Marc Schleif, 2013
Durham, Connecticut
City Year Los Angeles

“When students arrive first thing in the morning, we might be the first smiling faces
they’ve seen all day; I want to keep that positive energy flowing constantly to
give everyone a safe, motivating environment to learn.”

Why did you join City Year?

I joined City Year to be a part of something bigger than myself; a national movement. I’ve alwaysloved working with kids and my experiences in the past have been great, but have left me wanting to do something completely new and different. I also didn’t want to finish my four years at Bentley then go straight into the working world, still not knowing what I really want to do. I’m glad I took a gap year because along with pushing back graduation, I feel like I will be able to get more out of my education back at Bentley. Working in schools for 10+ hours a day definitely made me realize how lucky I am to be at college, but at the same time it’s a sobering thought knowing that about 50% of high school students in the areas we serve will not graduate. In the short time we’ve been here it’s already been an eye-opening experience for me and I’m looking forward to impact these students’ lives with all I’ve got.

What do you hope to achieve with your service? Any personal goals?

Through working with my elementary school students, I hope to improve their literacy and math skills as well as improve their overall outlook on school. Over 99% of the students here are eligible for free lunch and families are constantly struggling to make ends meet. Also, home life can be very difficult for students who may be forced to take on extra responsibilities while other nine and ten year olds are playing outside or watching TV. I want our students to be motivated to come to school every single day and be excited to learn.

When students arrive first thing in the morning, we might be the first smiling faces they’ve seen all day. I want to create an extremely positive energy throughout the school to give everyone a safe place to learn during this year and beyond. This is City Year’s first year at Malabar Street Elementary and I’m looking forward to leaving a mark with our nine person team. The school is about 800 students (twice the size of my high school) and although we’re just a few corps members, we’re a force to be reckoned with!

Experience in your City Year School:

Although I’ve only been serving in my school for less than a month, every day is a unique experience. In my 4^th grade classroom, I provide whole class support while my teacher may be teaching on the overhead or explaining a new subject. I walk around students while they’re learning new material or practicing worksheets to see where they’re struggling and if they need any help. Whole class support usually occurs first thing in the morning when the students are practicing their cursive writing or after our first recess when it transitions over to math.

While I help all the students and create a positive and fun atmosphere, the majority of my time in the classroom is spent with my focus list students in one-on-one tutoring. We have a brand new program at Malabar this year called Great Leaps that was piloted at one school the previous year and was incredibly successful. I have a list of ten students at basic or below basic reading level and in 15 minute increments I pull students to the side of the room for literacy tutoring. The program is quick, fun, and motivating because it gives students the opportunity to “leap” to the next story for the next day if they get that one correct. If they get stuck on a story or phonics section, I find what they’re getting stuck on and tutor them so they can leap to the next section soon and not get discouraged.

In class support is very important, but City Year creates a unique, friendly atmosphere around the whole school. Also, since it’s California, all the schools are set up like mini college campuses; you have to walk outside to get from building to building, even the cafeteria is outside. A major part of City Year culture is something we call look-n-feel; it’s about how we present ourselves around the school, in our classrooms, and anywhere we serve. Its purpose is to inject City Year culture into everything we do and show people what we’re really about. For example, for our after school program, we made several posters and placed them all over the school for students, faculty, and parents to see. Also, in our City Year classroom, we have fun posters, motivating behavior management charts, and colorful decorations that all add up to a great learning environment for the students.

One of the most important things we do at our school that literally affects everyone are morning power greetings. It’s like regular morning greetings, except with POWER! We do everything from chants to semi-ridiculous dances at the front gates of the school for everyone to see. Oh, and we’re very, very loud. At first, some kids would just run by us into school, but now ending the first month, more and more kids are joining us for power greetings every day. When we do regular morning greetings including good mornings and high fives, parents will frequently walk by and ask us why we’re not chanting or singing. One parent told me she looked forward to dropping her student off at school since she could hear us down the block! But don’t worry, power greetings are only slightly embarrassing and when your first student from your class starts joining you every day, it’s all worth it. Also, we do them every other morning so it gives students something to look forward to while at the same time giving us a day to recuperate in between.

Before I came to City Year, I wasn’t completely sure what my schedule would be like, but it sounded like a fantastic experience regardless. Here’s what my average day looks like, but keep in mind it varies depending on your school, grade, and commute.

A sample day for me would look something like this:

Wake Up: 6:15

Drive to school:
6:45

First circle with
team: 7:30

Morning Greeting: 7:40-8:00

One-on-one literacy
tutoring: 8:10-10:30

10:30-10:50: Recess

10:50-12:00: Math

12:00-12:10: Walk
students to lunch

12:15:-12:45: Lunch

12:45-1:00: Pick up
students at 2^nd recess, get them settled back in class

1:00-2:30: Planning
in the City Year room

2:30-5:00: After
school program

5:00-5:45: Debrief
and final circle

Exploration or travel experience in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is an incredible city. Coming from Bentley and the Boston area, it’s the exact opposite from everything I’m used to. Los Angeles is the most diverse place I’ve ever seen; the people, cultures, ideas, everything! Even the diversity of activities and places to go in the area is amazing. In one day in Los Angeles, you can ski in the mountains, relax on the beach, and go hiking in the desert. Granted, it would be one ridiculously long day, but it’s possible. Everything is within a few hour drive from the city so there’s never a shortage of things to do.

