Global Village Project

A robust community mentoring program has been an important part of GVP programming since the early years of our school. With the help of dedicated volunteer mentors, GVP’s caring community continues to support students even after they complete our academic program. Community-oriented and community-based, our mentoring program helps students, alumnae and their families as they continue on their educational journeys. Passionate people who have volunteered at GVP and worked alongside students commit to long-term, consistent mentoring of an alumna as she advances to high school and beyond. Students are matched with mentors during their final year at GVP, giving them time to forge relationships and prepare for the educational experience beyond our school.

We are also expanding a new focus on peer mentoring, which was initiated by our Alumnae Advisory Council (AAC), the school’s first alumnae leadership group. In 2019, GVP provided funding and professional facilitation and workshops for the founding AAC members, who self-determined their structures, purposes, and goals. The group meets several times per year to identify priorities and plan their activities in support of current GVP students. Many AAC members continue to be familiar faces around our school and develop strong relationships with current students. They volunteer in math classes, help with instrument lessons, visit socially with students in their homes, and are generally available as a source of information and support along students’ journeys during and after GVP. While some AAC plans have been put on hold due to the coronavirus, new opportunities have also emerged, such as networking events to facilitate connections between current and former students via Zoom and mask-making and delivery. As research shows that social integration and building positive relationships are significant success indicators for newcomer students, the AAC will continue to play a pivotal role in the educational journeys of each new generation of GVP students, while also using their voices to contribute to GVP’s continued strategic growth and vision.

Our Intensive English Language and Literacy program is at the core of our academic model. We recognize that access to English and to literacies of different kinds will open minds and doors and empower students. Our approach to literacy instruction, as with all subjects, is strengths-based rather than deficit-based; we seek to build on what our students already know and on the funds of knowledge that they already possess. The literacy curriculum centers building connections at the intersection of students' cultures, life experiences, and linguistic expression. In the classroom, this includes small-group and one-on-one instruction so that the curriculum can be tailored to the needs of each student, as well as a carefully curated collection of books and a new virtual library created by our dedicated volunteers. There are books at all levels and on almost every topic, thus removing the stigma faced by many English Language Learners who, in the absence of level-appropriate resources, often must start by reading books that are written for young children. Additionally, our library intentionally includes books that have strong and courageous women, women of color, refugee families, and people of all faiths and backgrounds reflected throughout their pages. As our school building is closed during the temporary but ongoing shift to online learning necessitated by the global pandemic, students do not have access to the library; thus, we have engaged our corps of volunteers to create the GVP Virtual Library. Volunteers have created dozens of videos of themselves reading aloud from library texts, a powerful resource that helped to combat summer learning loss and has created ongoing opportunities for students and their families to practice and hone their literacy skills.

Perhaps more than any other curricular pillar, SEL & Wellness programming is poised this year to play a significantly expanded role in ensuring our students are equipped to succeed at online learning. This is one of the newest formal pillars of our educational model, built out in the past few years in recognition of the fact that meeting students’ social and emotional needs is fundamental to helping them succeed academically. A key component of the SEL program as part of our students’ academic schedule is weekly group counseling classes, which are led by our School Counselor/SEL Coordinator and organized by Form (academic level.) Lessons and activities focus on building critical SEL skills, including self-awareness, social awareness, and self-management.

The global pandemic has also necessitated that GVP step forward with new “wraparound” services to foster the social-emotional health and wellness of our students, and we are committed to meeting these needs. The continued physical closure of our school means that students will miss out on the free lunch they receive daily through a partnership with Agnes Scott College; since mid-March, we have been making semi-weekly deliveries of both fresh and nonperishable foods and other supplies, including masks and other PPE, to all GVP families. During these visits, we have been able to maintain vital contact and connection with students and parents. We know that keeping in close touch is the best way to keep students engaged during virtual learning, and anticipate doing even more outreach via phone calls and physically distanced in-person visits this fall. Our expanded efforts in the area of student and family support are guided by our School Support Specialist, who speaks many of the home languages spoken by our students and families. Through these conversations, GVP serves as a vital link between the community we serve and much-needed resources and information. The physical closure of our school presents an obstacle to maintaining our strong sense of community, one of the most special parts of GVP. But we are also seeing how the online environment is giving rise to new kinds of engagement and connection and are committed to ensuring that each GVP student and parent feels fully supported, whether learning takes place within the walls of our school or at home.