed, tutors email weekly reports of their students’ progress.
Interns learn about various education issues, are trained on specific teaching skills and engage in ongoing reflection to improve. Interns receive professional development in the areas of community outreach, social-emotional learning, lesson planning and overall job readiness. They participate in weekly meetings to track progress toward goals and collaboratively discuss ways to improve. In addition, each intern undergoes 3 observations per term as part of their job readiness evaluation. Their evaluation consists of data from observations, student progress reports, family and teacher surveys, as well as, their own self-assessments.
Interns who successfully complete the program, walk away with an understanding and appreciation for what it takes to support students and families in their community. They exit their internship with specific job readiness skills that can be applied in many different types of work and professional settings.
Below is a sample of an intern-tutor’s weekly schedule (interns can work up to 8 hours per week)
Watch Senior Intern Kailyn Espinosa share what she has learned about planning mini-lessons in this video where she presents a lesson she will use to train new peer-tutors.
Arete Youth Service and Leadership Fellowship
Arete is proud to announce the hiring of Yaritza Montiel, a graduate of the Laboratory School of Finance and Technology (MS/HS 223) and alumni of Arete programs, in the new position of Youth Service and Leadership Fellow. In this role Yartiza will be leading youth service and leadership initiatives for middle school and high school students across our programs in Mott Haven. She will be focusing on the areas: financial literacy, community service learning, advocacy for racial equity, food security for children and families, and high quality job access for youth.
Yaritza is enrolled at Cornell University and is majoring in Information Science and also serves in the U.S. Army Reserves. She will be taking a GAP year for the 2020-2021 school year and during this time will serve as an Arete Fellow and figure out what she is passionate about, enjoys doing, and should explore for a future career. We are thrilled to have Yaritza join the team.
Sopa de Viandas Recipe
Nutrition, Love, and Investment in Mott Haven
Learn more about how the Feed Our Needs Initiative is supporting Black-owned businesses in the Bronx and Harlem this giving season.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses across the country have struggled to recover from the financial strain imposed by measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Black-owned businesses are especially vulnerable, with studies indicating they are shutting down twice as fast as Nonblack-owned businesses. In light of these disparities in the economic health of Black-owned businesses, Engage@IHSMarkit and Barclays Embrace will partner with Arete and Black-owned restaurants to raise funds for meal distribution in Harlem and the Bronx.
This initiative is aimed at supporting Black-owned restaurants in the surrounding areas to source the meals that will be distributed. Funds raised will be used to purchase meals from La Morada in the South Bronx and Melba’s in Harlem, both being active partners in their communities.
This Feed Our Needs Initiative builds on Arete's past work raising funds to feed the families at the schools we serve in Mott Haven (South Bronx) and Harlem.
Love and Racial Justice Youth Leadership Initiative
This month Arete is launching a Youth Leadership Initiative integrating the topics of Love and Racial Justice.
What does love have to do with racial justice?
Can understanding the dynamics of love lead towards racial justice?
When prompted, many of us can list all of the injustices that racism has caused in our society. However, can we discuss what it would look like if racial justice was achieved?
Discussions of love as a force of healing are often neglected in talks about racial justice. Research has proven that love is a powerful force of healing in the body and has a positive outcome on the lives of people who experience love.
Starting November 12, 2020, we are inviting our student and alumni leaders to join a year-long study on these topics. Monthly hour-long sessions (5 pm on Thursdays) will provide spaces for youth to engage with expert coach and facilitator, Dr. Maria Akinyele, who is serving as Arete's Coach in residency this academic year. She has designed a six-part series of workshops, where youth leaders will explore conceptions of love as a pathway for imagining and achieving racial justice.
Our your leaders will:
- Develop an awareness of self-love and your love identity.
- Explore different understandings of love as a feeling and as an action.
- Understand the role of love in racial justice work
- Explore protocols to engage in racial healing conversations amongst staff and students.
- Engage in love study of yourself, others and society.
- Explore visions and models of racial justice
- Develop equity stances and statements that promote racially just school environments
Beginning in February 2020, our youth leaders will begin working with Dr. Maria to design bilingual family workshops on the topics they are exploring in their work and offer those sessions in English and Spanish for all families in our school community.
This youth leadership team will also begin working as professional learning facilitators in Arete Forum sessions as all staff across the organization follow the lead of our youth leaders and delve into the topics and learning activities presented in the 6-part workshop series. Our youth leaders will be co-facilitators during those professional learning sessions.
