One of the largest grants awarded to the Kansas University School of Education will go to help students in Topeka public schools.
The $9.3 million grant, from the U.S. Department of Education Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR-UP) will support the Pathways to Success project.
Starting this fall, staff with the project will work with students in sixth and seventh grades in all six Topeka middle schools.
The project will include one instructional coach per school, who will work with classroom teachers to improve quality of instruction; a telementoring coordinator for the district, who will use e-mail and the Internet to connect students to mentors around the world; additional teachers, who will work with students on reading skills; a family-school coordinator; and 20 tutors for each school.
The family-school coordinator will work to invite parents to discuss ways to make students more successful. The tutors will use a model developed at KU in which tutors help students with immediate needs, such as completing a homework assignment, while helping students learn skills they need to work independently in the future.
Jim Knight, a research associate at the KU Center for Research on Learning, will serve as the project's director.
The new grant builds on two previous GEAR-UP grants directed by Knight.
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