Updates for BEAM Supporters

April 19, 2021

Dear BEAM supporters and friends,

COVID-19 has presented incredible challenges over the past year to the communities that BEAM serves and to the work that we do. By now, the pandemic’s devastating effects on communities of color and low-income communities are well known. But beyond the most obvious impacts on health and employment, we continue to see incredible academic challenges. Our students continue to face multiple disadvantages that impact their schooling: under-resourced schools, limited technology access, increased babysitting needs, crowded households where it is difficult to find a quiet place to study, and families still struggling with job losses, insecure housing situations, and illness. The vast majority of our students continue to do schooling online.

In the midst of these circumstances, we see certain cohorts particularly impacted: 11th graders, for example, have lost nearly a year and a half of normalcy, the exact years when they would have prepared for their college applications: taking the PSAT, SAT, full-length AP exams, enrolled in summer programs on college campuses, and made the relationships that lead to strong teacher recommendations. They will, of course, still be able to apply to and enroll in college, but the sheer uncertainty of it all takes a disproportionate toll on students who will never get this formative time back.

Additionally, our students, families, and staff have been deeply affected by acts of violence and ongoing discrimination against Black, Asian, and Latinx people, and others over the past year, which have made it painfully clear just how much work remains to be done to achieve justice and equity in our society.

If we are honest, our work and our lives right now often leave us exhausted. Yet, in the midst of the many challenges, we are also hopeful—hopeful because we see the dedication of our students, who at the end of a long week of online schooling show up for Saturday classes to stay connected to the math and the community they love. Hopeful because we see their hard work pay off with admissions to great colleges (like Stanford, Yale, and more—keep reading) and to summer programs and research opportunities (online, of course!).

We are also deeply proud of the dedication of our staff, faculty, and volunteers, who continue to go above and beyond to make sure we are doing the best we can for our students. Our staff has worked exceptionally hard over the past year to support BEAM families: fighting learning loss during the pandemic (increasing our own academic offerings in response to fewer school options), filling in gaps (providing internet access so students could continue to access school), and keeping our community strong and together. Our staff has also taken breaks, though perhaps not enough of them, and our ongoing hiring is designed to create more capacity as we balance the key work toward our mission with the knowledge that staff do their best work when they have energy to bring to their workday.

We’d like to share more about the work we’re doing now; this information is also available on our website at beammath.org/covid19, where we will continue to post updates.

Here’s a brief summary, with more details below:

BEAM spring programming is in full swing, including weekend classes, one-on-one tutoring, drop-in office hours, and more, all still happening virtually.

This winter, we helped BEAM 8th graders navigate the high school application process. BEAM staffers met one-on-one with students, helping them apply to strong, good-fit high schools in the midst of lots of unknowns, including an entirely new admissions process in New York City, where everyone must apply to high school.

We supported BEAM 12th graders as they applied to college. BEAM students have earned admission to The City College of New York, Colgate, Cornell, DePauw, Johns Hopkins, Sarah Lawrence, Stanford, Union, the University of Chicago, and Yale! More results coming soon. We are also supporting BEAM college students as their college experiences continue to be affected by the pandemic.

Entry Points, part of BEAM’s new national initiative, has launched at 8 sites with about 80 students participating. When fully established, the national initiative will support thousands of students across the US beginning in 2nd grade and continuing through college graduation.

Over the past year, we have provided more than $170,000 in direct aid to BEAM families through our Emergency Relief Fund. We are providing ongoing support for about 100 families in New York and Los Angeles, and will continue that support through June.

We will be running summer programs online for a second summer. Given the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, we felt it was the most equitable, and safe, decision for all our students.

We’re still hiring faculty, counselors, and social workers for our summer programs. Please share with your networks.

BEAM is growing! We have recently added new staff to support our growth, including: a second Social Worker in New York and a Grants Manager. Keep an eye on our hiring page; up next, a Program Assistant (open now), Data and Evaluations Lead (forthcoming), Communications Coordinator (forthcoming), Manager of College Programs (forthcoming), and a Post-College Alumni Coordinator (forthcoming).

BEAM stands in solidarity with Asian-American and Asian-immigrant communities as we witness the horrifying anti-Asian violence taking place across the United States. Read our full statement.

We’re really grateful for all the ways our supporters have stepped up in the last year. Because of you, we have been able to keep BEAM students connected to the math and the community they love, and BEAM as an organization has continued to grow and build our infrastructure to ensure the sustainability of our work. Thank you!

Now if you’d like a fuller story, here are more details and we wish everyone a hopeful and healthy spring!

This Winter and Spring at BEAM

We are continuing to provide comprehensive support to our students in New York and Los Angeles, including:

  • Nearly 90 7th graders attended enrichment classes this fall/winter and will soon begin spring classes. We added 7th grade classes this fall to make up for shortcomings in online schooling (Los Angeles schools have remained closed, and New York City middle schools have sometimes been in person, although many students remain 100% remote).

  • We helped 8th graders navigate an entirely new high school admissions process in New York and Los Angeles, meeting one-on-one with students to help them find and apply to strong, supportive high schools.

    • Assistance with high school applications is always important, particularly in New York City, where everyone must apply to high school and so many future opportunities are dependent on strong, good-fit high schools. This year when the entire process was thrown up in the air, assistance was especially critical. We helped students navigate “tours” and new application requirements (essays, portfolios, etc.), reviewed their high school choices, and helped them fill out their final applications. (Results are expected early summer.)

