Overview
This overview is offered to prospective volunteers, tutors, donors and others interested in learning about Todos Santos and our efforts to help struggling children break the cycle of poverty through early education.
Who We Are
Todos Santos is a small, privately funded Registered 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Organization created to help disadvantaged children break the cycle of poverty through early education.
What We Do
We offer Early Learning Programs at no cost to low income children and English learners in low income neighborhoods in Orange County California.
We offer our Programs using age appropriate science-based texts and materials to teach children to read. Due to the lack of basic reading skills of many of the children who come to us, much of our initial effort is devoted to teaching phonics (see below).
Why We Do It
In California over 40% of our children are unable to read at grade level. In poor neighborhoods the number approaches 70%. A child who is unable to read by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate High School (Annie E. Casey Foundation Research). Helping struggling children learn to read is our first priority. If you can’t read you can’t learn.
How We Do It
We offer our programs through compensated teachers who we hire and support with retired adults and student interns, many of them volunteers, serving as tutor reading/coaches. Our volunteer tutors are an integral part of our Model. Their caring nurturing ‘spirit’ is quickly sensed by our students. Knowing someone cares about them is the most important message we send to our children, and this is accomplished by and through our wonderful volunteers.
This Inter-generational Model benefits 3 generations. Our retired volunteers and student interns benefit at least as much as do the struggling learners they mentor.
Our tutors are trained and supervised by professional educators. Each tutor receives a background check and is covered by liability insurance.
Curriculum
Our Curriculum is based in part on the Reading for Success Initiative developed by Reading is Fundamental, the largest Nonprofit in the United States devoted to supporting the teaching of early literacy. The RFS Initiative utilizes science-based texts and materials to teach literacy. The Initiative has proven to be particularly effective with children from poor backgrounds.
Our Program utilizes texts, materials and lesson plans which we purchase from teacher driven Organizations. Our Program uses science-based materials to teach literacy, no special knowledge of science is required of our tutors.
Phonics
As many of our students are referred to us by their teachers and selected from the bottom quartile of their classes, the need for basic phonics training is particularly evident.
Therefore a substantial part of each class day is devoted to the teaching of phonics. All teachers we employ are soundly grounded in the skills required to teach phonics.
Objective
The Objective of our Early Literacy Programs is to close the gap between our struggling learners from low income backgrounds and their more affluent peers. The data shows that children from low income backgrounds often arrive at school with a literacy gap that expands over time to the point that a 5th grade child from a poor neighborhood often is reading three grade levels behind her more affluent peers. Our mission is to close the gap and change the odds for these kids.
Our Programs also are calculated to create in our early learners an interest and thirst for science, the all-important subjects essential to success as they move through the academic system.
2018
Todos Santos began by offering our first Summer Literacy Program at a Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa, California. For 7 weeks during their summer vacation, 23 children walked to our classes from the surrounding neighborhoods to learn to read.
2019
During the summer of 2019 Todos Santos offered an Early Literacy and Fun Science Program to 30 struggling 1st – 3rd graders at Oak View Elementary School located in Huntington Beach, California.
We offered our program in collaboration with GOALS, a Nonprofit Foundation created by the Disney Company and now supported by the Anaheim Ducks. GOALS offers many types of support programs (primarily sports and recreation-oriented) to at-risk children in Orange County.
We offered our Program with the help of a Montessori Phonics Teacher and a California Certified 1st Grade Teacher and supported them with a wonderful group of retired adults and student interns serving as volunteer tutors. Our Fun Science activities were offered under the supervision of a College Chemistry Professor, and provided by our student interns as well as guest student science majors.
2020/2021 School Year
Throughout the 2020/2021 School Year we offered 3 Early Literacy classes to 72 early learners at the Boys & Girls Club next to an Elementary School in a low income neighborhood in Huntington Beach. The effort proved most challenging to all concerned due to Covid. Masks were required, making teaching difficult but we persevered. Thanks in large part to the wonderful staff at BGC our classes remained opened throughout the School Year while most of the schools were closed by the Teachers.
Summer 2022.
This Summer, we are planning to offer our Program in a low income subsidized housing Project in Long Beach, California. Details to follow.
Future Programs
Due to Covid and the reactions to it the cost of our future Programs has been greatly increased. Salaries of accredited teachers have risen dramatically, making them less eager to work for off-campus Programs like ours.
We also plan to incorporate more science into our early Programs. This too will increase costs.
Finally, changes in employment laws requires us to treat our part time tutors as employees, dramatically increasing their cost as well.
Nevertheless, we intend to continue to offer Early Learning Programs at no cost to struggling children. We will endeavor to enlist the financial support of individuals and businesses willing to help us in this great cause.
Our Challenge
All our students are struggling learners from poor backgrounds referred to us by their teachers and selected from the bottom quartile of their classes. All are from families whose parents are struggling to hold down multiple jobs, many of whom do not speak English and are not even fluent in their native language. This is why we offer our Programs in low income neighborhoods rather than in more affluent areas such as Newport Beach and Irvine.
Oak View Elementary, where we offered one of our Programs, is located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Orange County.
Metrics at Oak View Elementary
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97% Hispanic
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90% English Learners
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95% living in poverty
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70% unable to read at grade level
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77% unable to do math at grade level
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Oak View Elementary is in the bottom 10% of all Elementary Schools in U.S. ( SchoolDiggers.com, GreatSchools.org)
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If the Oak View Community were a separate city it would be the 11th poorest City of its size in the United States. (El Viento Foundation.)
Our challenge is daunting but not discouraging. These children need help from somebody. We are somebody.
Funding
To date our programs have been self-funded by our Founder. Moving forward Todos Santos needs the help of small donors and businesses to support our efforts to continue to offer Early Learning Programs at no cost to needing children.
Books, Books, Books
Each week during our Programs Todos Santos strives to distribute at least one book to each child to keep as her own. The lack of books in the homes of students from poor backgrounds is a major cause of poor reading scores of children in poor neighborhoods.
Help us to make a difference in the life of a child.
Todos Santos is an organization of dedicated educators and volunteers supported by small donors working together to help struggling children break the cycle of poverty through early education.