Aspire Education Project

“The Executive Director reviews the final version of the 990 and the 990 is emailed to the board before filing.”

“In connection with actual or possible conflict of inerest, an interested person must disclose the existence of the financial interest and be given the opportunity to disclose all material facts to the directors and members of committees with governing board delegated powers considering the proposed transaction or arrangement.”

“The Board HR committee looks up salary information from comparable organizations online and makes recommendation to the full board. The full board, minus the Executive Director, votes on the proposal. The vote is documented in the meeting minutes.”

“Documents are available upon request.”

“Documents are available upon request.”

“OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 4: Aspire Education Project was founded as a nonprofit in the fall of 2005 in order to bring high-quality tutoring and personalized learning to students who do not have ready access to those services. During the school year, we provide tutoring, mentoring, and standardized test preparation to students in their homes, at after-school centers, and in partnership with schools and sister organizations. In the summers, we flip the equation and empower teens to become teachers themselves. Mobilizing the youth and schools weve worked with all year, we bring regular one-on-one reading experiences to Oakland's youngest and most vulnerable in the Community Reading Buddies program (CRB). Through CRB, over 140 teens become trained literacy instructors for our communitys youngest and most at-risk readers: preK - 3rd graders from low-income families and disadvantaged backgrounds. In pairs, teens and their "buddies" read and connect all summer, forming relationships and building skills critical for success in school. The program is structured by a research-based school-readiness curriculum, aligned with the Desired Results Developmental Profile. As with all of our programming, Community Reading Buddies nurtures both educational equity and community bonds.2015 Accomplishments:Aspires model relies on fee-for-service work to finance our endeavors to reach the underserved with high quality supplemental educational support. We charge competitive market rates for one-on-one tutoring and test prep classes among private schools and families that can afford them. We pay tutors well, and operate in many ways like a for-profit business. Any profit that is generated, however, is used to fund other programming that we do at or below cost. This programming includes rate reductions for individual students that have demonstrated financial hardship, test prep classes at schools or other nonprofit organizations supporting underprivileged students, and pre-kindergarten literacy engagement among the underserved via our Community Reading Buddies program. Although we served more students, and more disadvantaged students, than ever before, Aspire achieved an operating reserve in 2015 that will allow it to expand with strength in the years to come.In 2015, Aspire served a total of 888 students, with approximately 568 (64%) eligible for Free and Reduced Price Lunch, through the Federal Free or Reduced Price Meal Program (FRMP). By program area, we served:-443 high school students with SAT/ACT classes and after school programming.-173 students with private tutoring,13% in K-8 and 87% in high school. -121 preK - 3rd graders in the Community Reading Buddies programIn addition, we served in the development of over 141 'Youth Mentors' in our Community Reading Buddies program, by fostering their sense of responsibility and mentorship towards their younger 'Buddies,' and helping to connect them with underserved parts of their community.2015's Community Reading Buddies deepened its commitment to Oakland by doubling the time spent with each of its 120 preK - 3rd graders. This expansion of services answered the observation made by our program partner parents and teachers for many years, namely that the program has tremendous benefit, but if the younger children could only receive two visits per week instead of one, our curricular work and oral language development would be far more effective.The expansion was a success, with universally positive feedback from parents, classroom teachers, and the teenage Youth Mentors. Pre and post testing of the preK - 3rd graders revealed significant gains in phonemic awareness, print motivation, self regulation, and other key school readiness measures. Additionally, we set a new record in our volunteer return rate (25%), and recruited teenaged Youth Mentors from 43 different schools, another high-water mark. In total we provided 2650 hours of high-quality, one-on-one literacy instruction to the East Bays young underse”