ACE Learning Centers Focus on Making the Learning Experience Stronger

By Martha Sessums, ACE President

There’s a meme I recently shared with some friends – Before 2020, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. After 2020, what doesn’t kill you mutates and tries again.

Okay, it’s my habit to find humor in life, especially in our current time. The pandemic isn’t over yet. Delta and omicron abound. But we are hopefully better protected and prepared than when covid first hit the world in early 2020. The ACE Learning Centers have been a part of that preparation process, working to find safe paths for teachers, administration and students and continue to respond to evolving situations. They have also maintained their focus on education and engaging students in learning in these challenging times.

I have either visited or connected via Zoom with staff and students at the ACE Learning Centers and they all insist on everyone wearing masks properly and maintaining a safe distance from each other. Vaccinations and boosters are encouraged by management or supported by the school districts.

More importantly, they each try to maintain learning as usual but be supportive of students who are having learning issues after a year of virtual classes. Plus, they keep focused on doing a great job of teaching to move students forward to success. The new meme: when learning mutations try to kill you, The ACE Learning Centers mutate faster to make students and their learning experience stronger.

Here are some of their programs for the first part of the school year in 2021 that made learning experiences stronger:

San Francisco International High School has special mentors helping students where they need the most help, whether it’s language, math or getting into and through college.

Oakland International High School is focusing on students that had a difficult 2020 virtual learning year and are helping them get back into the rhythm of learning in person.

Alpha Parent Learning Center is working to create a mentor program with best practice advice from the International High Schools.

KALW Audio Academy is teaching community news reporting skills both online and in person in the newsroom, but the number of people allowed in the newsroom at any one time is limited. That means a lot is done with small mentor groups. The focus continues to be reporting about the Bay Area community and the Audio Academy ’22 Fellows are quite busy.

ACE shares the best practices of the ACE Learning Centers and will continue to do so in 2022. The ACE Spectrum blog will focus on students, their challenges and how these educational institutions do their best work confronting challenges in 2022.

ACE management and the ACE Board of Directors wishes each person involved with ACE Learning Centers the very best for this New Year of 2022. Please continue to be smart about and stay safe from covid. Thank you for being great ACE Learning Centers that make us all stronger.