Westside Communities Alliance

A partnership between Atlanta's westside communities and institutions of higher education.

OurGirls @ Tech 2017

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Last month, 45 female students from Brown Middle School attended a STEM campus experience at Georgia Tech for the WCA’s annual OurGirls @ Tech event. Given Atlanta Public School’s new direction towards STEM and STEAM, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts aims to create opportunities for exposure to local colleges and universities. While Brown Middle School is only a 12 minute bus drive away, many students are unfamiliar with Georgia Tech and all of its offerings.

This year, the girls attended demonstrations led by an all-female crew of students and staff. They stopped by the Clough Undergraduate Learning Center (CULC) to see the Urban Honey Bee Project led by Dr. Jennifer Leavey. The Technology Group visited the retroTECH to play with vintage computers, video games, and more. The Women in Electrical and Computing Engineering (WECE) demonstrated how to build a wind turbine out of everyday objects. Across campus. The Mathematics group learned how to code their own music songs using rhythm and beats with EarSketch.

Brown MS students learn how to code and create their own music with Georgia Tech’s EarSketch program

 

The photo scavenger hunt took them to the water slide in the recreation center, a dining hall, the bowling alley, and several popular student hang-out spots on campus.

Catered lunch took place overlooking Historic Grant Field at Bobby Dodd Stadium in the Student Success Center, while the Dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts spoke about the importance of their presence on campus. Jade Sims, from the Office of Admissions, used the GPA game to stress the importance of grades, extracurricular activities, and tailored admissions essays when applying to college. Current female student athletes talked about an appropriate study-life balances, camaraderie, and the diversity of scholarships at Tech.

45 Brown MS attend OurGirls @ Tech in 2017

Westside Innovation Lab

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Last week, WCA staff attended the launch of the Westside Innovation Lab at the Center for Civic Innovation. The application submission is now live! CCI is looking for people and organizations with innovative ideas to address social challenges in their own neighborhoods on the westside of Atlanta. Applications are due on April 25, 2016. Please consider applying or passing this on to someone, or an organization, you know that may be a good fit. Winning submissions will be chosen BY THE COMMUNITY. Those winning ideas (6-8) will receive seed funding and technical assistance in their entrepreneurial endeavors.

Submit your idea now! http://www.civicatlanta.org/westside-idea-submmision

If you are interested in volunteering time or skills: http://www.civicatlanta.org/westside-volunteer

 

CCI has hired two new program managers that will be focused on this initiative full-time: Raina Turner and Nathan Jones.  Reach out to them at westside@civicatlanta.org

Google’s Community Leaders Program

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Are you a current college student (junior or senior) in Atlanta interested in helping local community organizations and non-profits with their digital presence? Then, check out Google’s Community Leaders Program!  At a high level, CLP is focused on creating a sustainable web ecosystem and increasing digital literacy by connecting communities, businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits with local student talent. We’d like to partner with Georgia Tech to select potential students for participation in the 2016 – 2017 CLP year. Below is an overview of the program, but I’d love to set up more time to discuss the opportunity further.

 

Program Overview


CLP started four years ago in New Orleans, LA, and has since expanded to several cities, including Kansas City, MO, Harlem, NY, and Provo, UT.

The program divides students from local universities into small groups of three or four. Each small group is then paired with a local nonprofit, small business, or community organization.

The program is one year long (beginning in spring 2016), and students are expected to devote 10 hours per week to it, the majority of which are spent working on a project with their peers and partner organization. Traditionally, these partner organizations have evaluated the students’ work performance extremely positively, thereby strengthening their relationships with and perceptions of the students’ schools.

Outside the project mentioned above, a key objective of the program is to provide students with opportunities for professional development, including resume workshops, job application assistance, and mentoring from Google employees. Students develop real-world skills they might not acquire in the classroom—they network with community and business leaders, create portfolios of their projects, and learn to work in teams.

Upon completion of the program, students are highly encouraged to apply for full-time or internship positions at Google. (Please note: While CLP itself is not considered a Google internship, we highly encourage universities to offer course credit for participation.)

 

APS Board passes FY16 budget of $685.6 million

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At 6:26 pm in the Mays Conference Room at CLL, the room was split into two factions. “Team Matt” that consisted of APS Board members and “Team Meria” consisting of the APS Superintendent’s staff members. “We’re all Team Kid” chimes in Cynthia Briscoe-Brown, APS Board Member At-Large, Seat 7. In a FY16 budget meeting scheduled to end at 6 pm (starting at 4 pm), the people around the table have yet to come to any decisions. They then divided up to take additional looks at the proposed budget scenarios to see what else could be done to pick and choose.

The general conversation over the past 2 hours centered around whether funds need to be prioritized for custodial services or an IB-level education. Meria complains about “prehistoric spiders” and urine-stained walls that create a low-quality learning/teaching environment for students/teachers. Board members are persistent on the need for an IB-baseline. Briscoe-Brown jokes (or maybe she is serious) that she will muster an army of parents to clean the bathrooms and Westmoreland quips about a “Board Service Day” setting rat traps.

During this break, several board members seem more concerned with what is being said about them or about APS on Twitter than what is happening in the room. After reconvening, the conversation turns to a focus on the arts and the overall lack of arts access in APS schools.

At the end of the evening, all board members agreed on the budget, except one: Byron Amos, District 2 Board Member. The following Monday, the General Fund Budget passed at $685.6 million. See Superintendent Meria Carstarphen’s thoughts here: http://atlsuper.com/2015/04/20/board-approves-fy16-general-fund-budget-for-aps/

Full notes from the meeting are attached.

A slide deck from a previous APS Board budget meeting is attached as well, however it is not the one used at the meeting, as it had still not been made public as of April 29, 2015.

APS Budget Meeting Notes

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FY16 Board Meeting – Budget Discussion

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OurGirls @ Tech – Spring 2015 visit

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On a surprisingly cold spring day, 22 Brown Middle School females and their chaperones stepped onto Georgia Tech’s campus for a visit. While the drive only took them 12 minutes, Georgia Tech was a place they had never been before even though the majority of them have lived close by their entire lives. Part of a larger mission the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts has to expose more local Atlanta Public Schools students to the possibility of attending Georgia Tech for college, this was the third time the Westside Communities Alliance has hosted such an OurGirls event. In previous years, Sylvan and Kennedy middle schools also attended.

This year, the girls, escorted by current Georgia Tech students that served as volunteers, got a unique view of the campus. They stopped by the Clough Undergraduate Learning Center (CULC) to see the Urban Honey Bee Project led by Dr. Jennifer Leavey and toured the Invention Studio at the Manufacturing Related Disciplines Complex (MRDC) to see the 3D printer. They also got to see a residence hall for the first time. The photo scavenger hunt took them to the water slide, a dining hall, the radio station, and several popular student hang-out spots on campus.

Catered lunch took place overlooking Historic Grant Field at Bobby Dodd Stadium in the Student Success Center. They heard from current senior and Public Policy major, Katharine Mitchell about self-identity and maneuvering through college as a woman of color. Andre Dickens, Assistant Director of the Office of Minority Educational Development, spoke about the resources available as a minority student at Tech, including unlimited tutoring and new activity and social groups. Jade Sims from the Office of Admissions spoke about what it takes to get into college, particularly Georgia Tech, and how to make changes now that can will prepare you to not only get in, but succeed in college.

The students left with swag to remember their trip and the WCA looks forwards to its next group of girls in 2016.

OurGirls @ Tech - Spring 2015 visit