Our History
Inspired to help students in East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park, three local mothers, Ann Carter, Sharon Purcell and Carol Chalmers, founded an organization in 2008 and decided to call it "All Students Matter" (ASM) to reflect their belief that every student matters and deserves a quality education no matter what neighborhood they live in. With a small group of friends they started volunteering in several classrooms at Belle Haven elementary school. ASM has increased its presence in the district every year since its inception and currently has almost 200 trained tutors, averaging 3 years with ASM, serving over 1,400 students in all Ravenswood elementary schools from TK through 5th grade. The Ravenswood teachers partner with ASM volunteers to improve the academic performance and social-emotional well-being of the students.
Over the years, the addition of an all volunteer leadership team enabled us to sustain the growth and continue to add high quality programming. Our program began with in-classroom tutoring and has always had an emphasis on building students' literacy skills, helping students with reading, writing and common core math. We have deepened our work at the schools, for example, adding in specialized volunteer support for the Literacy Intervention Program at each elementary school campus. We have also added specially trained volunteers who lead a mentoring book club which fosters literacy and comprehension skills as well as social-emotional skills for 5th graders. Our approach is to work with the talented Ravenswood district leaders and teachers and align with their priorities.
Over the years, the addition of an all volunteer leadership team enabled us to sustain the growth and continue to add high quality programming. Our program began with in-classroom tutoring and has always had an emphasis on building students' literacy skills, helping students with reading, writing and common core math. We have deepened our work at the schools, for example, adding in specialized volunteer support for the Literacy Intervention Program at each elementary school campus. We have also added specially trained volunteers who lead a mentoring book club which fosters literacy and comprehension skills as well as social-emotional skills for 5th graders. Our approach is to work with the talented Ravenswood district leaders and teachers and align with their priorities.
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