TeenSHARP launches National Board Leaders across the country come together to support Delaware nonprofit sending Black, Latino, and low-income students to top colleges across the country
Wilmington, Del.—University presidents, CEOs, a former state secretary of education, and pioneering nonprofit leaders from across the country are among the founding members of a National Advisory Board that will help a Delaware college access organization expand the reach of its work to empower Black, Latino, and low-income students.
TeenSHARP, a nonprofit founded in 2009 to open the door to elite colleges and leadership opportunities for talented young people from marginalized communities, announced its new advisory board on August 4.
“We’re honored and excited by the dynamic team of leaders that has chosen to stand with TeenSHARP during this meaningful time in our history and help us take our life-changing work to the next level,” said Atnre Alleyne, who co-founded TeenSHARP with his wife, Tatiana Poladko. “From Day 1, TeenSHARP has prided itself on being a small-but-ambitious team that does whatever it takes to ensure our students succeed. We’ve helped hundreds of students attend and thrive at top colleges and we have exciting plans to reach many more students and families.”
The members of the National Advisory Board are:
- Tre Johnson – DEI Partner, Catalyst ED, and author of Black Genius, a forthcoming release from Dutton/Penguin Random House
- Kira Orange Jones – Senior Vice President, Teach for America, and Co-Founder, Systems Learning Lab
- Dr. Lindsay Page – Associate Professor of Research Methodology, University of Pittsburgh School of Education
- Dr. Carol Quillen – President, Davidson College
- Dr. Suzanne Rivera – President, Macalester College
- Christopher Ruszkowski – CEO, Meeting Street Schools, and former Secretary of Education, New Mexico
- Rey Saldaña – President and CEO, Communities In Schools
- Andrew J. Seligsohn, PhD – President of Campus Compact
- Peter Shulman – CEO, Urban Teachers
- Xan Tanner – Co-founder and Board Member, Panorama Education.
For bios on each board member, please click here.
The announcement comes during a season of growth, innovation, and impact for the nonprofit. TeenSHARP saw record-high enrollment—500 students—for the virtual version of its annual college readiness bootcamp in June; placed the nearly 100 students in its senior class in top colleges despite the historically competitive admissions season; launched text message and TV-based college awareness outreach with the support of a CARES Act innovation grant; and is currently serving more than 200 students in its Cyber SPARK summer program.
Come fall, TeenSHARP will welcome its largest cohort yet of students for its intensive Saturday college prep program, Striver.
Against that backdrop, the National Advisory Board will help TeenSHARP and its local governing board of directors accelerate its growth and expand its reach across the country.
“I am honored to serve on TeenSHARP’s National Advisory Board,” said Macalester College President Dr. Rivera, an advocate for social justice who has worked in higher education for 25 years. “The work this organization does to prepare talented students from historically excluded groups to succeed at top colleges is critical for assuring higher education remains a ladder of opportunity in this country. I wish I had been able to benefit from a program like TeenSHARP when I was in high school.”
Alleyne and Poladko—named among the most influential Delawareans of 2020 by The News Journal and American Graduate Champions by WHYY in 2016—founded TeenSHARP in a church basement in New Jersey in 2009 while in graduate school. Since then, the nonprofit has emerged as a tremendous force in the Delaware Valley region for developing young leaders and helping students access and succeed at the most selective colleges.
This year, 89 high school seniors graduated from the program. All are headed to four-year colleges, including Princeton, UPenn, MIT, Macalester, Pomona, Howard University, University of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and many more. Six SHARPies are headed to Cornell University, in a year when the school accepted just 8.7 percent of record-high applicants. Ninety-five percent of TeenSHARP alums graduate from college in four years, and 100 percent graduate within six years. The vast majority graduate with $15,000 or less in student loan debt.
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About TeenSHARP: TeenSHARP is a regional organization headquartered in Wilmington, Del., that is on a mission to prepare talented low-income, African American, and Latino students to attend and thrive at the nation’s top colleges. This mission is in service of a bold vision that one day the diversity of those occupying our nation’s highly-skilled jobs and highest leadership positions will be as rich as the diversity of our population. Founded in 2009, TeenSHARP has evolved into a leading provider of innovative, at-scale college access and success support in the Delaware Valley region (including Delaware, Philadelphia, and New Jersey). TeenSHARP has achieved incredible results over the last ten years: 100 percent of TeenSHARP scholars successfully pursue a 4-year college education, with 95 percent of the scholars being admitted to selective colleges and universities every year.
