Byron Marroquin wanted to teach and help low-income minority elementary school students develop skills that would help them someday get into college.
In January, Marroquin, a second-year master’s student studying geographical sciences, joined the Academic Sports Achievement Program, which aims to help 6- to 13-year-olds, from Prince George’s and Montgomery counties schools develop skills to become better leaders.
“I want to be able to provide mentorship and guidance to these students,” Marroquin said. “I really like teaching and like providing that student-teacher interaction every time I teach.”
Ronald Luna, a professor in the geographical sciences department, created ASAP with a colleague, Eugene Pascoe, who is the founder of Soccer and Friends, a nonprofit organization located in Silver Spring.
“We wanted to create a program that would help elementary-aged children strengthen their reading and writing skills, as well as have time for learning more soccer skills,” Luna said.
Luna said he and Pascoe created a similar program 17 years ago in Langley Park, Maryland, where they provided academic and soccer support to kids in different soccer divisions.
“Now that ASAP is on campus, we have had a lot of support from students on campus who volunteer on Fridays to tutor the kids,” Luna said.
Marroquin said this program is beneficial to the kids who participate because they don’t have to start on the same level as their peers.
“On the first day of the program, we provide a pre-test to all the students to see what academic level they are at,” Marroquin said. “Whatever score the kids get, they will be placed correctly with students who are in the same level. That way, students who don’t need to be in that group can go to another group and learn what they are learning.”
The Tuesday and Thursday tutoring sessions engage students by switching between academic and soccer themes. For example, if the kids practice academic skills during a Tuesday session, then on Thursdays they can focus on soccer skills.
“The kids would be more invested in learning because they would be solving math and reading problems that have something to do with soccer,” Luna said.
Although they want the kids to go to college one day, Pascoe said their main goal is to help these kids pass the Partnership Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, which is a Maryland assessment determining whether students are ready to move on to the next grade level, college or a career.
“We want them to have the skills of leadership, excellence, achievement, discipline, effort and respect because these kids are our future,” Pascoe said. “One of the goals for this program to make sure that students are prepared to take assessments like the PARCC, because they need to understand that college is something that they have to do.”
In addition to tutoring the kids, ASAP offers classes for parents of children already involved in the program, Luna said.
“We want the parents to find ways to help their kids as well, so we offer classes on finance, cooking and applying to colleges,” Luna said. “If a parent learns new ways to deal with things, the kids would benefit, and they would learn from their parents.”
The program will be reaching its year mark this summer but has had a lot of success over the past few of months, Luna said. The spring semester sessions will begin on April 4.
“In the summer of 2015, we had 40 students, and in the fall of 2015 we had about 140 students,” Luna said. “We are really happy that students and parents are taking a program like this seriously.”
