Relationships: The Bonds Go Deep

Simply stated, SEI becomes family, and not necessarily a second family. For most of our students, a time will come when they have no one else to turn to, no one to call or ask for help. It could be a challenge at school, a crisis at home, a personal problem or major decision to make. Anything. That’s why each student has an SEI Coordinator, someone who is available 24 hours a day, seven days week, 365 days a year. Someone who believes in and brings out the best in each and every student, even if it means just listening.

SEI coordinators help with school homework and life’s lessons. They attend school functions, parent-teacher conferences, graduations and even family funerals. Because we know that’s what it takes to form intensive, enduring, personal connections with the students we serve. That’s what it takes to cultivate and earn trust.

Culture of Success: Individual Plans

Anchored in the SEI Standards, Coordinators and students work together to realize their potential, with emphasis on an Individual Success Plan that outlines the students’ academic, personal, and social goals, as well as the strategies they will use to reach them. The plan is a living, breathing work in progress that is discussed, revised and measured on a regular basis between the coordinator and the student. It’s the tangible tool that brings potential to life and gives direction to a dream.

Comprehensive Approach: Depth and Scope

SEI knows that for students to succeed, they need more than a drop-in, part time program. They need support before and during class, after the bell rings, and beyond—services the public education system just can’t afford or provide. Here’s how we fill the void:

The In-School Program
While class is in session, our full-time, paid service coordinators provide academic guidance and monitor each student’s scholastic achievement, attendance, and behavior.

After-School Enrichment
When school lets out, SEI’s instruction continues. We provide homework tutorials, enrichment classes, performing arts, computer instruction, and recreation from Monday through Saturday.

The Summer Program
Our six-week summer program engages hundreds of students in classes, music, athletics, field trips, performing arts and internships.

Post High School Support
We help high school students go further by helping them study and prepare for college entrance exams, and as well as financial aid workshops, career exposure and job interview skills classes.

Parent involvement.
At-risk youth often come from at-risk households. So we offer family resource services such as counseling, parenting classes, energy assistance and housing programs, and other useful training.

Continuum of Services: It Works Long Term

Remember going proudly from the playground to the “upper grades,” then nervously on to middle school? The first day of (gulp) high school? What most of us didn’t know then, but SEI knows now, is that certain turning points can be critical trigger points that determine with high predictability whether a young person will succeed in school (and life) or succumb to pressure and the consequences they may bring.

Which is why SEI begins our relationship with children in the second grade, and we stay with them into adulthood, age 25. When those inevitable turning points come, SEI students have an advantage. They’re prepared and supported by their SEI coordinator and our extended “family” of resources and services.

Whether they are children, teens or young adults at those junctures, whether it’s a challenge or an opportunity, seemingly minor or distinctly huge, SEI is there. We help students recognize the challenge or opportunity, evaluate options and make choices and decisions that keep them on the best path, every step of the way, through each and every transition.

In the direction of their dreams.