Unique Educational Opportunity for Troubled Youth

The AMIkids-YES program in Wimauma, Florida, needs to raise $9,126 to implement an innovative Environmental Education Curriculum for troubled youth.  They’ve partnered with Citizinvestor in order to raise funds through this crowdfunding project.

As an accredited alternative school, AMIkids-YES receives from the Hillsborough County public school district to cover the salaries of certified teachers on our staff. Unfortunately, however, the Hillsborough County funding provides no support for classroom materials or enhanced learning modules such as the AMIkids Environmental Education curriculum.

Students come to AMIkids-YES with an average of 11 prior arrests. Students entering the program are almost always significantly behind in academic coursework and testing well below age level in reading and math. Most have some history of substance abuse, and have displayed a disturbing lack of respect for peers and authority in their home communities.

However, AMIkids’ success rate with this very difficult population is outstanding:

Nearly 100 percent of the students who enroll will complete the program.

More than 75 percent of the students completing the program do not commit crimes after leaving the program. Their success rate in this area is more than double the national average for this population.

On average, these students stay with them 6-9 months and make the following academic advances:

·  a 2.2 grade level increase in Writing

·  a 1.0 grade-level increase in Reading

·  a 1.6 grade-level increase in Math