• Number 438  |
• May 4, 2015

Lawrence Livermore engineer helps educate underserved youth in California

Monika Witte aims high to improve the lives of disadvantaged students through education.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) engineer took six weeks off last year to volunteer at a San Francisco Bay Area summer educational program designed to close the opportunity and achievement gaps for low-income middle school students by offering classroom instruction and academic enrichment activities.

“I wanted to know how the educational system works in underserved communities,” said Witte, who is the deputy division leader of LLNL’s Laser Systems Engineering & Operational Division. “It was a very good experience for me.”

Known as Aim High, the program began in 1986 to provide students with a five-week program offering classes in math, science, humanities (combined language arts and social studies) and issues and choices (an adolescent development class). Aim High, which has campuses in the Bay Area and Lake Tahoe, also provides arts, cultural enrichment activities, sports and physical activities such as hiking and yoga. Students typically enroll in the program after finishing 5th or 6th grade and remain for three or four consecutive summers.

Aim High provides small classes of 16 or fewer students per instructor. It reinforces academic lessons from the previous school year and prepares students to succeed in the upcoming school year.

Witte learned about the program when an Aim High representative spoke about it at The Athenian School, an independent school in Danville, where she is a trustee. Aim High’s mission impressed her so much that she decided to volunteer and to learn what effectively motivates middle school students who face many challenges.

“With active community support during the summer, the kids are able to go to the zoo, enjoy reading activities and other summer programs. They are doing a lot of things to maintain their academic level,” Witte said. “If you are a student in an underserved community, you do not have many opportunities during the summer. Studies have shown that these kids tend to slide and fall behind.”

After a week of training, Witte was assigned to be a math class teacher’s aide for students entering the 6th and 7th grades. Her Aim High site was located at Lighthouse Community Charter School, a K-12 school that serves East Oakland communities.

Witte and an Aim High teacher took turns giving lectures on basic arithmetic such as fractions and algebra during the 45-minute class, which had 15 students in each of the three periods it was taught.

“The kids would often say that math was hard for them,” said Witte, who also tutored the students one-on-one at study hall. “But they would appreciate the fact that we were taking so much time to show them the ropes. It was gratifying that the students showed improvement from the beginning to the end of the summer.”

Beyond math, Witte also practiced yoga with the students and chaperoned them on hiking trips to Redwood Regional Park in Oakland, Lake Chabot Regional Park in Castro Valley and other parks.

“Every afternoon was spent interacting with the kids in a nonacademic setting,” she said. “Since the academic teachers also led the enrichment activities, the kids got to know us pretty well.”

Witte ended her time at Aim High by taking her students on a field trip to LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the Lab’s Discovery Center. It was an eye-opening experience for the students who asked a lot of questions, she said.

“They loved it,” she said.

Aim High was an incredible experience for Witte, who is passionate about helping all students succeed. She wants them to understand their options for college and how to pursue their dreams.

“I want them to stick with their education and realize that there are people in the community who will help them find resources and scholarships,” Witte said. 

When Witte joined Lawrence Livermore in 1983, her initial technical role was performing structural analysis reviews for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies as a member of the Fission Energy and Systems Safety Program. She has served as a project engineer for a diverse set of projects ranging from  “Impact of Removing the Operating Basis Earthquake Design Requirements for Nuclear Power Plants” to providing engineering support for a NASA project to build a flight hardened spectrometer, which successfully launched and is now collecting data in orbit about the planet Mercury.

Since 2007, she has supported the NIF and Photon Science Directorate in several capacities such as her current role as the operation manager for the High Energy Density Science and Technology Program. In her other role as the Lab’s Deputy Division Leader for Laser Systems and Engineering Operations, Witte has hired many talented engineers into the Engineering Directorate. – by Ken Ma

Submitted by DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory