What We Do
The trains and supports student-athletes to become mentors to students in grades K-8 and develops career skills all while accommodating the busy schedules of student-athletes going to school and competing.
Partnering with athletic departments, together we carefully select and train student-athletes to be leaders at their schools who can role model the importance of education and setting goals to students. At the same time, student-athletes develop their own leadership skills and nurture a desire to volunteer in the community with measurable results.
Launched in 2016, the program in partnership with Penn Athletics has seen 22 student-athletes from 10 sports volunteer as mentors for more than 1,800 students in underserved areas in the Philadelphia and Camden, NJ areas.
Evidence-Based Results
Classroom Champions’ Pro Athlete mentorship program partners grades K-8 classrooms with a professional sports team player or players. Research shows that social-emotional skills are foundational for success in school and in life.
Establishing these skills through the proven Social Emotional Learning (SEL) process at a young age is recognized to be one of the best ways to set kids up for future personal, academic, and professional success – which is why we thoroughly measure program success through student, teacher, parent, and mentor results.
Every $1 invested in a child’s social and emotional learning and development has been shown to save society $11 in costs associated with the justice system, health care, mental health services, and tax revenue lost through incomplete education and under-employment.
Innovations
Scaled
Mentorship
Through asynchronous video communication, live video chat interactions, and social media sharing, our one-to-many mentoring approach greatly expands the reach of a single mentor by greater than 300:1.
Full-time remote
teacher support
Through webinars, online resources, digital lessons, a vibrant online community, and dedicated Education Coordinators, Classroom Champions teachers are fully supported to implement the program in their classrooms.
relationship through
technology
Classroom Champions equips classrooms with the technology needed to facilitate regular video lessons, live interactive video chats, and teacher moderated social media exchanges that encourage digital literacy.
Four Stakeholder
Measurement
Our extensive pre, post, and comparison program evaluation measures, assesses, and reports on student impact and achievement through student, teacher, and family feedback, and improving athletes as mentors.
Why Athlete Mentors?
Elite athletes practice hard work, dedication and perseverance on a daily basis. They understand how important these traits are, and also what it’s like to face adversity and to struggle.
By sharing their experiences, they lead by example, and help students understand and develop the skills necessary to thrive and succeed.
Through the utilization of the principles of sport, students can see effort, fair play, and teamwork in a visual way that helps them connect these ideals to their own lives.
Our Impact
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