Second in a series

Re “Freshly Back from the White House, Mayor Bursting with Fervor”

[img]1307|right|Meghan Sahli-Wells||no_popup[/img]Here is the intended formula for making President Obama’s initiative, My Brother’s Keeper, a success in Culver City:

The combination of Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells’s inherent enthusiasm for grassroots projects and a core of equally motivated volunteers who will closely monitor boys and girls of student age to keep them on an education path.

Such projects can sound amorphous and heavily idealistic. But they tend to click when Ms. Sahli-Wells is involved.

She has met twice with hometown volunteers, called the Local Action Summit, since last October when she formally made a commitment for Culver City to participate in this nationwide program.

“Our early meetings have been really interesting,” she said. “Our first job is getting the conversation going about what we are doing with all of our partners, which include West L.A. College, the Education Foundation, Culver City Unified, School Board members and representatives from the (School District) administration.

“As a community,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said, “we set out three goals for My Brother’s Keeper:

• To ensure that all children entering school for the first time are prepared to learn. “This,” she said, “can take the form of expanded pre-school opportunities and parent education. A number of initiatives already are in place. But if you gather the data, you can see where the gaps are, and where we need support, which can men circling back to the funders.”

• To make sure all students graduate. “We already have a 97 percent graduation rate,” said the mayor. “It won’t take much to push us over the top.

• “Our third goal is unique to Culver City, and that is to ensure that no child goes homeless. Even though it is not very visible, there is homelessness in Culver City,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said.

(To be continued)