Stand for Children Arizona

Stand for Children Arizona is a unique catalyst for educational success and social progress. We are dedicated to ensuring that all children, regardless of background or zip code, graduate from high school ready for college or career training. The foundation of our work is educating parents, providing resources to families, partnering with schools, and systemic improvements to K12 education. We currently focus on early literacy with our flagship program, Growing Readers, improving high school graduation rates with Ninth Grade On Track (run by Stand’s Center for High School Success [CHSS]), and raising community awareness around our children's success. 

Recent data from the AzM2 assessment showed that only 41% of Arizona's third graders are reading proficiently. This is unacceptable. Research conducted by the Annie E. Casey Foundation reports that reading by the end of third grade directly corelates to a student's likelihood of success in high school and on time graduation which in turn directly links to the ability to earn a living wage and progress through college or career training. A child with weak reading skills by the time he becomes an adult has a 43% chance of living in poverty. Additionally, an analysis of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) shows that student access to books correlates to increased reading proficiency. Specifically, while less than 15% of students with between 0-10 books scored proficient in 2015, 50% of students with more than 100 books did. 

Stand Arizona's parent literacy program, Growing Readers aims to change this statistic for Arizona's kids. Growing Readers is a structured 10-week program that develops family engagement and empowers parents with the skills and knowledge needed to support their children learning to read and prepare them to graduate and succeed in life. Stand's work through this program improves literacy rates while concurrently developing parent partners by addressing research-based drivers of success including the number of books present in a home (40 per family provided) and the daily habit of reading habit. 

You can be a part of this effort to get books into kids' hands. 

The next critical juncture in a child's education journey is the precarious transition from middle-to-high school. Research indicates the necessity of ninth graders finishing their "make or break" year on track to graduate. Studies show that students who end ninth grade with enough course credits to be on track to graduate and no more than one semester course failure are more than 3x more likely to graduate high school. Ultimately, ninth grade success is a more powerful predictor of high school graduation than poverty, race, ethnicity, family status, first language, or any other factor. 

Unfortunately, with only 76% of Arizona's students graduating on time, our state is struggling. 

This is where Stand's Ninth Grade OnTrack effort comes in. Stand Arizona provides expert coaches who work closely with school-based staff teams. Coaches provide training, mentoring, collaboration, data analysis, and provision of tools and resources. The school teams participate in weekly data meetings, quarterly convenings, and annual training institutes. Stand launched CHSS’s 9th Grade On-Track in Arizona during SY 2020-21 in Phoenix Union High School District (PXU). In the five years since CHSS implemented 9th Grade On-Track at PXU, PXU has made massive improvement in its 9th grade on track rates with only 37% on-track when we started the program in SY2019-20 to 83% on-track for 2023-24. This effort led to Camelback High School’s graduation rate of 72% in 2020-21 to 92% for 2023-24, and they still have plans to improve. 

With a donation to Stand, you are helping us ensure more schools can target their ninth graders for personalized engagement to keep them on track to graduate with their peers. 

Stand's family literacy and Ninth Grade OnTrack programs are ultimately successful because we work to educate the community about how these issues are impacting our kids. Raising community awareness is truly the heart of what we do. 

Your gift to Stand through AZ Gives Day will help us ensure our state prioritizes K12 education so that ALL our kids receive the engagement, support, and resources they need to become proficient in reading by third grade and to finish ninth grade with one quarter of the credits needed to graduate on time.