Southside early ed:
Green is go, stop is red

Kristin Green’s tutoring program for third and fourth graders at Grace Trinity Lutheran Community Church is moving forward.

The Lowry Hill East congregation that eight years ago created and funded the program for helping students who have fallen behind in math and reading, and Green, an educator who says she only discovered her administrative talent when she joined it three years ago, are making it go.

“This is the best job I’ve ever had not only because it makes the best of my particular skill set, but because it’s a tremendously effective program,” said Green.

The YWCA’s Early Childhood Education Center in the Phillips Neighborhood, for infants to 10-year-olds, has hit the wall.

Because of an old, broken-down heating system in the building that housed it, the childcare program at the 20-year-old, nationally-accredited center at 2323 11th Ave. S. that served 41 children until the middle of August—mostly children of color from low-income households—has stopped.

“It has been stressful to the hardworking mothers who thought they had a center and an organization they could count on,” wrote 17-year veteran YWCA childcare worker Dan Gannon in a letter to the editor of The Alley newspaper earlier this month.

Research reported in 2003 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said that investments in early childhood education yield an estimated 16 percent for every dollar invested. Statistics indicate that adults who had participated in high-quality early childhood education programs during their preschool years were more likely to be literate and less likely to be dependent on welfare or arrested for criminal activity.

A 2004 paper written by scholars at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration cited early tutoring programs as one of the basic core strategies for increasing high school graduation rates.

So as Green’s tutoring program proceeds to benefit the Uptown community, the Y’s early education program in Midtown Phillips remains sidelined by a heater that’s redlined. Dollars that Grace Trinity parishioners have poured in to enhance the education of students from nearby Johnson Community School have been augmented by $5,000 from the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches and $1,500 from the local Oswald Family Foundation. Money that the YWCA had directed toward its Phillips Childhood Education Center has been diverted to its three other early education centers at the Midtown and Downtown YWCAs and at Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

“We served over 500 children a year when we had four centers and our projections with three centers going forward is that we will serve over 450 children annually,” said Barbara Schubring, Director of Organizational Advancement for YWCA of Minneapolis. “Seventy-five percent of our staff at the Phillips center relocated to other jobs with the YWCA and 85 percent of the children who were served at Phillips went to our other three sites,” Schubring said.

Every Tuesday, Grace Trinity’s tutoring program calls on numerous community volunteers and eight first-year students at the Macalester College Lilly Foundation’s “Lives of Commitment” program. The student group from the Johnson School that the tutoring program served during the last school year were 60 percent Latino, 30 percent African American, 5 percent Native American and 5 percent Caucasian. The third and fourth grade students were identified by their teachers as needing extra help with their schoolwork.

“Because of the physical space we have, we can only tutor 15 children a year,” said Green. “But according to the number students who would like to use our program and the need, our enrollment could go on and on,” Green said. “The teachers that I talk to at Johnson Community tell me that the children we tutor have much more confidence and ability,” said Green.

If you are interested in tutoring, volunteering for one of its many support positions, making a monetary contribution, driving children to class or donating supplies, please contact Kristin Green, tutoring coordinator, at 612-872-8266 or tutoring@gracetrinitychurch.org.