EDGE 21: A future of positive progress

Monday, January 11, 2021

Greetings and Happy New Year from EDGE 21, our community’s 21st Century Scholars mentoring program. It is our pleasure to provide the community with a brief update on the current status of EDGE 21 and our plans to continue building strong partnerships and mentoring Putnam County students in 2021.

EDGE 21 is a multigenerational program to enroll eligible 21st Century Scholars, complete readiness requirements and provide weekly mentoring through “huddles” in each Putnam County high school. Our goal is to embolden these scholars into post-secondary education and successful careers.

Through 2019 and 2020, EDGE 21 created weekly huddles made up of a success coach and four to five students. Through these huddles, EDGE 21 provides mentoring to scholars in life skills by sharing authentic personal experiences, values and beliefs to build student character, post-secondary educational readiness and successful engagement in their future career.

EDGE 21 supports teachers and counselors in seventh and eighth-grade enrollment and the required 21st Century high school readiness requirements. EDGE 21 mobilizes individuals in our community to invest in intergenerational relationships that engage, connect and encourage commitments that ripple back into the family, school and community.

EDGE 21 has a stated goal that by June 30, 2021 (the day 21st Century registration closes), 50 percent of all eligible seventh-grade students and 90 percent of all eligible eighth-grade students in the county will be enrolled. As of Jan. 1, our county-wide seventh-grade enrollment sits at just under 17 percent, or 31 out of the 187 eligible students, and our eighth-grade enrollment is just under 57 percent, or 79 out of the 139 eligible eighth-graders.

Although there is still work to be done toward our goal, we are very happy with the progress made so far and the commitment that all four county school corporations have made. We are so excited to usher in a new year of great success and new possibilities for our county 21st Century Scholars through improved and expanded programming, and we are grateful for the community’s support and encouragement.

For more information about EDGE 21 and the great work accomplished in our county, please visit our newly-launched website at www.edge21.org. On the website you will see an opportunity to “Stay in Touch” with our trimester check-in email and also view opportunities to get involved as a success coach or EDGE 21 partner.

You may also reach out to EDGE 21 Communications Partner Jake Widner at jwidner@ivytech.edu.

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