Education Equity is a Team Effort: Carleton Students Work at Faribault RISE
April 23, 2025
Originally published March 11, 2025 by Carleton College’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement
The Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) partners with schools and organizations for our Community-Based Work Study (CBWS) program, providing students with opportunities to engage with the Rice County community through their work-study positions. One CBWS job is tutoring with the Faribault High School Realizing Individual Student Excellence (RISE) Program where five Carleton students currently work.
Janet Lewis Muth, the RISE director, does all the behind the scenes work and is also the CBWS student workers’ direct supervisor. As Muth describes, the main goal of RISE “is to help our students graduate on time and find their path to success after high school.”
Two Carleton students, Kiera Block ‘27 and Melissa Uc ‘27, currently work in the RISE program, where they mentor high schoolers by tutoring “one or two students at a time in a variety of subjects, from reading over papers to checking math homework.” One key aspect of students’ learning in their CBWS positions is gaining an understanding of the complexities involved in engaging with community partners through hands-on, real-world experiences.
Block explains how she has noticed that “many students who participate in the RISE program speak English as a second language, which is a huge barrier when it comes to homework.” But she views how “RISE provides a community for these students to work with each other and their mentors to succeed even when facing challenges.”
Uc emphasizes that it is important to work during the school day “because students can have passes to come see [her] but also still catch the bus home at the end of the day.” Both Block and Uc have developed a deeper understanding of the challenges students face at Faribault High School, and they are learning how the RISE program has supported solutions to these challenges.
Another important aspect of the work of the CBWS students at RISE is learning about education equity in a local context. For Uc, she finds that “education equity is a team effort…. The more involved in the student’s growth you are, the more trust and mutual understanding is built.” She enjoys being able to work with students over a longer period of time so she can “be more a part of the community at Faribault High School and RISE,” and “continue to build relationships.”
Muth also highlights how important tutoring is for the RISE students as it “allows our students to get individualized support in subject areas where they might be struggling and simultaneously frees up our mentors to work with their students on other areas of importance.”
Block describes that she is an important part of increasing the education equity in Faribault because she helped a student who “always got one specific type of question wrong.” But as Block worked out problems with the student, they “realized [the student] was just just making one simple algebra mistake, and everything else was perfectly correct!” Building trust and working with students individually allows RISE mentors to make a change in education at Faribault High School.
Not only do Carleton students get to learn and grow in their CBWS roles, but they have a real impact on the community. Muth expressed the impact of CBWS student workers, “a few students this year who have worked closely with tutors who ended up passing classes that we know they would not have passed without the tutor support…we are SO grateful for the partnership with Carleton and the dedication of the tutors who are patient and supportive, even when students don’t necessarily think they want or need help.”
Both Block and Uc plan to continue work related to education and community in the future. Block wants to continue making a “difference in students’ lives,” and Uc hopes to “work in education in some capacity.” Working with RISE has enhanced and emphasized their passion for education for all students.