Artesian Schools, Inc. is a charter management organization focused on filling gaps in K-12 education. Its newest school, Southwest Early College High School (SECHS), offers a new model to the Memphis area, through which students can graduate from high school with a college-level associate degree to provide a leg up as they pursue further higher education or employment.
Through its 2017 AmeriCorps State and National Evidence-based Intervention Planning grant, Artesian is implementing a comprehensive student support program at SECHS, modeled after a federal program called Talent Search, which is designed to provide high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds with mentors and tutors to aid in academic, career, and financial counseling. Each student receives individualized attention in areas critical to college attendance and persistence, which fills a critical need that a school counselor does not have the capacity to address alone with a caseload of up to 400 students. Artesian will leverage AmeriCorps members so that mentors and tutors will be at the school every day.
Before choosing the Talent Search model, Artesian conducted research and conversations to reveal best practices and blueprints on the model that it could use for implementing its program. Artesian is now incorporating aspects of the Talent Search model into SECHS, as well as evaluating its performance.
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