More than 100 teachers, school counselors and administrators from 13 school districts convened in Des Moines on Feb. 4-5 for GEAR UP Iowa's Annual Conference to share and celebrate the program’s success while planning for the future in the communities served.
GEAR UP, which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, assists students most in need of support in preparing, enrolling and persisting through postsecondary education. GEAR UP Iowa began its first cohort of students in 2008 and is currently administering two grants, GEAR UP Iowa Future Ready and GEAR UP Iowa 3.0, which serve more than 10,000 students.
“GEAR UP is not just a program – it is a promise to students that their dreams are within reach,” said Christina Sibaouih, Bureau of Iowa College Aid section chief for community engagement. “We know the challenges students and families face, but also that when given the right support, every student can succeed.”
The two-day conference helped deliver that promise through the opportunity to participate in more than a dozen breakout sessions during the first day, focusing on academic support, family engagement, skills-based learning and college and career exposure. The second day allowed educators to take the information and strategies from those sessions and work on weaving those lessons into their guided framework and implementation plans for the 2025-26 academic year.
Many of those sessions were led by GEAR UP Iowa staff utilizing additional Department experts to connect the grantees in the field to Department resources that aid in helping GEAR UP Iowa achieve its mission and connecting that work to the Department's key priorities.
“The annual GEAR UP Conference is one of the largest offerings we provide to our GEAR UP grantee schools,” said Karmon Long, Department GEAR UP Iowa coordinator. “We want to provide experience and exposure to tools, services and technologies to help our grantees apply new strategies into implementation plans for the upcoming school year.”
The work in creating next year's implementation plans builds upon the sustained recognized success of GEAR UP Iowa. That success was rewarded in 2024 with a $25.8 million federal grant to fund the GEAR UP Iowa 3.0 cohort that serves the class of 2029. That program is running concurrent to the existing GEAR UP Iowa Future Ready cohort for the class of 2025.
“This is something that we’ve never had with two grants running at the same time,” Long said. “However, the goal of GEAR UP remains the same between those two grants. We’ve navigated those transitions and the tools we’ve used to be successful, resilient and maximize our resources are the same tools we want to pass along to our students.”
Those tools delivered to students have come through various services, with the GEAR UP 3.0 program already having served nearly 5,000 students in the 2024-25 academic year, with 58 percent of schools already exceeding their skills-based learning goals. Meanwhile, GEAR UP Iowa Future Ready has served 5,235 students in the 2024-25 academic year and provided more than 23,000 hours of college and career exposure.
As those schools focus on finishing this school year, the planning, re-evaluating and goal-setting for the next academic year is a critical progression for GEAR UP Iowa in building upon its history of success.
"The goals that we have set are the foundations that we stand on,” Long said.
For GEAR UP Iowa, those foundational goals include:
- Increasing the academic performance and postsecondary education preparation for GEAR UP Iowa students.
- Increasing the rate of high school graduation and participation in postsecondary education for GEAR UP Iowa students
- Increasing the educational expectations for GEAR UP Iowa students and increasing GEAR UP Iowa students and families' knowledge of postsecondary education options, preparation and financing.
Every day, GEAR UP Iowa achieves those goals. GEAR UP Iowa students from the GEAR UP Iowa 2.0 cohort were nine percent more likely to graduate than their peers while earning higher GPAs and demonstrating increased proficiency in reading and math. GEAR UP students in that cohort also attended, on average, 3.5 more days of instruction than their peers. Students from low-income households produced a 4.5 percentage point increase in math proficiency and an 8.5 percentage point increase in reading ability.
That impact is seen first-hand by postsecondary educators, who are an important part of GEAR UP Iowa's mission of helping students not just enroll in postsecondary education but persist.
“When we looked at the students who came into the University of Iowa without the GEAR UP program and then with the GEAR UP program, the data was absolutely astounding in the difference GEAR UP made," said Angie Lamb, University of Iowa associate director of academic support and retention. "Our fall-to-fall retention rate in the most recent GEAR UP cohort improved significantly, especially for first-generation students. There was a marked difference for students who came through a GEAR UP program, and the graduation rate increase was substantial as well."
Lamb was joined in a conference session by Director of Student Retention Danielle Martinez, who detailed how teachers can prepare GEAR UP Iowa students for the different rigors of postsecondary academics and build the skills necessary to tackle those challenges early.
"It's absolutely imperative that those lessons start in high school and even earlier," Lamb said. "I love that the GEAR UP program, especially the 3.0 cohorts, starts with seventh graders because the earlier we can start helping students build those skills, the more important it is. We're happy to help students once they get to college. But coming to college with those skills already developed means they're already starting at an important point in their education."
Other conference sessions also detailed the need to take GEAR UP Iowa's programming and principles outside of the school walls and into the community to create a college-going culture in those communities.
"We're a small, rural school district that is the hub of our community," said Davis County school counselor Madison Rushing. "When you include your community, they support those initiatives. If you get your community involved and participating, they help support those students, and it doesn't all fall on the school. Don't underestimate what the community is willing to do because they will do more than ever expected."
Rushing has sought members of the community as sponsors, solicited alumni to participate in career panel discussions and encouraged young professionals to take an active role in students' development. The culmination of this has resulted in Davis County Schools' annual Block Party to kick off the school year with a community-wide event that celebrates students, teachers and the start of the school year.
Davis County's initiatives in engaging the community were one of many success stories GEAR UP Iowa districts shared with colleagues at the annual conference and challenged them to adopt in their communities.
"You really need these moments to sit there and recharge and then to also share what we're doing," Rushing said. "You don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. You can take a piece from what someone else is doing and make it your own, and make it applicable and fit with the culture in your district."