The Ignorance Stops Here Campaign

Statement of Service

Vision
Music Changing Lives’ goal is to conduct and analyze research, sponsor extensive workshops, and collaborate with a variety of practitioners to further our mission of reducing America’s dropout rate by meeting the needs of youth in at-risk situations.

Mission
Music Changing Lives’ team aims to assist others in connecting with the essence of life and help them build a better tomorrow.

Who can use our service?
Our services will be available to all students as long as they keep a 2.5 grade point average or C average. Our jobs and events database may be accessed by all students of Music Changing Lives.

What we offer you
Music Changing Lives has adopted a variety of programming features, and services within a comprehensive model to allow every youngster to be successful in his or her education.

These developments include a supportive non-traditional school structure, a small student-teacher ratio, individualized learning, student contracting, intensive counseling, vocational skill training, and a diagnostic prescriptive teaching process.

Jobs and events database
Students will be able to register with MCL to access vacancy listings for graduate roles, part-time, casual and work experience opportunities.

Individual guidance
• Mentoring/Tutoring
• Service Learning
• After school opportunities
• Family Engagement
• Early Literacy Development
• Professional Development
• Active Learning
• Educational Technology
• Individualized Instruction
• Systemic Renewal
• School-Community Collaboration
• Career and Technical Education
• Safe Schools

Employer events
These include employer presentations on campus, career expos and skill development workshops.

Career management skill workshops and activities
These include lunchtime workshops, workshops within your program and workshops for High School students.

What you can expect from us

Initial awareness materials will be available at no cost. Awareness and training sessions are available with costs to be negotiated, either at the home site or adoption site. Adoption of the model will include consultation and evaluation support for the first year.

Music Changing Lives’ goals are to conduct and analyze research, sponsor extensive workshops, and collaborate with a variety of practitioners to further the mission of reducing America’s dropout rate by meeting the needs of youth in at-risk situations.

These strategies, although appearing to be independent, frequently overlap and are synergistic. They can be implemented as stand-alone programs (i.e. mentoring or family involvement projects.) When school districts develop an improvement plan that encompasses most or all of these strategies, positive outcomes result. These strategies have been successful in all school levels from K-12 and in rural, suburban, or urban centers.

Evidence of Effectiveness

The strategies were developed by Dr. Jay Smink, Executive Director of the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University in association with Franklin P. Schargel. They have shown that with similar strategies the Music Changing Lives Model offers it will enable students to earn their high school diploma or GED certificate and go on to become a successful citizen, by introducing work skills and social adaptation. Improvements have been shown to be maintained long after program completion.

How youth will access our services

Requirements: While Music Changing Lives’ goal is to develop its own Educational Center a facility apart from any traditional school that teaches At-Risk youth to become entrepreneurs. The Model's “15 Effective Strategies to Reduce the Dropout Rate” has been designed to be incorporated into any existing high school educational program or by the students solely. Minimally, the Model would require a separate wing or floor to accommodate its special focus. The number of faculty and staff will be based on enrollment, to support our student-teacher ratio 12-1 meaning twelve students to one teacher. In addition to the necessity of high-interest, low-skill level materials for classroom use, and space for vocational classes, faculty training and in-service programs are a necessity.

Costs: Overall costs for implementation of the Music Changing Lives Model are similar to costs in a public school system. Estimates for personnel, and learning materials needed to serve 160 students: nine teaching positions, five support staff, and three days of training annually, office space, classroom and vocational equipment, record-keeping, work supplies, and testing materials.

Feedback and evaluation

We regularly review our services and resources and your feedback is extremely valuable in determining how we can increase our effectiveness. Occasionally we seek feedback in the form of questionnaire on specific aspects of our service. In such instances, any information provided will be treated with discretion and no information about individual respondents will be made available to others. Feedback may be provided to any member of the Music Changing Lives team; by sending an email to musicchanginglives@live.com.