I attended a classroom as a Board member of the SCCR Foundation for observation with the Summer Program at James Lick High School in San Jose. I was very impressed with the work that was taking place. This Realtors Foundation gives Grants to local nonprofit organizations where the funds would impact contributions to the community. Our Board believes in the work being done by ALearn and will be making another Grant for an after-school program.
Carla Griffin, Board member of SCCR Foundation
Review from Guidestar
I started volunteering at ALearn last year in order to help out a friend, Kathryn Hanson. Kathryn founded ALearn 4 years ago because she saw the achievement gap between the "haves" and the "have - nots" in Silicon Valley. She saw this at the public school where her son attended in Los Altos California. Kathryn has a background in high technology and consulting as well as a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
She discerned that the "gatekeeper" for success in high school was algebra. If a student did not succeed in math, they were not going to succeed in high school. Without doing well in high school, a college education was not very likely.
Hence she founded ALearn which provides free summer school classes in pre-algebra for middle school students. These classes are held for 5 weeks, 4 hours a day at public schools throughout Silicon Valley. The class follows a professional curriculum and is taught by professional teachers and college teaching assistants.
The results have been very impressive and ALearn has grown to serve 1200 students in 14 locations with a budget of $600,000.