• November 21, 2024

Youth Empowerment Program 2020-2021

MCMF SAT Program:

Since 2016, MCMF has been holding free SAT classes for high schoolers operating winter and summer sessions. MCMF focuses to assist students from low-income strata and underrepresented minorities, who do not have the financial ability to pay for an expensive commercial SAT program.  The course is coordinated by Mrs. Nasreen Khan, MCMF board member and taught by Ms.Romeella Hussain. who is a public school teacher with 25 years of experience and specializes in teaching SAT prep courses. 

MCMF has a rigorous enrollment process that selects students on the basis of their grade level, math proficiency, motivation and commitment to the program. SAT course is a 10-week course and focuses on the format of the tests and provides coaching in Mathematics, English reading, comprehension, grammar, and guides students on the test taking strategies. In 2020, MCMF winter and summer sessions coached 28 students overall. The winter 10-week course helped students prepare for the upcoming March SAT and the summer session that had 50 % minority and low-income students, were coached for the August, September, and October tests.  Due to the COVID 19 pandemic MCMF has been offering SAT classes on Zoom. MCMF has coached over 70 students over the past 4 years. Below are some of the testimonials of parents of the students in the SAT classes.

Please contact Mrs. Nasreen Khan at nasreensikander@yahoo for enrollment in the upcoming SAT sessions.

Testimony of Parents 

To Whom It May Concern: This letter is to applaud and commend the MCMF SAT program that assists community students to prepare for the exam. The program coordinator, Nasreen Khan, is an excellent resource of information and guidance to the enrollment process and cultivates a partnership between students and instructor. Enrollment in this program lead to an exceptional learning experience for my Son, Zohair, who improved his score by 300 points. The instructor Romella Husain is highly professional and organized. Her mechanism of teaching created an enriched academic environment in the virtual classroom that sparked curiosity in her students and kept them engaged. Ms. Husain went above and beyond to assist her students in developing strategies to solve the problems in the exam. I am highly impressed by this program and appreciate the transparency and clarity provided by the program coordinator and instructor. I hope this program would flourish and thrive in the future to continue to help high school students with SAT preparations.”

Dear Ms Khan. I am new in this country. I know that taking the SAT tests is really important and I haven't taken any SAT tests yet because of the quarantine. Now I got information about the virtual SAT class which was coordinated by Nasreen Khan with MCMF. I found the information through Facebook and I texted her. After that, she texted me back and got all of my information and helped me to join the class. As I am new in this country I really need help to take the test and she gave me the opportunity to know how to do well and what to do. She also explained everything to me,  how hard work I have to do, and so on. Since I am new to this country, I was not that good in English grammar but Ms. Husain taught us all the grammars which helped me a lot. One day we had a practice test that I couldn’t join because of a last-minute emergency. Afterward, Ms Khan and Ms. Hussain called me and asked me: ”Why didn’t I join the class?” After the call I was really shocked and felt that they really cared about us. It was a really good opportunity for me to get all the strategies.”

“Dear Ms. Khan. We would like to convey our sincere thanks for your selfless volunteer work in arranging this SAT prep program. Baseline test, practice, and SAT tests were very helpful in having Suhaib concentrate for the duration of the tests. In addition, the tips and attack methodology shared by Ms. Rumi were priceless. She was very thorough in explaining as well as reviewing and giving personalized feedback, all of which increased Suhaib in his knowledge and confidence. We noticed a remarkable improvement in his score compared to the baseline. As you advised, practice is the key to improvement. We will ensure that Suhaib continues to use the tools for practice that you shared with him as well as the feedback he got during this program to improve even further."

MCMF College Admission Workshops

Targeted Group: 9  to 12 Grade Students of Montgomery County Schools who are aspiring to compete for premier Colleges and Universities in USA.

Course Facilitator: Shameel Hameed, Higher Education Consultant, who has done extensive research in college admission processes and Romella Hussain, MCPS School teacher and SAT Prep class teacher.

The following subjects were covered in the Workshop:

  • How College Admissions works. 
  • Criteria for admission(GPA, SAT, Resume/Extracurricular, Personal Statement/Essays) 
  • State School vs Ivy League 
  • Standardized Testing (SAT) 
  • Standardized Testing (Subject Tests) 
  • Extracurricular Activities (Community service, clubs, leadership, etc.)
  • Transfer of Credits from Community College to Universities ( Due deligence required)

About 20 students including some parents attended the workshop. After the session a written feedback survey was administered to the participants. The workshop was followed by one on one consultation between the attendees and facilitators.

Public Speaking Workshop

MCMF Youth Empowerment Program organizes yearly Public speaking programs for the youth. On June 22, 2020 MCMF held a virtual Public Speaking Seminar which was conducted by Mr. Umar Hameed, the CEO of No Limit Selling. An hour and half of this interactive webinar had 24 attendees –parents and youth and focused on developing public speaking strategies, presentation skills to address a specific audience, topics, and concerns, to become a more engaging, memorable, and effective speaker. On spot webinar effectiveness on a 5-point scale, most of the participants rated it as 5.  MCMF earlier held a similar public speaking seminar in October 2019, which was attended by 31 students of MCPS and 19 parents. The workshop was interactive and engaging. After the workshop participants interacted with the speaker and attendees. The program feedback was excellent.

Tutoring Program in Partnership with Linkages to Learning

MCMF in partnership with Linkage to learning is organizing a Tutoring Program for the children of low income needy families of Montgomery County. The program is being conducted once a week, every Wednesday after school hours at Gaithersburg Elementary school. The tutoring classes are being conducted by an experienced MCPS teacher. About 12 to 15 students are participating in the program.