Letter To The Community
The year 2021 was proven to be difficult across the realm for education advocacy across the board. On a national scale, we ushered in a new presidency, vaccines, supply chain issues, and wide-scale societal unrest as people began to question the accessibility of our work and educational spaces in response to the pandemic. Within educational spaces, we see students and teachers trying to navigate remote learning without proper preparation and the difficult transition back to in-person or hybrid models. While this is going on, students were trying to prepare for college applications while the regulations and standards for applications changed, shown significantly in testing policies across universities. While Central Valley students are no strangers to the need to be resilient in a school system not designed for them, many gaps were broadened due to a lack of resource availability and left students unprepared and unsure about their educational pathways - all the while, trying to live and adapt in communities highly impacted by the pandemic. The need for services to support students in their educational pathways to undergraduate and graduate levels of education is more important than ever.
Central Valley Scholars has served as a reliable resource for Central Valley students, providing high quality workshops, free laptop rentals, accessible scholarship applications, and specialized programing. On top of continuing our existing resources in 2020, we have introduced two new scholarship applications for Black students and students with disabilities and begun a Black Youth Empowerment Program in partnership with a community organization.
As we reflect on the 2021 year and identify our organizational challenges, advancements, and areas of growth, we hope to create a critical understanding of our impact in the Central Valley in order to build a sustainable and reliable resource for all Central Valley students to have equitable and accessible access to higher education. We share this report and data to our community to collectively imagine transformations and necessary advancements in education, and to together build a world in which education is accessible to all.
Download The Full Report Below: