Glad to join you today to mark another strong year for the Louisville Education and Employment Partnership – and to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
LEEP has served 25,000 students since we came up with our plan for this special program that aims to keep our community’s at-risk high school students on track.
Twenty five thousand students who had the extra advantage of caring adults who encourage them to stay in school and to plan their next steps after graduation, whether it’s a job, the military or further education.
Our community can be proud that we have rallied ‘round that commitment and stuck with it… for 25 years…even as various sources of funding have come and gone.
LEEP is one reason Louisville has been named one of America’s top 100 cities for young people 3 years in a row by America’s Promise, a nonprofit started by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
America’s Promise will help us make even more progress. Louisville and JCPS have been awarded a grant by America’s Promise for a dropout prevention summit. The summit – to be held this summer -- will come up with an action plan to improve our high school graduation rates.
We know…even with all the help we provide…roughly 1 in 4 students who start 9th grade …don’t graduate 4 years later.
Join us at the summit. Its goal will be to better understand who is failing to graduate … and why ….and to consider a whole range of strategies to make a difference – from what happens in our classrooms…to the support services offered outside school.
You can make a difference … you personally … and your organization. You can volunteer to be a mentor…offer summer internships…or provide job-shadowing experiences… so these young people can get see more clearly what a path to adult jobs looks like… so they can get an inside look at the world of work.
I mentioned mentors. There is a shortage of adult mentors for LEEP students: Ideally, the program would like every student to have an adult mentor to help with school work and provide extra motivation.
The reality is that only 1 in 10 kids who are part of LEEP at their schools have those special one-on-one adult mentors. I can tell you about that experience of being a mentor, first hand.
I was a mentor for three years to a young man… a student at Iroquois who is now a sophomore at Northern Kentucky University... and doing fine. Now I am working with another Iroquois student.
I am learning a great deal from him… about the issues in young people’s lives…beyond their control… that affect their school performance.
We have nearly 20 mentors recruited from Louisville Metro government to help LEEP students. Maybe your workplace can make this a priority project too:
- Because this is a community challenge …
- And affects our community’s future….
- And it requires total community commitment.
- It’s not just a job for our schools. It’s not just a job for the families of young people.
It is for all of us: 2/3 of the jobs of the future require some post-secondary education. We need to make sure every single student in our community is ready to succeed at one of them.
With education as a foundation … these young people will be prepared to take advantage of work opportunities … see their own children likely to do well in school…and a new cycle of success … enriches our community. But don’t just take it from me.
JCPS has prepared a video…talking with young people who have benefited from LEEP over recent years. One young LEEP graduate compares himself to a plant that is growing toward the sun… thanks to the nourishment from this program.