Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Georgia State University

First Presenter’s Email Address

anedwards5@gmail.com

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Anthony Edwards has been speaking since the age of 16, as a Youth Transformational Speaker, who speaks to middle school, high school students. He has been working with kids ages 3-18 for over 12 years being a tutor. He’s been a mentor for 10 years and a sports coach for 5 years. Having spoken to many parents concerning the challenges that they have dealt with concerning the school system and speaking to students concerning the challenges that they’ve faced in and outside of the classroom. After being a habitual low performing student for a majority of his scholastic career, Anthony made a stark improvement within his junior and senior year of High school graduating on the honors list. First attempt at college, Anthony regressed to old habits and left school. 10+ years later, he decided to give school another try and within 1 1/2 year, he graduated just .01 percent shy of graduating with the highest honors from Georgia State University with a concentration in Journalism. Anthony has found it his mission to help scholars (students) to reach for more than what they believe.

Location

Session Seven Breakouts (Verelst)

Strand #1

Hands: Safety & Violence Prevention

Strand #2

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Relevance

The presentation will show that how within the past five years that the term, “At-Risk” has lingering effects on future scholars who find it cumbersome to achieve academic success. Also peering into the emotional and social effects that being labeled “At-Risk” does or has done to future scholars (students).

Brief Program Description

The nation has been watering the term "at-risk" for decades and we are surprised that the term now has different connotations. We have deemed the term oftentimes in a stereotypical manner in believing that At-Risk is codifies to two or possibly three groups. We're not looking at the entire tree that has now grown and branched out into something much larger.

Summary

The presentation aims to show the constant labeling and resounding effects of the term “At-Risk” can have on the students, parents, and educators; collectively. What is the true meaning of “At-risk” and what is not. When the term is brought to the forefront, black and brown children are oftentimes the photographical and mental images presented. We tend to forget about those who live in rural areas, middle income families, and even well-to-do families who can have an “At-risk” child under their roof and may not even know it.

The presentation will highlight data from some sources as Social Solutions, such as: 12% of HS students who drop out are unemployed. Only 1 in 10 youth from low-income families go on to graduate from a four-year college, compared with 28% of youth from middle-income families and 50% of youth from high-income families. This is something that the presentation will highlight, there has been a significant national shortage of over 4,000 teachers for the opening of the 2022-2023 school year, due to a myriad of reasons, the top two are: lack of pay and burnout, reported by NBC News. Teachers burning out within urban and rural community schools as they have to play multiple roles compared to their suburban counterparts. Playing the role of educator, unofficial surrogate parent, and in most cases, lost-prevention advocate as to prevent students from dropping out, the presentation will show how at times the educators can be overwhelmed with wearing so many hats, particularly with this demographic deemed, at-risk.

The presentation will be conducive to a small group of 20-30 people, a PowerPoint presentation, and to allow Q&A, also allow for the attendees to speak their thoughts and grievances off of their mind to enlighten others where we all will be able to learn from the perspective of others. At the end of the presentation, the question will be; are educators, parents, mentors, etc. at the point of silently given up? There’s a possible boost needed to morale to not give up on these kids, ourselves, and not to give up on the mission of seeing a new generation of students become something better than a label.

Evidence

  1. Why we should stop labeling students as ‘at risk’ — and the best alternative

By: Valerie Strauss and Ivory A. Toldson

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/01/23/why-we-should-stop-labeling-students-risk-best-alternative/

- The labeling of students has a wrong connotation and the students who stick with it.

2. CARRY- Coalition for Restoring At risk Youth: https://www.foratriskyouth.org/fact-sheet/

-12% of HS students who drop out are unemployed. Only 1 in 10 youth from low-income families go on to graduate from a four-year college, compared with 28% of youth from middle-income families and 50% of youth from high-income families.

- NBC News Report: Teacher Shortage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jILhy0O3NZk


Learning Objective 1

A. The tree called “At-risk” and how has it grown through the years.

Learning Objective 2

B. Participants will understand At-risk academically and non-academically.

Learning Objective 3

E. Encourage participants to putting a new positive spin on “At-Risk”.

Keyword Descriptors

•At-Risk •Educators •Mislabeling •Academically/Non-academically At-Promise •At-Potential

Presentation Year

2023

Start Date

3-7-2023 2:45 PM

End Date

3-7-2023 4:00 PM

Download

Share

COinS
 
Mar 7th, 2:45 PM Mar 7th, 4:00 PM

AT-RISK: The habitual watering of one word and the tree that has grown.

Session Seven Breakouts (Verelst)

The nation has been watering the term "at-risk" for decades and we are surprised that the term now has different connotations. We have deemed the term oftentimes in a stereotypical manner in believing that At-Risk is codifies to two or possibly three groups. We're not looking at the entire tree that has now grown and branched out into something much larger.