Driving Academic Impact at Harlem Lacrosse

At Harlem Lacrosse , we are always thinking about how we can best drive academic impact for our participants. As Program Directors, present in schools every day, we occupy a unique role. One that is different from teachers or more traditional after school programs but offers some powerful ways to support academic growth.

We know that we are only successful when our kids are leveraging their participation in the program, to become the best versions of themselves as students. This emphasis is one reason why more than 200 students have gone onto college from Harlem Lacrosse in the past four years alone and why Harlem Lacrosse students have earned more than $85M in scholarship opportunities at high schools and colleges since we began. To maximize the academic benefit that our students take from their Harlem Lacrosse experience, we focus on a few key themes and structures.?

In School Presence

Our ability to support student progress hinges on our presence in the building. This allows us to see the students every day, to influence school attendance, and to help shape their entire relationship to school. Students who haven’t had great experiences in school in the past, get to feel great about coming to school and what can happen there, because they get to see their Program Director and teammates every day.

This presence also allows us to understand the specific challenges that are inhibiting academic performance. We can see which subjects are the most difficult, which performance issues are related to behavior or assignment completion and which ones are related to skill gaps. We can sit in class or talk to teachers about the nature of the academic challenges, so our support can be tailored to the needs of each student. Being in the building helps us understand what resources already exist. Simply encouraging students to attend office hours or extra help that is being offered can have tremendous impact but we only know about those resources, by being present and fully integrated into the school community.??

Long Term, Holistic View of Student Growth

The Harlem Lacrosse intervention is designed to engage students for roughly 250 hours each year (outside of school time) from sixth grade through high school graduation. We see kids and interact with families after school, on weekends, school vacations, and summer breaks for many years in a row. This is one aspect of the Program Director role that differentiates us from other educators, and it is an important driver of impact for us.

If a student is dealing with a difficult issue at home that is holding them back in school, we can work with the student and family to address the underlying issue. We get to engage families much more than is typical for most teachers. A longer time horizon than a semester or academic year is also a powerful tool that teachers don’t always get to utilize. Changing academic behaviors or attitudes towards school, or catching up on foundational academic skills takes time. Because we are focused on long term academic success, we can take the time needed to address these underlying issues, without having to worry only about annual state standards in a particular subject area.

Focus on Academic Behaviors

Critically important relationship building and social emotional growth happens in the athletic portion of our program. There is no better place to learn work-ethic, collaboration, self-confidence or resilience than the lacrosse field. As Program Directors who are also coaches, this positions us beautifully to drive academic impact by translating these skills to the classroom.

Academic Check Ins are hugely impactful tools for Program Directors. Short, frequent meetings with each student help us understand the most important issues and respond accordingly. Kids might need encouragement or positive reinforcement, they might need to get extra help or get a tutor, they might need to turn in missing assignments, or they might need help managing their time so they are able to study enough for an upcoming assessment. Knowing what they need is the job of the Program Director and academic check ins are powerful tools to accomplish that objective. Helping kids come to school more, improve their behavior and focus in class, complete assignments on time, and leverage resources are all important ways we support academic growth.

Access Resources, Be Advocates

One of our goals is for Harlem Lacrosse to be unique and additive in the lives of our students. We want to support kids in ways that others can’t, and we don’t want to duplicate services that already exist or might be better delivered by others. This means that it is the job of the organization to know what resources are available to the students we serve. Such resources include things as significant as an independent school, pools of college financial aid, or internships; but they also include things like tutors, extra help sessions, or useful software like Khan Academy or DeltaMath Solutions .

There are gaps between existing resources that can help students become successful and the kids who are accessing those resources. We aim to close those gaps for our participants. Included in this process is an advocacy role as well. Admissions to boarding school, accessing special education resources or financial aid does not always come easily. These can be complicated and technical processes with frequent roadblocks. Our job is to stand next to our students and families and make sure that they have fair and equitable access to the resources that they deserve.

Collectively, we call this approach academic coaching. It has many similarities to the roles that we play as athletic coaches so we are well positioned to drive impact with this strategy. We are proud of the results that it is producing thus far. In the 2022-23 school year:

• Harlem Lacrosse students attended school at a rate of 91.4%, which far outpaces their in school peers.
• 89% of students passed all four core classes, and students who did not achieve that goal in the year prior, increased their GPAs by an average of 27%.
• 89 students attended independent schools.
• The high school graduating class of 2023 earned over $1.5M in grants and scholarships to attend college.

We are incredibly excited about the opportunities to scale impact using this approach in the years ahead. Based on our current participation cohort, the number of graduating high school seniors each year will almost triple to 150 by 2026. Within five years, we expect to have 500 alumni in college every single year.

Thank you to all who have supported Harlem Lacrosse participants and our approach to academic growth. This approach requires a deep commitment but we also see a high return on the investment. We are only able to make that investment because of the generosity of our supporters, and we are thrilled to have the chance to grow our collective impact so significantly in the years ahead.