In the past year, Los Ayudantes teamed up with Citizen Schools, a national non-profit tutoring program which has recently established a residency at one of our partner schools, McKinley Middle School (also known as McKinley Institute of Technology).

Citizen Schools mission is very much aligned with ours in that they also target middle school age students and seek to help give them the academic grounding necessary for a happy and successful life. They offer highly-structured apprenticeship programs, as well as less structured clubs and activities and study hall time. Working closely with the director of the Citizen Schools program at McKinley, Nazaneen Khalil-Naji, our tutors established an after school Drama Club apprenticeship--which culminated in an evening performance for parents, teachers and other students--as well as a Poetry Club. An all new Journalism Club apprenticeship is in the works for the 2008-09 school year.