BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Having access to after-school programs, like tutoring, can make a huge difference for many students, especially for those living in statistically low-income areas.

Karen Curry, an East Mims woman, is part of a group that is just months away from opening the East Mims Learning Center and Innovation Lab, a place that can address many of the academic challenges faced by students in that pocket of Brevard County and that will have the backing of NASA.

Teco Williams, a parent living in the East Mims area of Brevard County said a lack of after-school opportunities for her children so far has made it more difficult when making sure they are doing as well as possible academically. That problem was compounded by the learning disruptions caused by the pandemic.

“COVID came in last year and hit everybody hard. My kids alone missed more than 20 days,” Williams said. “It didn’t give them the full opportunity to get everything they needed.”

One of the challenges was not everyone had access to computers at the beginning of the pandemic, when schools shifted to virtual learning. Another hurdle is the lack of after-school tutoring in northern Brevard County. 

“If we want to get extra help, especially being a single mom, there is none. The nearest one is in Orange County or in Melbourne,” Williams said.  

Williams, who has three children of her own and fosters three others, said academic help is needed not only by her family, but for plenty of others in the northern end of the county. 

Studies in 2019 from the National Center for Education Statistics found consistently lower performances in reading and math in grades 4, 8 and 12 for students who come from areas defined by the U.S. Census as low-income areas.

Census data shows that the East Mims area has an average household income of $31,750 compared to the average of $56,775 across Brevard County.

New education initiative launching

Among those looking to improve educational conditions for those living is Curry, who grew up in East Mims and is still a pastor of a church in northern Brevard County. 

She serves as the chairman and executive director of the Tooley Community Development Group, a nonprofit geared toward improving the socioeconomic status of the area where she was raised. The organization is just months away from opening the East Mims Learning Center and Innovation Lab. 

“If it’s done well and it’s done right, it will have a huge impact,” Curry said. “Although there are resources in the community, access to those resources is one concern and the second concern is just the feeling of ‘I’m not sure this is for me.’ ”

One of the big considerations for establishing this initiative was to make sure that it is staffed with educators from the East Mims area as much as possible, so that students are seeing familiar faces, she said.

The center is designed to offer “a multifaceted, community-based education support center with a STEM focus.” The first phase of operations will feature tutoring and homework assistance; workforce training programs, potentially in partnership with Eastern Florida State College; and an innovation lab and computer space, which is being backed by NASA and Kennedy Space Center.

“Yeah, I write grants, but I can’t teach you how to build a robot that might go mine for water on Mars, you know, and these people can,” Curry said. “So, that connection is the key to making this work.”

NASA legacy in new education

Curry, who also serves as a diversity and inclusion strategic partner with Kennedy Space Center, said that having America’s space agency offer their backing was a huge piece of making this idea work. 

“It is the key for an innovation lab. It gives the credibility, not just outside of the community to potential funders, but also to the community,” Curry said.

The undertaking has received a good amount of funding from the state and county levels as well. The Florida Legislature set aside $510,000 for the program in the state budget and $66,900 from Brevard County.

A big source of inspiration for this was also the work of Curry’s father, Robert Tooley. He worked for NASA for more than 30 years, cultivating time from the Apollo era through the Space Shuttle. 

Tooley was also a driving force for promoting racial equity at KSC as a member of the Black Employee Strategy Team (BEST), which helped encourage hiring and promoting Black and minority employees at the center.

“I don’t think I recognized it until after I got to college, as far as the impact of what he was doing at Kennedy and how rare it was as a Black man to be at the level that he was at Kennedy Space Center,” Curry said.

His legacy has had an enduring impact not only for people who were his contemporaries, but also those whose careers he helped guide and influence, like Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the launch director for NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program. It’s the part of NASA overseeing the launches for the Artemis program designed to bring people back to the Moon.

Blackwell-Thompson met Tooley when she first joined NASA as a recent Clemson University graduate and was working in the Shuttle payload area. He was overseeing the software for payload integration. 

“Working with Bob was great,” Blackwell-Thompson said. “He was a guy that listened to the team, but he would also give you direction if you felt like you were struggling or that you needed help with something. So, he was always ready to jump in and help you, but he was one of those quiet leaders that when he spoke, everybody listened. So, it was really a gift to work with him.”

The legacy of Tooley’s career will be on full display once the learning center comes online this summer. Blackwell-Thompson said she’s glad to hear that, even though Tooley has passed, that he can still serve as a guiding figure for students. 

“STEM, engineering, exploration is for everyone, and you belong. You belong as part of this team. You belong as part of this program. I think that was probably the most important lesson that I learned from him,” she said. 

Curry said making sure that East Mims students have a role model from the area where they grew up will also make an important statement.

“We just need to make sure that we tie them to their history, and this is a very touchable history for them, for somebody from this area,” Curry said.

Coming this summer

The EMLC will officially kick off this summer with an eight-week tutoring program for middle school students running from May 31 through July 22. 

The program will also highlight the NASA connection through offerings from NASA’s Center for Space Education. There will also be a field trip to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at the end of the eight weeks.

Interested parents can sign up their students for a registration interview by clicking here.

The portal for teachers to apply to work at the center is also active on Employ Florida’s website. The direct link can be found by clicking here or by searching for job number 11871282.