Project Cornerstone is a program created by the YMCA and delivered in the classroom by Covington parent volunteers. The program aims to build positive relationships, opportunities, values, and skills that provide a foundation for a healthy, successful future for ALL our youth. In classrooms across Covington, Project Cornerstone Readers share books, lessons and activities to help our students grow. Support is provided and the time commitment is about 2-3 hours a month on a schedule agreed with the teacher. You can find more information here. Contact (Kelsey Mesrour, Jui Maru, Shivanjali Srivastava) with questions.
Partnering with Project Cornerstone
Project Cornerstone’s School Partnerships program is specifically designed to raise developmental assets of students by empowering young people, parents and school staff to improve school climate and generate ways to keep children healthy and safe. Two Project Cornerstone programs that Covington has adopted are the Asset Building Champion (ABC) Reader Program (K-5th grades) and the Middle School SEL Program (6th grade).
About the Program
The goal of the ABC Reader and Middle School SEL Program is to create a common language and vocabulary about student respect that can be shared amongst students and adults and parents and siblings in the home environment. The program provides tools for students to deal with physical, verbal and relational bullying.
The ABC program is a school-wide K-5 initiative with 3 years of rotational curriculum. Each month a book is introduced and read in the classroom along with a grade-appropriate lesson plan which might include an in-classroom activity and/or an extension activity to take home and share with family members. Books are used to spark discussions on peer relationships that are not usually brought up in daily school conversations. The Middle School program is designed for middle schoolers (6th grade) focused on building social and emotional learning skills and competencies. Project Cornerstone prepares facilitators to lead a lesson using a slide deck, videos, activities, and discussions in classrooms. This program is district-wide.
Readers are trained volunteers who become another trusted, consistently present adult in the classroom where students can share their struggles and feelings. These reading lessons provide a time to introduce common language used across all grades such as filling someone’s bucket, learning how not to take the bait or how to be an UPstander.
History and Background
Project Cornerstone was founded in 1999 after a survey showed that most youth in Santa Clara County are missing the positive relationships, opportunities, values and skills—known collectively as “developmental assets” that provide the foundation for a healthy, successful future. The Search Institute identified a framework of 41 developmental assets for elementary-age children that blends the research on assets for 12-18 year-olds with extensive research on child development. Studies show that the more developmental assets a young person possesses, the more likely she or he is to avoid risky behaviors and engage in positive, healthy activities. For more information, go to www.projectcornerstone.org or www.search-institute.org.
Thank You to Our Volunteers
This program is only possible due to the wonderful volunteers who put their time and commitment into this program to become trusted adults for all Covington students. We are so grateful to them! Volunteers and Program Leads change year to year. If you want to volunteer, see the PTA volunteer page for the current year contact. For more information, go to www.projectcornerstone.org.