A Pepperdine University professor has been working on a pilot instructional program to give high school students a head start when it comes to understanding math. Now, approaching its second year, the program has gained momentum. 
Dr. Kendrick Roberson
Black and brown students have historically been on the lower end of educational attainment, said program creator Dr. Kendrick Roberson, an assistant professor of political science at Pepperdine.
This prevailing issue served as the impetus for Roberson and his team’s “vivid vision,” a collective goal to make it so that, in the next 20 years, minoritized students graduate from high schools, colleges, and trade schools at the same rates as others.
“We want those folks to be right there at the top,” he told Diverse in an interview.
This work has spurred the founding of Roberson’s first initiative towards that goal, Ahead of the Game. Working together with a few undergraduate students, Roberson devised this pilot program, which aims to give additional math instruction to students before they encounter the subject in their own high schools. The program is meant for students who are enrolled in any level of high school.
The free program provides students the opportunity to develop their skills in geometry and algebra for a couple hours a day for four weeks in the summer. In its first year, 2023, the program – with funding assistance from Pepperdine – taught 10 students who struggled in math at the Faith Inspirational Missionary Baptist Church in Compton, California.
“A lot of times, when students are going into mathematics, they are seeing the material for the first time and then tested on that material,” Roberson said. “If you're going to go take geometry in the fall, we'll go ahead and teach you geometry in the summer, so that when you get to the fall course, this is not your first time seeing the material. In fact, you are in the mastery phase."
