MATCH School gives students tools to ensure success after high school
The Boston College Heights
February 09, 2006by Louis Tullo
The Media and Technology Charter High (MATCH) School, founded six years ago, houses just 185 students on the corner of Babcock Street and Commonwealth Avenue. Unlike any other publicly funded school, the high school has a dynamic tutoring program called MATCH Corps that boasts six Boston College alumni who function in the same way as full-time staffers.
Ashley Danoff, the director of development, said, "MATCH Corps is a one-of-a-kind program. MATCH is the only school that has a full-time tutoring corps that lives in the building and tutors students full-time. There are other schools, particularly charter schools in Boston, that are thinking about incorporating ideas similar to the MATCH Corps but that have not done so yet."
According to Danoff, the volunteers in this two-year-old program receive only a small stipend of $600 a month, but have the unique opportunity of finding housing in the building's third floor for a mere $50 a month. This may come in handy as the school day begins at 8:30 a.m. and runs through 5 p.m., with two hours of scheduled tutoring included for each student every day.
"Each student works with the same tutor every day, allowing them to build relationships and work together toward setting and achieving academic goals. By integrating tutoring into the regular school day, we emphasize its importance and remove its stigma," said Danoff.
Graduates of BC play a variety of instrumental roles in the school, said Danoff. She explained that Paul Deninger, a trustee, for example, not only provides financial support but also guidance in how the school is run. Matt Collins, who is now a math teacher, is a former MATCH Corps tutor. Charlie Sposato, BC '70, is the principal.
While the MATCH Corps program functions very similarly to a volunteer program, volunteers must go through an application process and a two-week training session before the school year.
"During this time, they are prepared through lectures on topics in various educational issues as well as with hands-on experience working with our students in our Summer Academy at MIT. All Corps members and staff are trained to maintain regular phone contact with students and their families. Beyond this formal training, there are discussion and 'venting' groups organized as support for MATCH Corps members throughout the year," said Danoff.
As a senior MATCH Corps member who has worked in the program for two years, Brandon Wong, BC '04, has taken hold of the Jesuit ideals of service in a unique way. As someone who intended to do only a year of service before attending law school, Brandon explains the power of this program.
"You really develop a strong relationship with them (the students). I am able to build on top of what I did last year." He said sharing in the success of his students makes him proud.
When he talks about a student named Wallace, with whom he has worked during the past two years, Wong remarks on the change he saw in him. Wallace has gone from being a "lazy student with potential" to one who became personally invested in his own education so much so as to stay for extra tutoring until 8 p.m.
"He knows what I expect of him and how much effort he needs to put in," said Wong, who is now helping Wallace with his pre-calculus and Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. history classes.
Carrying his experiences as a MATCH Corps tutor with him, Wong explained how his career aspirations have been influenced and how he now wants to pursue learning about educational policy in law school.
"If I've learned anything, it is to open yourself to new things and new ideas," he said. He stressed that if students do not want to jump right into a career after graduation, they should spend the time giving back to the community.
The MATCH School has done more than its share in providing educational support to high school students in the community. As Danoff explains, this program has seen incredible results that rival other public schools.
"The inroduction of the MATCH Corps took tutoring to a new level. The first group of MATCH 10th graders to have the MATCH Corps in addition to weekend tutoring blew away all of their previous cohorts in performance on the MCAS [a statewide standards-based test]. They continued the legacy of having the top scores among all open-admission schools in Boston," said Danoff.
"In addition to this local accolade, MATCH students outperformed many others on a state level; their math scores put them in fourth place out of all public schools in the state, and their English scores placed them as 17th. This is a remarkable achievement considering most of these students came to MATCH with below grade-level skills and were on par to fail the 10th grade exam."
Observing a tutorial by MATCH Corps member Juliet Mohnkern, BC '05, working with student Denisse Martinez, made the MATCH school's remarkably productive results evident. Martinez is an honor roll student at the MATCH school who is currently enrolled in classes such as AP Calculus AB, AP English literature and composition and a physics class at Boston University.
As Mohnkern helped Martinez with her AP English assignment dealing with Raymond Carver's short story "Cathedral," the dynamic between student and tutor showed exactly what makes the MATCH school so effective.
Mohnkern and Martinez took turns reading the story aloud, stopping at several points to use Mohnkern's background in linguistics to explain the meanings of words. Mohnkern asked questions to help address themes in the text as well as questions in Martinez' assignment, and gave Martinez an opportunity to think through what she was reading aloud and get direct feedback.
As Mohnkern explained the meaing of "apathetic," by breaking the word down into the latin roots, she condensed the emotion of this word into the colloquial saying, "whateva." Both Mohnkern and Martinez laughed - this situation deomnstrates the friendship that makes it into this type of relationship. Danoff said this is a major aspect of the program.
"On the part of both students and staff, the fact that they form life-long relationships with people who more often or not come from different backgrounds than they do, teaches them a lot about compassion and tolerance. The MATCH Corps guarantees that every single student has an advocate, an adult who is invested in his or her future, a mentor to help him or her through the difficult journey toward college, regardless of his or her home situation," said Danoff.
In providing innercity kids with an environment to learn as well as look towards the future, the MATCH school aims to get kids looking, as Danoff put it, "to college and beyond."
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