The Foundation will produce and distribute high quality public service announcements utilizing the Foundation’s website and social media networks, as well as the development of educational outreach sessions to: create awareness and inform the public about the persistent gap in achievement in our public schools; raise awareness of the causes of inequity and to identify the best strategies that could secure a better, more equitable education for low-income and minority students; and to promote educational support programs that meet the learning needs of each individual student and to empower parents to be advocates of their children’s educational success.

The Foundation will offer a multiple mentoring program to high-potential Public School students. Through strategic partnerships with community-based organizations, local government agencies, business leaders, and educators throughout Chicago and New York, the Foundation will place these students with “high caliber” mentors. Each student will receive support from three to five mentors, with whom the student will meet on weekly basis and remain in contact during her college tenure. The Mentoring Programs are expected to commence in 2015.

The Foundation will develop a social action curriculum that will help students engage in intelligent action in conjunction with teachers, universities and other social action organizations. Students will brainstorm ideas, develop advocacy plans, learn and develop problem-solving capacity through active democratic participation and gain a voice in their community. Curriculum will focus on action-oriented projects related to the students’ interests and reflective of social issues.

The Foundation will work in conjunction with partnered organizations to provide high quality, standards-based instruction & intervention that is matched to students’ academic, social-emotional, and behavioral needs to close the gap in STEM education among female and male students to increase the number of female leaders in the industries of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the Chicago area.

The Foundation will work in conjunction with partnered organizations to provide a high quality comprehensive standards-based health education program designed to develop health literacy and provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to promote healthy lifestyle choices. The program will teach nutrition, provide daily opportunities for quality physical education for our scholars and create an environment that consistently supports healthy eating and physical activity.

The Foundation will work in conjunction with partnered organizations to provide high-quality instruction and interventions matched to student needs, to monitor progress frequently in order to make decisions about changes in instructions or goals and apply student response data to important educational decisions. The creation of a preventative model for early intervention aims at identifying struggling learners before they fall behind, and provides those learners with support based on individual needs in order to increase reading comprehension and literacy with our female scholars. This model is a framework for organizing instruction and intervention and is designed to be responsive to the needs of all students.