Each month we are highlighting Cradle to Career partners showcasing their dedication to our mission of preparing every child for success in school and life, ensuring the economic vitality of our community.

C2C Partner Profile: Farah Mohamed

What changes/impact have you seen in your community because of people from various sectors coming together around a shared goal?

One of the first things I can remember about coming to Tucson was all the barriers. Youth had barriers to everything; jobs, resources, education, services, and even just connecting with the community. Being involved with Goodwill REC, I have seen how people from various sectors coming together have helped remove those barriers. I have seen and been a part of different youth councils that helped youth have more access to education and create connections with their community. In addition, there are many collaborative support networks that also create pathways for youth to engage in positive ways.

What does your organization do around youth re-engagement?

My organization, Goodwill REC, hosts multiple behavior health groups, a community circle for healthy masculinity, as well as a community circle for feminine-identified people. We have programs that focus on soft and hard skill development, specifically around the workplace. We also have a bereavement group that helps youth deal with grief and loss they are currently experiencing in their life.

Why is it important for young people to have education and career pathways?

I believe it is important because our future is in the hands of the youth. They need to be educated in the skills and knowledge required to take control of their own lives and discover what their life is about. Supporting these youth is not only about taking care of this generation. By making sure youth have education and career pathways today, we are setting them up to be able to pass the information along to the next generation too, which then helps create sustainable communities.

C2C Backbone Staff Spotlight – Miles Chandler, Program Manager

What is your title and role?

I am responsible for developing and managing programming under the Cradle to Career Partnership's goal of empowering STEM innovators. As a Program Manager, I also manage and facilitate the Mathematics Change Network, a multisector group that meets bi-monthly to identify and work toward goals that address 8th-grade mathematics success. It is important to note that 8th-grade mathematics is a predictor of high school graduation, and Algebra 1 is a key "gatekeeper" for student access and success in upper-level high school courses.

In addition to the above, I also manage Up and Atom, which is C2C's new after-school STEM program that is being piloted at the Boys and Girls Club of Tucson Jim and Vicki Click Clubhouse. The goal of Up and Atom is to increase underrepresented low-income middle school youth in STEM futures by partnering them with people studying or working in STEM.

What is the most exciting thing you have learned so far?

Based on our presurvey data from our pilot for Up and Atom, 91% of participants said they don’t know anyone personally working in STEM. When they meet their mentors, they will all know someone personally working in STEM!

What work are you currently doing with community partners?

I’m working on piloting an underwater robotics at Mansfeld Magnet in January that will compete in a competition in May Also I’m working with Dr. Lisel Folks from UofA and Candice Shorter from BGC JVC to create an Up and Atom cohort centered around semiconductors.

What are the benefits of your work to the community?

The benefit of my work to the community is creating pathways for Pima County’s future STEM innovators to explore STEM. With an emphasis on underrepresented, low-income youth, the goal is to create a more diverse and innovative STEM workforce.

Data Highlight: Early Grade Literacy Progress

Most schools have periodic tests to evaluate each student’s academic skills. While there are some innate problems with how the US education system uses standardized tests, their results can be used to reaffirm and support teachers. The data team supports C2C’s Leaders in Literacy program by breaking down and mapping how student performance has changed based on their benchmark scores throughout the year. Especially in our post-2020 world, students often start the school year underprepared, so we need to look at student progress, not just how they compare to standards. When we do this, we find that most students are clearly learning, and some are learning far faster than the standards expected.

For example, look at the two graphs below. They show different perspectives on the same second-grade students’ guided reading benchmark scores at the beginning of the school year and the end of the first quarter. In the first graph, we see only how the students compare to the standards each time. Fewer than half of them met the standard each time, but that is not the full picture. For this benchmark, a student who meets the standards every quarter would typically score one point higher each quarter than the last. Not only did 60% of students improve by at least this margin, but 24% improved by more. 2% improved their score by 6 – about a year and a half’s worth of progress – in a single quarter!

I wanted to share how much progress can be hidden when only one measurement is used to measure academics. These students and their teachers worked hard for this progress, and it should be celebrated even when the main summary may miss it. Performing analysis like this is key to C2C’s work with schools. It helps our literacy experts and teachers choose which students to target for extra support and evaluate how successful any extra or new efforts are.

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