As the school year rapidly approaches, partners from across the state got a head start on the year with the annual GEAR UP Iowa Kick Off in Des Moines on Aug. 4.
With a theme of ‘Shaping Tomorrow Today,’ more than 50 GEAR UP Iowa partners from all 13 GEAR UP Iowa school districts attended and participated in a full day of learning, engagement, collaboration and planning to maximize GEAR UP Iowa’s impact and ability to narrow achievement gaps.
“We hope they’re excited about the year ahead and continue moving GEAR UP Iowa objectives forward as they get more students involved,” said GEAR UP Iowa Facilitator Amber Miller. “I hope they learn new ideas from other districts with a few lightbulb moments that they can apply to their own district.”
GEAR UP Iowa, which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, is a federally funded program that supports underserved students in preparing for, enrolling in and persisting through education after high school. GEAR UP Iowa has provided services to students since 2008. The current $25.8 million federal grant supports a 7,500-student cohort in the class of 2029, with services beginning in seventh grade and following the students through high school graduation and into their first year of postsecondary education.
Last year, students in the cohort received nearly 150,000 hours of GEAR UP Iowa support, including more than 40,000 hours of academic assistance and 20,000 hours of college and career exposures.
Led by team members from the Iowa Department of Education’s Bureau of Iowa College Aid, those attending the kick-off event learned about changes in administering GEAR UP Iowa grant funds, program deadlines and updated guidance on accurately reporting data to benchmark the program’s effectiveness.
“This helps to get us on the same page, staying on top of deadlines, looking forward and determining what things we can do or tweak to give students the best experience,” said Heather Speers, an instructional coach with the Storm Lake Community School District.
GEAR UP Iowa partners also received extensive guidance on integrating individual career and academic plan (ICAP) requirements with GEAR UP Iowa programming. The afternoon sessions allowed attendees to collaborate on how to maximize GEAR UP Iowa’s impact in districts of similar sizes that face common challenges.
“The best practices that you hear about on a day like today are great to be a part of,” said Eastern Iowa Community College (EICC) Dean of Students Tishly Herrington. “To be able to bring the whole GEAR UP group together, there’s power in that. I think it’s a good way to kick off the thought process of ‘ok, this is where we’re at and these are the things we need to do this year,’ and put you back in that mindframe.”
Herrington helps EICC’s GEAR UP Iowa coaches provide support to districts in Clinton, Davenport and Columbus Junction to administer their GEAR UP Iowa programs and expose and prepare students for educational opportunities after high school.
“Without GEAR UP, there are so many students who wouldn’t get the added college and career exposure,” Herrington said. “GEAR UP Iowa coaches provide that support to help the districts and their students while facilitating the financial resources for college and career visits.”
Career and campus visits were some of the statewide opportunities GEAR UP Iowa staff encouraged partners to expand, along with celebrating National GEAR UP Week in September and GEAR UP Iowa Skill-Up sessions throughout the year.
For GEAR UP Iowa districts like Storm Lake, with large immigrant and English language learner populations, GEAR UP Iowa college and career visits are often the first and sometimes only exposure students receive to opportunities that exist beyond their schools and homes.
“It allows them to see different things they otherwise wouldn’t see through these visits or professionals coming into the schools,” Speers said. “A lot of them come here because they have family here or their family members have jobs, but they don’t really leave the community or know about the opportunities beyond high school.”
Through engagement at the GEAR UP Iowa Kick Off, partners are ready to tackle the new school year, preparing Iowa’s students for their postsecondary plans and ultimate success.
For more information on GEAR UP Iowa and its resources and programming, visit the Department’s GEAR UP Iowa webpage.