America Reads and America Counts programs provide Federal Work Study assignments for eligible college students to tutor elementary and middle school-aged children in Pinellas County schools. Tutors are assigned a school at the beginning of each school year, usually in early September.
SPC students are encouraged to apply!
For more information please contact:
Alice Marks, Assistant Director, Financial Assistance Services, Clearwater Campus, Email Marks.Alice@spcollege.edu, Phone 727-341-7956
SPC and Pinellas County Schools have partnered to provide SPC student and staff mentors to underserved schools in the district.
If you’re thinking… I just don’t have the time. Or, maybe you’re asking… What would I talk about? Does mentoring really make a difference? Pinellas County Schools Mentoring Program has made it easy for you! You have the choice to be either a Lunch mentor for elementary age students or a Take Stock Mentor for middle school students that also offers scholarships and college preparatory support.
Mentors meet with students during lunch once a week for thirty-minutes, and only when school is in session. Mentors attend a training workshop, given plenty of resources and activity ideas. District and school personnel are always on hand to support mentors but their most important job is to show up, listen and be a caring friend.
In one student’s words “My mentor came into my life and provided structure, did things with me that my parents couldn’t do. Read to me, listened and talked with me, and kept me focus on things I needed to do. My mentor helped me gain the confidence I never thought I would have.”
Students who have mentors are more likely to graduate from high school, enroll in college or a vocational school, and are more willing to participate in sports, and other afterschool activities. With renewed confidence students with mentors hold leadership roles in school and are better able to advocate for themselves. These positive relationship outcomes benefit not only the student, but their families, the mentor and the community.
In addition to the student’s parents; another consistent presence in a child’s life can make all the difference in the world.
For more information, join the next training session on Thursday August 25th at 12:30 pm on the Downtown Campus room 210.
Judge Myriam Irizzary will lead a discussion about the issues facing the judicial system Tuesday, August 23rd at the Downtown SPC Campus DT210.
One of seven siblings, Myriam was raised by a single mother. She was born in the US territory of Puerto Rico, in a small shack with dirt floors and no running water. When she was two, she moved to the slums of New York. Her mom worked hard to provide for her and her siblings. Through tuition aid programs, she was able to go to Rutgers College, and Rutgers-Newark School of Law. In New Jersey she worked as a staff attorney for Middlesex County Legal Services representing indigent clients. Later she worked for the Middlesex County Public Defender’s office before opening her own practice.
In Pinellas, Judge Irizarry started working for the Pinellas County Clerk of the Courts Office where she had an extensive tenure as Chief Deputy/General Counsel. She also was an Adjunct Instructor for the Paralegal Studies Department for St. Petersburg College.
In 2015, Myriam Irizarry’s lifelong dream was realized when she became the first Hispanic female to serve as a judge in Pinellas County.