Gov. Tony Evers designated Sept. 25-29 as GEAR UP week in a proclamation signed Sept. 13.
GEAR UP — which stands for Granting Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs — is a post-secondary education program administered by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to offer additional resources to underserved communities, according to the proclamation.
“This week, the state of Wisconsin joins DPI in reaffirming its commitment to providing quality education to students of all backgrounds,” Evers said in the proclamation.
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The U.S. Department of Education has provided federal funding to Wisconsin’s DPI to provide six or seven year grants for local education agencies and universities, according to the proclamation. Wisconsin’s DPI branch for post-secondary access, the Wisconsin Educational Opportunity Programs, is handling GEAR UP, the proclamation said.
WEOP will match dollar-for-dollar what school districts invest in GEAR UP, Wisconsin DPI Communications Officer Chris Bucher said in an email statement to The Badger Herald. Expenses related to staff, technology and spaces acquired by schools for GEAR UP are eligible to be matched by WEOP, Bucher said.
WEOP is working with students in eight Wisconsin cities — Racine, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Sheboygan, Shawano, Wausau, Ashland and Bayfield, Bucher said. Services and benefits will only be accessible to students grades 6-12 attending select schools in these cities.
Quality of schooling can sometimes be outside of community control, according to University of Wisconsin education policy professor Gavin Luter. School funding is directly correlated to the political importance of a community and the value of a school’s property, Luter said.
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“Cities, counties, towns and villages invest certain resources in some communities more than others, in part based on the kind of political power that those people have within their communities,” Luter said. “School district funding often comes from local property taxes. That means that the quality of schools is directly related to how valuable a property is.”
Communities unable to invest in their schools leave students without access to the proper staffing and the necessary test scores to easily pursue postsecondary education, Luter said.
Services include tutoring, mentoring, college credit, scholarships and the opportunity to earn an associate’s degree upon completion of high school, according to the Wisconsin DPI website.
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GEAR UP has targeted disadvantaged school communities and students, according to the proclamation. Students aiming to participate in GEAR UP must identify with at least one of the following requirements — ethnic minority, student with a disability, learning English, first-generation college student or qualify for free or reduced school lunches, according to the Wisconsin DPI website.
GEAR UP aims to bring 2,500 students from underdeveloped school communities through their first year of college, according to the proclamation. There is potential for GEAR UP to be expanded in the future, according to Bucher. Upon applying for more funding, WEOP will assess district-level data and identify other school districts that could benefit from GEAR UP, Bucher said.