At the end of the youth leadership initiative, we will have 8 certified youth leaders on the topic of racial justice and love, having gained 25 hours of learning and coaching. We look forward to the new community learning initiatives and service projects that come forward through this focused work over the year.
Arete High School Internship Fall 2020 Job Posting
Please consider joining our team of talented high school students in Mott Haven.
To review the Job Posting and Apply: Applicant Stack Job Posting Link
Job Description
This fall, we are offering three pathways for the Areté internship - Teaching, Arts, and STEM. All internship pathways allow high school students to explore career options, develop job readiness skills, and give back to the larger school community through service. Regardless of which internship pathway you maybe offered, we expect excellent performance in all of the following areas listed below:
Responsibilities & Expectations
- Availability to work afterschool and/or weekend hours (8-12 hours per week)
- Active participation in (remote/in-person) weekly staff forums, team meetings and professional learning sessions.
- Ability to adhere to Areté and NYC DOE guidelines for online conduct.
- Access to computer and reliable internet during weekday hours.
- Timely arrival to virtual learning synchronous sessions.
- A commitment to excellence in your work with others as demonstrated by your positive and caring presence with colleagues and members of school community
- Collaboration with colleagues and supervisors
- Willingness to reflect on strengths and areas for growth to improve individual and team performance
- Friendly and open communication
- Regular communication with supervisors and Areté headquarters staff (email, phone)
- Ability to learn and use Zoom and other online learning platforms as needed.
Qualifications
- Current high school student in Community School District 7, NYC DOE.
- Prior internship experience with Arete Education preferred
- Arete supervisor recommendation to fall internship preferred
- Effective written and verbal communication
- Ability to:
- manage time effectively
- go the extra mile and/or try something new
- be empathic and listen to others well
- proactively identify and resolve problems
- be polite, positive, and professional in all communications
Restoration=Power (Self-Care and BLM)
The Black Lives Matter movement is not something that has recently emerged in America-- it has resurfaced. For centuries, America has been a place that has constantly neglected the issues at hand regarding black people. There have been constant battles from the Civil Rights Movement in the mid 1950s to the late 1960s, to the modern day Black Lives Matter movement that was started back in 2013, which is still very relevant till this day. Our American system is built on principles made to serve white men, and has been buried by slogans like “liberty and justice for all,” when in reality justice has countless times never been served for the black innocent lives lost due to the systemic racism present.
It has been the job of the people to stand against the corrupt American system and fight for basic human rights that everyone is entitled to. There should not be a fight, but there is. There has been, and it will continue until the system is truly changed to serve everyone like they promised.
The Black Lives Matter movement is particularly important to me because most of my life up to this point, I’ve been influenced by so many black people who have shaped me in ways unimaginable. From my childhood friends, my mentors, music teachers, and my family members I have felt so closely connected to, I feel so enraged about the current state of the country and bias against people who I have felt so much love for. Fighting for your personal community is a form of advocacy I have been exercising. Contributing to this movement and understanding why it is so important, is part of my own growth through continuously learning about shared worries black people around me and nationally have.
The worries black people share nationwide through social media outlets like Twitter and Instagram, have educated me and have brought awareness to issues that are far from the surface. As I’ve read and read through countless posts, articles, and looked at pictures, it instantly made me think if everyone deeply affected by the issues at hand have been taking care of themselves. It made me worried that the strong black people I am so inspired by through their bravery, were looking within and finding ways to stay in touch with themselves. Mental health during these times is incredibly important because sharing with the world your traumas and fears can be draining, so recharging is essential in the restoration of power. Through restoring oneselves power, your voice will be used to its full potential and clearly heard by those like me who are allies.
Self-Care & BLM
Many people don’t think that self-care is important during these times because there are greater problems to worry about and advocate for. However, advocacy looks different for everyone, and can actually be tied to anything relating to the honoration of black lives. For example:
- Painting/Drawing: Painting and drawing are effective ways to perform self care because your focus will be turned over into your art instead of everything else. The problems going on don’t have to be ignored, but instead brought to light through art. Painting and drawing your feelings can help liberate your mind from the stressors contributing to your current worries.
- Journaling: Journaling is a way where you can be completely honest with yourself and spill everything you have been feeling onto a piece of paper that no one else has to read. This will help in the organization of thoughts and feelings, making it easier to understand yourself and your feelings. This can also help you realize what you truly want to use your voice for the next time you speak up.
- Reading: Reading is a form of escape from the real world into other stories that have nothing to do with you. Pulling out a book to read can help ease your mind but also give you new perspectives as you go. By reading books by black writers, you can take a trip into one of their stories and connect through their words.
