Bright futures: Nurturing the seeds of education to help underserved students thrive

When Cinthia Valdez looks at the students who come to the after-school programs offered through Corners Academy, she sees reflections of herself.

“My whole family was in their shoes,” Cinthia, the Academy’s executive director said. “That was me about 26 years ago.”

She was born in Colorado but was raised in Mexico until she was six years old. When her family moved back to the U.S., her parents, who didn’t speak English, faced many challenges, including trying to understand an unfamiliar education system.

“I remember translating my own parent/teacher conferences; I remember translating everything for my parents,” Cinthia said. “Having an organization like Corners Outreach support me as a student but also support my parents, would have made a big difference in us not having to navigate the waters on our own.”

Corners Academy is a part of Corners Outreach, an organization that works with underserved children and students to help them grow academically and to prepare them for college or the workforce in an enriching, welcoming environment.

It started in 2010 when Larry Campbell — who is now Corners’ CEO — and several members of his church hosted an after-school homework club for the most at-risk students at Berkeley Lake Elementary School in Duluth.

It was a success. Test scores from students who came to the club improved significantly, and the program began to grow. Larry started bringing in more people to help, including Cinthia nine years ago.

“I was working for a bank at the time,” she said. “I was only six months into my career, fresh out of college and did not like it. The bank world was not my calling.”

She found her calling with Corners, becoming a program director, and opening its Gwinnett County location in 2015. Every day, she worked with children from kindergarten through 5th grade.

“My primary responsibility was helping the students with their homework because a lot of the parents at home could not help them,” she said.

Being bilingual in Spanish and English, Cinthia could also help parents, educating them on how to best support their students’ academic pursuits. But, as successful as all this was, the staff realized they needed to do more.

“When we started working with these first and second graders, we realized we were too late. They were already behind,” she said.

So, Corners added an early learning program to the Academy for pre-kindergarten children to “capture them at an early age, give them tools, and give them everything they need academically so that they can start kindergarten-ready,” Cinthia said. “This is where we believe that Mom is the first and most important teacher for the child. Mom and the child come to the program together so that learning continues at home.”

Once a student enters kindergarten, they transition to the Elementary Academy until they reach 8th grade.

“This is where we focus heavily on academics,” she said, with the initial goal being to get students to a third grade reading level and have solid math fundamentals. “If you’re missing a lot of the foundation blocks, you’re going to struggle tremendously. Reading and math determine so much of their future — high school graduation rates, what they’re going to do later on with their lives.”

To help, Corners hires teachers from the 20 schools they partner with to come every day to provide one hour of tutoring in small group settings. These tutors can spend as much time as students need to grasp a concept or subject and help close any education gaps.

“That’s kind of where we’re getting into a lot of trouble with our kids is that they’re not understanding, but the train keeps moving in the school system,” Cinthia said. “At the Academy, we’re able to stop that train.”

The program is working. In 2022, nearly 75% of Academy students have seen growth in math and 80% a growth in literacy.

In addition to academics, students have one hour of free time and can participate in club sports like soccer and the Corners Music Academy, which hosts community choir performances and offers private lessons in piano, strings and flute.

From the Elementary Academy, students move into the teen program. Corners gets them for less time here because their school day is longer. Tutoring is still available, but the program’s focus shifts to preparing them for their post-high school endeavors, whatever they may be.

“It can be a four-year college, two-year college or a trade school,” Cinthia said. “Whatever you want to do, we will support you, but you must graduate high school. That is our one requirement.”

In every aspect of the program, Cinthia said Corners seeks to also work with parents. Staff help them advocate for their kids at the school level, get them to understand the importance of education, and reassure them that, even if they don’t speak English, there’s so much they can do for their children.

In this support role, Corners staff will even go into the schools with the families and sit in on parent/teacher conferences to translate.

“They feel more comfortable with someone else that they trust and they know is right next to them just walking through life with them,” Cinthia said.

For many of these families who came to the U.S., they don’t have anyone else they can turn to.

“So we are their family,” Cinthia said. “We are the people that they get to go hang out with, go to the soccer game, go to the music concert. No one’s meant to navigate the world by themselves or just their life by themselves. So, we become that extended family for a lot of the parents and the students that we get to serve.” 

Cinthia gives the credit of forming these deep bonds to her program directors.

“The directors are the core of what we do,” she said. “Without them, there wouldn’t be an Academy. They work so relentlessly with our students and our parents, and they give so much of their day into our programming. Some of them go into the long hours of the day to make sure their students get home safely. Or they do events that go late into the evening. For example, our high school director goes to games with our students and sometimes doesn’t get home until 12 or one in the morning. But he’s willing to make those sacrifices to give our high school students that experience.”

Cinthia and her team are seeing fruit from these long-term investments — changing the mindsets and pathways of students and families who felt a future they could choose was out of their control.

Families like the Perezes whose daughter Liliana started at Corners when she was in third grade. She stayed with the program through high school and is now in her second year at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“I can’t express how grateful I am for everything Corners has done for me,” Liliana said. “They helped me through every step of my academic journey, connecting me with tutors, introducing me to their amazing music programs and ultimately helping me get into college.”

She’s majoring in business with a concentration in finance.

“Corners gave me the chance to dream. They gave me the support to make that dream a reality,” she said.

Liliana’s siblings also attend Corners. But the Perez family is just one of the hundreds Corners is helping.

“It takes an army,” Cinthia said. "It takes multiple directors. It’s getting the families on board. It’s getting the student on board. It gives you chills when you are able to see the difference you can make with these families. They’re the reason all of us put a lot of sweat and tears into them — their futures matter to us.”

To learn more about Corners Academy, to volunteer or to donate, visit cornersoutreach.org.