Vision Breakfast 2021
Presented by Old National
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Life-Changing
Elevate is building thriving communities with 24/7 impact for students in 2024-25
(Last updated August 2024)
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Presented by Old National
Elevate is building thriving communities with 24/7 impact for students in 2024-25
(Last updated August 2024)
Kara Simmons and Josh Mendoza are Teacher-Mentors at Elevate Indianapolis who are passionately developing long-term, life-changing relationships with students at George Washington and Purdue Poly High School, respectively.
Let’s experience a day in their shoes as they come alongside students navigating life’s challenges.
The day begins for our Teacher-Mentors by reviewing lesson plans for Elevate’s state-accredited in-school classes and updating the Thriving Youth Dashboard, a data-driven Salesforce program that helps Elevate quantify the impact Teacher-Mentors have with the students they serve. Ms. Simmons, like all Teacher-Mentors, is both a lead in some classes and a support to other staff in their classes.
Elevate consistently increased the total number of students and alumni served each year, and grew 10% to 15% annually since 2020, exceeding 1,400 in 2023-24.
Students who aren’t currently in his classes stop by to say hello to Josh and ask about upcoming college & career mentoring events this semester. For Elevate, we define these touchpoints as “meaningful interactions.” Both Ms. Simmons & Mr. Mendoza weekly message students from their caseloads encouraging them, checking in on their well-being, and reminding them about the week’s after-school mentoring events. Each Elevate Teacher-Mentor has a mentoring caseload of students they maintain proactive communication with year around.
Growth related to community occurred with students serving in the community more regularly due to the influence of their teacher-mentor, jumping by 159%, and students selected by their peers to lead increased 267%.
Kara messages students from her caseload encouraging them, checking in on their well being, and reminding them about the week’s after-school mentoring events.
From January 2016 through September 2022, our staff spent 20,910 hours mentoring students in 1:1 settings, small & large groups, in person, over phone calls and text messages, and through many other means.
Josh welcomes a couple of the students from his caseload who are in one of his classes into the classroom for a mid-day lunch-time mentoring session to catch up. Lunch-time mentoring is a great time for students to stop by the classroom for a 1:1 mentoring session or even a Teacher-Mentor to visit students during their lunch for a mentoring check-in.
Kara is the co-teacher today for our Elevate Beyond college & career class. Today’s class is focused on learning what it takes to find housing after graduation and how you establish credit to be able to rent an apartment or obtain a mortgage. This year Elevate is serving students in 4 high schools, Arsenal Tech, George Washington, Shortridge and Purdue Poly High School! As part of our 4th-12th grade pipeline model, Elevate upperclassmen teach "Little Elevate" in 2 local elementary schools.
90% of Elevate students completed our two-year Actionable Plan for post-graduation.
The essential part of our mission with Elevate is cultivating “thriving contributors to their community.” Both Mr. Josh & Ms. Simmons regularly take students from their caseload after school or over the breaks from school to serve in their community, just as all our Teacher-Mentor’s do together. Service Learning is even a core part of our Elevate Beyond project-based curriculum to help students identify community impact projects they can do.
96.1% of Elevate 9th-12th grade students matriculated on track to graduate in the 23/24 school year.
Kara regularly hosts several of her young ladies for an afterschool college and mentoring session. Discussions around Pathways to Purpose road mapping material, graduation profiles, and other identity discovery mentoring are essential for our Teacher-Mentors in their caseloads. Pathways to Purpose includes 4 E’s: Exposure, Equipping, Empowering, and Engaging.
81% of Indianapolis Elevate students actively stepped up to help peers in need, which cultivates a caring and supportive environment.
Mr. Josh, in addition to our Purdue Poly High School Pipeline Manager is also the Sports & Adventure lead for Elevate. The goals for all Elevate Sports & Adventure year around mentoring helping youth to:
Elevate mentors provide year around Sports & Adventure mentoring to students knowing how paradigm shifts can occur through these mentoring experiences.
Thanks to the generosity of our community, Elevate students participated in 67,248 total service hours through our 4 mentoring in-school after-school year around programs.
After these mentoring sessions, our Teacher-Mentors often drive student’s home. This “windshield time” (taking students home) is always valuable time for mentoring conversation and relationship building.
75% of our students have deep, meaningful relationships with their teacher mentors, creating a strong and supportive environment.
After Kara gets home and makes dinner, one of her students texts her about a challenging situation involving a family member. The two of them chat on the phone to work through how the student can process and approach the situation healthily.
59% of Elevate students end unhealthy relationships and 63% say they are not afraid to try new things.