- Exercise/Dancing: Having feelings of frustration can psychologically be released through exercising. Dancing, more specifically is a gift that can be twisted in a way to serve you physically but also mentally. It is exercise, but also a fun activity to do with your family and friends. During these tough times, putting on music by black artists and dancing will be a way to enhance black artists' voices through your own self care.
- Listening to Music/Making Playlists: alongside dancing, listening to music can be a great way to amplify black voices. The stories hiding within music can be an escape from reality, similar to reading books, and you get exposure to the works of art that these artists hold dear to their hearts no matter the genre.
My preferred self care activities would be dance and listening to music since they come hand in hand. Dancing has always been a way for me to destress and recharge myself. During these times I have dedicated myself to learning some dance routines to songs by black artists that I admire. One of these artists being Lizzo. Lizzo is not only an icon of being confidently beautiful, but an inspiration to the black community in general. A black successful artist who has done nothing but spread positivity and light; she should be celebrated through times like these. Black lives matter, her life matters, her father, uncles, cousins, brothers lives matter, and all of her black fans that she inspires matter.
More on BLM and Music
I decided to make a BLM Playlist and put together songs that I have been listening to throughout this month. There’s a variety of genres included within the playlist so you can either skip around or listen directly through the whole playlist. I recommend listening to the whole playlist because new black creators can be exposed to you, and by streaming their music as a form of self-care, their voices will be magnified. Black lives matter, these artists’ lives matter, their fathers, uncles, cousins, brothers lives matter, and all of the black fans that these artists inspire matter. Here is the link to my playlist:
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/blm-explicit/pl.u-Ymb09NqTP8Pm8G9
I urge everyone to engage in a form of self care during these times. The Black Lives Matter battle is nowhere near over and the movement needs activists who are strong and powerful. Restoration of power is essential in working towards a changed future, and we will get there. Like Lizzo once said:
“You know what I want above all things? I want people who are aware of my music right now, to believe in change.”
50 Ways You Can Help
For the past couple of the days the BLM movement has turned into an unrest of wanting equality. Many people do not understand the movement because they fail to realize the privilege they have. Seeing several articles on how to stay in involved and what type of media you should be consuming so you are much more aware of what is going on. Here are a couple of lists of media I have seen that can help someone understand.
10 movies/shows you can watch that speak on these issues are...
- When They See Us (Netflix)
- 13th (Netflix)
- American Son (Netflix)
- See You Yesterday (Netflix)
- Dear White People (Netflix)
- Freedom Writers (Netflix)
- The Hate U Give (Hulu)
- If Beale Street Could Talk (Hulu)
- 16 Shots (Hulu)
- Hidden Figures (Hulu)
10 Children Book that speak about race...
- Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up To Be Malcolm X, Ilyasah Shabazz
- Let it Shine Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters, Andrea Davis Pinkney
- Something Happened in Our Town A Child's Story About Racial Injustice, Ann Hazzard, Marianne Celano, and Marietta Collins
- My Hair is a Garden, Cozbi A. Cabrera
- My Family Divided, Diane Guerrero
- Lailuh's Lunchbox, Reem Faruqi
- Moses: When Harriett Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, Carole Boston WeaherFord
- Happy In Our Skin, Fran Manushkin
- Little Leaders Bold Women in Black History, Vashti Harrison
- A is for Activists, Innosanto Nagara
10 Petitions you can sign...
- Arrest Jared Campbell who maced little girl: http://chng.it/wGPvrnB98T
- Justice for Sandra Bland: http://chng.it/gMHfz8gsdc
- Justice for Breonna Taylor: http://chng.it/2LnHYJnrYK
- Justice for Ahmaud Arbery: http://chng.it/mMgKzRTq9w
- Implement Mandatory "I can't Breathe" Training to All Police Academies: http://chng.it/ZLqM5kDbF9
- Justice for Sean Reed: http://chng.it/VpdQYqxqkR
- Justice for Emerald Black: http://chng.it/XfMbjGmKGq
- Mandate Police force to take "Racial Biased Test": http://chng.it/MJLzvm8zbm
- "Hands Up Act": http://chng.it/xy4GvHDxfS
- Justice for George Floyd: http://chng.it/Rsns9HGJPp
10 Organizations you can donate to...
- Brooklyn Bail Fund: https://brooklynbailfund.org/
- Minnesota Freedom Fund: https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/
- This YouTube Video was created to donate if you don't have money. If you click on the link it will take you to the video and ads will play do not skip the ads and that money will be donated to different BLM organizations.
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