12+ Helps Neighborhood School Students Attend Post-Secondary Education

Over 70 percent of the 2013 graduates from Kensington Health Sciences Academy (KHSA) have gone on to a post-secondary education thanks to help from 12+, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia that prepares students for secondary education. KHSA’s post-secondary enrollment rate was at 11 percent before the start of 12+’s programming.

12+ works with schools in underserved communities, like KHSA, to rebuild their school culture and provide individualized college career, academic and social support services. The program was started in 2010 as a small volunteer program.

“Part of the impetus for why I wanted to start 12+ was just, while I was at Penn I worked with a lot of kids here in West Philly,” said Raymond John, CEO of 12+.  John graduated from the University of Pennyslvania in 2008.  “I got to hear their stories, I got to hear about how their trajectory and just their high school experience was vastly different from mine, even though I went to a public school.”

When the program started, the team worked with a small group of seniors from KHSA. Now, it works with all students, from freshman to seniors, as well as alumni (12+ reports that 85 percent of 12+ alumni remain on track to graduate from college).

In addition, 12+ recently expanded to a second school, Penn Treaty High School, after receiving a $5,000 grant in October 2013 from the PhillyCORE Leaders SEED 3.0 Fundraising Event.

“We used that money to really begin the process of establishing our Plus Center [at Penn Treaty],” said John.

Plus Centers serve as the hub located at the school for all the services the 12+ team provides. The high school was new to Penn Treaty at the time — previously the building was only a middle school and served 6th grade to 8th grade.

“They had a really great leadership team there, [including] a great principal in particular, who really just welcome us into their space,” John said. 12+ was able to work with all the students from Penn Treaty High School and was able to send about 70 percent to some sort of post secondary education.

According to the 12+ website, only 25 percent students from neighborhood school¹ go on to college, and John added that the 70 percent attending post-secondary from Penn Treaty High School was vastly higher than the rates of the schools the students had previously attended.

Individualized support

Much like Teach For America, City Year and AmeriCorps, 12+ started recruiting recent college graduates for its fellowship program (which began last year) to dedicate a year of their time to working in the schools. John said that the fellows serve as the  “utility belt of the school,” helping to take some of the burden off of the teachers’ shoulders.

“We want the kids to know that there is someone who is really fighting for them and advocating for them, believing in their potential. Our fellows really go in there and provide that for the kids.” John said.

This year, 12+ has a total of six fellows split between Penn Treaty and KHSA. Each of the fellows focuses on a specific area:

• the Flight program work with graduating seniors
• the Culture program focuses on working with the PLUS Leaders (a leadership program for high achieving students within the school) and other culture events
• The Raise program (12+’s newest program area) works with incoming freshman

“We’re really proud of the schools that we’re partnering with now,” John said.  He added that although the nonprofit is still very much in its beginning stages, he believes the 12+ model is replicable across the city. Right now, John said his focus is primarily on Philadelphia.

“This upcoming year, my goal is to really move our organization towards sustainability. We’re coming to a point where we can really take this to another level and potentially expand to every high school in Philadelphia,” John said.

12+ will host its 2nd annual charity gala on November 8. Learn more about 12+ and the gala at www.12plus.org/ 

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¹Overall, 47 percent of high school graduates (enrolled in schools within the Philadelphia School District and charter schools) went on to enroll in a college within one year of graduating high school, according to the Philadelphia Council for College and Career Success.

Image Courtesy of 12+