    • Elyse Mitchell, BEAM’s Middle School Program Coordinator, and BEAM 8th grader Nevaeha talk about the high school admissions experience in “NYC high school applications are due soon. Will pandemic changes help or hurt school diversity efforts?” in Chalkbeat.

    • LA students have earned admission to great high schools, including Harvard Westlake and Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet.

  • More than 230 8th-12th graders attended math enrichment and life-skills classes this fall/winter, and the spring term is now underway. Fall/winter math classes included “Geometric Puzzles,” “The Shape of the Universe,” and “Mass Point Geometry.” Life-skills classes included high school and college admissions prep.

  • We have been supporting our 12th graders with one-on-one help with college applications, filing the FAFSA, etc.

    • We’re so proud of our students! Here are the college admissions results we know so far:

      • Akriti, Stanford (QuestBridge College Match)

      • Angel, DePauw

      • Brayan, Cornell

      • Danielys, Yale (QuestBridge Scholar)

      • Gabriela, Union College

      • Iovanni, University of Chicago (QuestBridge Scholar)

      • Komila, Union College

      • Lance, The City College of New York

      • Maria, Johns Hopkins University

      • Milani, Cornell

      • Nyasia, Sarah Lawrence

      • Racquel, Colgate

      • Note: QuestBridge connects high-achieving students from low-income communities to selective colleges, often with full, 4-year scholarships.

  • We are offering individual online tutoring and drop-in office hours, which have been really popular. We are planning to continue offering tutoring virtually as well as in person in the future.

  • BEAM Los Angeles has launched a math team for students interested in competition math problems.

  • BEAM students have had great individual achievements:

    • Viri earned a spot at Dr. Siddhi Krishna and Dr. Marissa Loving’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at Georgia Tech (BEAM’s first student at an REU!). Viri is a second-year student at Columbia. The REU topic is “Braids, Surfaces, and Low Dimensional Phenomena.”

    • Thays was admitted to the Yale Young Global Scholars Program, where she will study “Law, Politics, and Economics.”

    • BEAM LA 8th grader Jailyn has been named a JKCF Young Scholar, a prestigious 5-year pre-college scholarship program.

    • BEAM LA 8th grader Aria has received the Headmaster’s Inclusion Award at Groton School (MA), where she will be attending in the fall.

    • Kenny was accepted to MathPath, a top summer program for middle schoolers who love math. (BEAM LA’s second student to earn a spot!)

    • More than a dozen BEAM students have earned admission to Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth summer programs.

    • We are continuing to work with our remaining high school and college students to explore and apply to other summer programs and look forward to sharing their plans soon.

BEAM National and Entry Points

BEAM National is our program to make BEAM accessible to students anywhere in the country. Our Entry Points program brings the Beast Academy platform, with teacher support, to elementary-aged students nationwide; as the program grows, students will be able to attend a national residential summer program and receive BEAM’s coaching and mentoring.

  • We have launched our first pilot of Entry Points at 8 sites with about 80 students across the country, including California, Michigan, New York, and Tennessee.

  • This is a learning and building year; our goal is to understand what students need to be successful on Beast Academy, the online learning platform from Art of Problem Solving that we are using with students. During this pilot year, past BEAM summer staff are meeting with groups of students in online check-in groups. We are also engaging parents and families with activities, a newsletter, and Family Nights to do math together. In the coming year, one of our main priorities is to understand what supports classroom teachers need to implement the program directly with their students.

  • If you are connected to a school, district, university, or community organization and want to make the program available to your students, or you can spread the word, sign up here to receive updates.

Summer Programs

  • We’ve made the decision to again run programs online this summer in light of uncertainty around the pandemic; admissions are underway, happening completely virtually for the first time.

  • While our basic model will remain the same as last summer, we will be making updates to the virtual toolkit and training for staff. We’re also surveying families to find out more about their virtual learning experience over the past year and will use results to further inform our summer planning.

  • We are thinking about how to make the BEAM experience more special for those students who are not getting the chance to experience BEAM Summer Away on a college campus (our 2020 and 2021 cohorts). We are hoping to be able to offer an exciting trip for these students post pandemic. More details to follow!

Organizational Update

  • We are growing:

    • Myriam Monestime has recently joined BEAM as our new Social Worker in New York City.

    • Anna Panzo joined us as our first Grants Manager.

    • We are hiring a new Executive Director of National Programs.

    • More hiring is on the horizon, with a particular focus on building our infrastructure to support our program growth; keep an eye on our hiring page, and please spread the word!

  • We have established local advisory boards in New York and Los Angeles to help with program planning, fundraising, and leadership.

  • As BEAM grows, we’ve been thinking hard about how to build a resilient and effective organization, and how to draw on many voices as we shape our practices. Central to that process is what we call our “Thinking Agenda,” which we are in the midst of now. Here’s what we’re working on:

    • Understanding our mission and codifying organizational and programmatic values;

    • Strengthening summer staff training around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion;

    • Thinking about when and how to discuss structural inequalities with students;

    • Planning for additional college and post-college support.

  • BEAM is in the news:

Thank you all for your continued support! We hope you’ve enjoyed hearing more about our work. Be safe and be well,

Dan Zaharopol, Founder and CEO (on behalf of all the BEAM staff)

Read our previous update from November 2020 here.

This page is designed to provide COVID-19 updates to BEAM funders and supporters. Our website also has information for: