Second Street Youth Center Foundation Inc

Pre-school - ssyc operates a comprehensive early childhood education program for 210 children daily through our collaborative partnership with the plainfield public schools. We are using the state-approved curriculum, connect 4 learning, which is a stem-based curriculum founded by the national science foundation. As we respond to the developmental needs needs of children, we understand the need to address the social-emotional needs of our children entering the educational system for the first time. Therefore, this curriculum and our academic approach embed social-emotional learning throughout the day. We are also data-driven, therefore, children are assessed to ensure that they are making satisfactory progress towards mastery of the state of nj preschool standards and are being properly prepared for kindergarten. After-school program: ssyc operates an academic after-school enrichment program. Daily we transport 60 children from elementary schools in plainfield. They are provided a healthy snack, homework assistance, and stem-related education, 5 days per week. Our program includes two licensed teachers, who also provide individual tutoring for children who are identified as failing below grade level. Our program is critical to the academic success of our students. Most of our parents suffer from challenges in the area of literacy and do not have the ability to assist their children with homework or academic challenges.

Full steam ahead summer enrichment: ssyc provides an 8-week summer enrichment program for 100 children annually. Through our partnership with professional artists, the children get to select from a series of performance-based arts, such as drumming, tap dance, african dance, ocal and videography. They receive the arts twice per week. They also participate in technology programming, inclusive of robotics, computer skills and coding. Finally, they have five full days of stem-related classes, inclusive of conducting and understanding experiments and the scientific model. They have summer trips that align with their stem subjects. Their summer culminated with a showcase, where they get to display all they learned to their families and various community stakeholders.