Getting Involved in the School System

A Bible believing church and public schools working side-by-side for the betterment of the students? C'mon you have got to be kidding!!! Well, it's happening in our neck of the woods. About mid summer I called the Principal of Camelback High School, Pete Garcia, and to my surprise he called me back and wanted to talk to me about how we could come along the side of them and help them.

We set a meeting and during our 90 minutes together he briefed me on the challenges at Camelback High. We hit it off (helps that he is a man of strong faith) and was very encouraged that we wanted to help him complete his mission.

We bantered around a few ideas, but settled on creating a desperately needed tutoring program. (His church has had great success in tutoring junior and senior high kids.) We have something called an AIMS test which you must pass to graduate. 70% of the kids who fail the test do so because they haven't taken Geometry their sophomore year and the majority of kids at Camelback are taking Algebra their sophomore year. To throw even more kids behind the eight ball, many incoming freshman have the academic skills of a sixth grader. As you can see there is a great need to accelerate the learning of these kids.

During a meeting we had with staff of Senior Services of the City of Phoenix, I mentioned that we were working on getting a tutoring program off the ground and they became immediately interested in partnering with us. They thought that they could rally some retired teachers who patron the local Senior Center, they have ample space to host the program, and the Center is about four block from the high school. About 300 kids walk by the center on their way home as well as all the bus routes run by it. So, we decided to follow the number rule of real estate, "Location, location, location" and have them host our program.

Initially, we are inviting 10 kids to be a part of the program until we get the "hey we are new at this thing" kinks worked out, then hopefully expand it slowly to other students.

Ultimately our goal is to transform Camelback High School for Christ by helping launch a Young Life and a Fellowship of Christian Athletes club. This tutoring program is the first shot to making that vision a reality.