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At the School Board Meeting of June 18, 2024, School Board Member Luisa Santos proffered agenda item B-8, recognizing Achieve Miami.
Achieve Miami was founded by Leslie Miller Saiontz in 2015 with the goal of enhancing educational opportunities and outcomes for under-resourced youth in Miami-Dade schools. Since its early days as a small pilot program with 30 kids, Achieve Miami has become an impactful organization dedicated to promoting educational equity and access by addressing educational challenges and providing tangible solutions through collaboration with public and private partners.
Achieve Miami has positively impacted thousands of students, enhancing programming in over 60 local schools and serving communities like Little Haiti, Miami Gardens, Brownsville, Overtown, Liberty City, South Dade, and Homestead. Achieve Miami offers services to thousands of K-12 students who lack the resources, mentorship, and support needed to reach their full potential. Some of the organization’s school-based programs include:
- Achieve Saturdays: Engages diverse volunteers from 60+ high schools to mentor, read, and write with underserved elementary students to improve their reading/writing skills and foster a love of learning. 1st-5th grade students increase their literacy skills and confidence, while high school volunteers are empowered as leaders and role models. This program is offered at five M-DCPS schools.
- Achieve Music: Provides daily after-school music education and music theory to 300+ low-income elementary and middle school students who otherwise do not have access to the arts. Students learn to play and read music, while also increasing their confidence and academic self-efficacy. This program is offered at seven M-DCPS schools.
- Achieve Scholars: Consists of an intensive college and career readiness program for 9-12 grade students from 10 Title I high schools. Following graduation, Achieve Miami continues to provide ongoing mentorship and workshops to support these students in successfully transitioning into college, with the help of the Achieve Alumni program.
- Achieve Club: Comprises a city-wide service-learning program that brings together diverse high school students from public and private schools across Miami-Dade to create meaningful mentorship and leadership opportunities while forging connections with students across lines of difference.
- Achieve Summer: Consists of a six-week enrichment program for underserved K-12th students. The program implements innovative project-based learning and peer-to-peer mentoring to prevent summer learning loss and make reading, math, and science relevant to students’ lives. This program is offered at four M-DCPS schools.
Achieve Miami’s latest initiative is the Teacher Accelerator Program (TAP) which creates a pipeline of new teaching talent in local schools to address the teacher shortage challenge. TAP fills vacant teaching positions in Miami by equipping candidates with the required skills to become teachers. Participants take part in a one-semester course, an immersive six-week paid summer internship, certification support, and training/mentorship throughout their first year teaching full time in a Miami-Dade classroom. Over 160 new teacher candidates are currently participating in the summer internship in preparation to enter the classroom this fall.
This resolution recognizes Achieve Miami, the students, teachers, volunteers, and leaders whose countless contributions and unwavering commitment are creating meaningful change in our community, building a more equitable Miami for all.
To read the full item, visit: https://luisasantos.com/priorities/