One of the best things about Los Angeles is the amount of free events happening all the time. You will always want to pick up the newest copy of LA weekly for everything entertainment, music and events. And of course, it’s free. Whether it’s gazing over the entire city at Griffith Observatory at night, seeing a free concert at Jimmy Kimmel Live in Hollywood, or even just walking around different neighborhoods and absorbing the culture, there’s always something free going on in LA. You can literally never be bored here.

Something I noticed coming from the east coast is that everything in California is much more chill and relaxed. I’m not saying anything bad about back home, but here it seems like people are in less of a rush and everyone is extremely friendly. Well, except the drivers; driving and traffic here is an experience in itself (avoid the highways during rush hour at all costs). Also, Los Angeles is a massive sprawling metropolis. I knew it was big, but I didn’t really comprehend it’s size until I moved in. Even commuting 45 minutes via public transportation to visit friends doesn’t seem so long anymore since we’re used to it. We get a free Metro pass good for the subway and bus system and it’s a great thing to take advantage of. If you can at all possible live near a metro station, DO IT. We live about a 5 minute walk from the Hollywood/Highland red line station and it’s incredibly convenient, clean, and reliable. It comes at the exact time every day so you can time your commute perfectly and get the maximum amount of sleep before running out the door.

One of my favorite things about Los Angeles is the duality of Mexican and American cultures. Culture is everywhere, along with a huge Spanish speaking population, which gives me a new motivation to start picking up the language more. I’ve never had horchata or a tamale until I moved here, let alone experience a real Mariachi band, but learning about the history and experiencing the culture first hand is incredible. All in all, Los Angeles has an immense amount of places to explore and although we’ve been all moved in for about two months, we’ve barely scratched the surface.

Experience with other City Year Corps Members.

This year is the largest corps Los Angeles has ever had at 200 corps members. This is the most motivated, inspiring group of people I’ve ever met. When we’re all together in uniform, there’s a powerful energy among us and people take notice. Since many of us are in the same situation moving to LA from out of state, it’s easy to make friends and get to know each other very well. However, since you meet so many City Year people, it may be hard to meet people outside of the organization. We often serve with the same people we live with and then hang out with so it can definitely be a challenge to meet others outside the City Year bubble. Some corps members even live very close to colleges like USC and it’s easier to meet others around our age there. Also, since we’re all in the same organization, it may be hard to talk about things other than City Year outside of work. It just happens, even when we don’t mean to be doing it. You just need to balance work life with your social life and everything will work out perfectly.

Experience with Leadership Development Days.

Although we’ve been serving in our schools for almost a month now, we still haven’t had just a regular day at the office. We serve in schools Monday-Thursday and Fridays are spent at the office or around LA doing various service activities. We’ve had a leadership after City Year college fair (Bentley was there!), student recovery day, and opening day at City Hall for our Fridays so far and there is never a dull moment. Personally, I love City Year Fridays. Working in the schools is phenomenal, but Fridays are a nice change of pace. I also love how it’s not the same thing Friday after Friday; always something different and unpredictable. Some days may involve physical service like cleaning up a community garden while others will have team building and reflecting which is important to keep everyone on the same page. A good City Year-ism to live by is to be flexible; entire planned out days can suddenly change without warning so you just have to be prepared and ready for anything. Some people have a love-hate relationship with Fridays since they’re always different, but I think it’s exciting and a great way to further our experience in LA outside of our schools.

Experience/process in securing housing for the year.

Once you are accepted and send in your letter of commitment, you are able to login to the Beloved Online Community which is a special City Year message board. There, you can complete a roommate survey stating your living preferences such as preferred number of roommates and if you’re clean or messy along with a short bio about yourself. The BOC was helpful to get basic information about people along with a few City Year prepared documents about what life is like here, but the Facebook group someone made was very helpful, too. There, different future corps members posted their housing situations and preferences on the group wall and I found roommates fairly quickly.

Securing housing was somewhat of a challenge because having never been to Los Angeles, I had no idea what to look for or what areas were safe. After weeks of researching and countless phone calls to landlords, I found one apartment on apartmentratings.com that had a 97% rating so I figured it must be good. I mailed the deposit and never saw it in person until we moved in, but everything worked out great.

Currently, myself and three others are splitting a two bedroom apartment in Hollywood and we pay about $400 per month. Our utilities, including water, trash, electricity, and internet run about $30 each per month. We’re about a 35 minute commute to the office downtown and the commute to my school is about an hour. Also, your teams are decided about a month into training so your lease will be signed by then and there’s a chance you won’t end up living near your school. Some corps members have commutes where they can walk a short distance to school, but others may have to wake up extra early to arrive at first circle on time. It’s can be somewhat of a crapshoot, but we got lucky and have a great housing situation.