When Jayleesha Cooper arrived on campus as a first-year University of Chicago student, she was drawn to the Neighborhood Schools Program (NSP) because it would allow her to engage with local kids as she had babysitting and teaching dance classes back home in Nebraska. Four years later, Cooper says her weekly work with preschoolers at Emmett Till elementary school in Woodlawn has given her that opportunity and so many more.
“A big part of why I enjoy NSP is the hands-on work you get to do with the community,” Cooper, who graduated from UChicago in June and worked with NSP during all four years at the College, said. “And a lot of the kids at Emmett Till came from similar backgrounds to what I was raised in so being able to show them ‘You can go to UChicago,’ ‘You can go to law school,’ teaching them those aspirations [meant a lot].”
NSP has been placing hundreds of UChicago students like Cooper in local schools as tutors and classroom assistants for decades. At Till, Cooper helped with everything from leading stories and songs during circle time to chaperoning field trips to the Brookfield Zoo. She built close bonds with classroom teachers and loved sharing milestone moments with students.
“Preschoolers just teach you that life always moves on and there’s always something to be happy and joyful about,” Cooper says. “I also feel like you get to make a really big impact on them—whether that’s teaching them how to write their name for the first time, or help with the foundations of reading, or how to interact with their friends and regulate their emotions.”
Participating in NSP was mentally and emotionally beneficial for Cooper as well. “NSP has really become a big part of my support system at UChicago,” she said. “Every member of the NSP leadership team treats me not as a student or a volunteer but as a whole person.” Forging connections with Till students and families, too, was meaningful. Cooper tapped her own experience with having two brothers with Autism, for instance, to engage diverse learners in her Till classrooms and says she’d often point families she worked with to resources they didn’t know about on UChicago’s campus, like tutoring scholarships and college readiness programs. And the lessons went both ways.
“It’s very easy to just stay on campus but NSP gives UChicago students the chance to interact with people from backgrounds that may not necessarily be the same as theirs and to learn what the community has to offer,” Cooper said. “And for the community members and students, it teaches a lot of them about UChicago and what university opportunities they have available to them in their own city.”
Cooper hopes to continue working with children and families and is considering focusing on family law when she starts law school at Southern Methodist University in the fall. Until then, she’ll be spending her last Chicago summer helping pilot a summer version of NSP’s Maroon Tutor Match and Homework Help initiatives alongside the NSP team.