news-record.com

The Black Childhood Development Institute’s mission is to improve the quality of life of children and families. It recruits and trains volunteers to provide students free one-on-one academic assistance.

• Services: “The Spirit of Excellence” increases the likelihood of success in school for disadvantaged students through social and academic enrichment. It was allocated $120,164 for 2009-10. In 2008-09, 1,757 people were served, including 554 students who got tutoring and 315 students in Title I elementary schools.
• Need: “With so many families losing jobs or facing reductions in household incomes, they cannot afford to pay for supplemental academic services,” said executive director June Swanston-Valdes. “This need is even greater in children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and from those already identified as at-risk of academic failure.”
• The effect of reduced funding: “A reduction would create a waiting list of students who are at risk of academic failure and who are reaching out to receive the tutoring services that we provide. A reduction in funding would also greatly impact our reading programs that work with children in Title I elementary schools to help them increase their reading skills. ”
• With additional funding: “Additional funding would guarantee that we would be able to meet the increasing requests for the free one-on-one tutoring services. Our research-based approach to tutoring has increased the likelihood of success of students generating improvement in over 90 percent of the children we serve.”