About the Nonprofit
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Oak Ridge Youth Development School provides a summer enrichment program and year round tutoring for at-risk, underserved youth in Kansas City, KS. We have one of the worst graduation rates in the country and are the lowest in the state of Kansas at 70%. Only 15% of the students in this school district are proficient in reading and only 8% are proficient in math. The children served by ORYDS come from homes that are at or below the poverty level (92%) and single parent households (80%). ORYDS invests in "whole person" education for the youth we serve. Our focus is on STEAM curriculums (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) as well as literacy. We provide before and after school care, celebrate each morning with Harambee, and have daily Read Alouds by community leaders who mentor our youth. Most of our youth experience food insecurity in their homes so we provide healthy breakfasts, lunches and snacks. Our integrated health curriculum includes daily physical fitness activities and weekly swimming lessons through our partnership with the YMCA (with 100% of our students being able to self rescue with clothing and complete compression only CPR), and Kids in the Kitchen where they learn to create and enjoy healthy snacks. We provide character building and social emotional activities weekly for all students with a focus on empowerment and mentoring for our older youth. We also provide African American studies with several field trips, as 98% of our students are African American and it is important for them to see others that look like them who have done amazing things. Our 6th-8th graders also participate in entrepreneur activities and financial literacy classes. Our students also enjoy learning chess and having matches to strengthen their critical thinking skills.
Our literacy and math programs use 1 on 1 tutoring and 1:6 classroom ratios during the summer program with certified teachers providing instruction. We also use industry leading technology and software through LexiaCore5 and PowerUp for reading and MangaHigh for math. Students are able to play "games" that help them learn skills that bring them to and above what is expected for the grade level. Over our recent 6 week summer program, our students gained 7 new skills on average and completed 122 lessons each. At the beginning of the program, only 31% of students were at grade level expectation. Six weeks later, 47% were at or above grade level expectations. Our math curriculum assigned 10 skills to each student. Of the 911 assigned, 63% were completed and 37% were attempted and in progress. Students spent over 392 hours outside of classroom instruction working on math skills and this resulted in 91% of students mastering one or more skills with an average of 7 skills per student. The remaining 9% progressed in their initial skillset. Due to our licensing agreements, students continue to have access to these programs for the remainder of the year and can continue to progress.
