PTK Students Help Burncoat Freshmen and Sophomores Become College-Ready

Community service plays a vital role in the Alpha Zeta Theta Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) at Quinsigamond Community College. One of these service projects has been to mentor ninth and tenth graders from Burncoat High School's Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program. AVID is a college readiness system for elementary through high school that is designed to increase school wide learning and performance with the intent being admission to a four-year college.

Tony Sanders, Mark Hogan and Dan Underwood are the PTK leads for this project, along with a dozen other PTK students. Each Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. they greet nine Burncoat ninth and 10th graders at the bus stop and begin the meeting with a tour of some part of the QCC campus.  

“We have given them a tour of the QuEST Center, fab lab, etc.  I believe they will see our Athletic Center this coming week. After the tour, they settle into a room and do their homework with the PTK students, which usually takes an hour,” said PTK Advisor Bonnie Coleman.

After their homework the high schoolers are brought to QCC’s cafeteria where they have a healthy dinner and then are able to socialize with their mentors/tutors. Some students will play games with their mentors, while others may work on finishing their homework before heading to the bus stop at the end of the day.

The program will continue until May 22. The hope is that these students will return in the fall.

“We will stay in touch with them throughout the summer and then resume with these students plus new tenth grade AVID students.  Our hope is to build the relationship with these nine students and continue mentoring/tutoring until they graduate,” Ms. Coleman continued.” At that time we hope they will choose to come to QCC.”