Student Spotlight: Meet Tumi!

Tumi has a natural talent for mathematics. After completing assignments in his fifth-grade math class at Northeast College Prep (NECP) in Minneapolis, he can regularly be found asking his teacher for more challenging material. ACES Site Coordinator Kelley Munson who, in addition to leading ACES after-school programming at NECP also provides individual math coaching during the school day, has enthusiastically obliged! This semester, Tumi and Kelley have worked one-on-one to calculate even number set medians, multiply and divide complex fractions, and more. As Tumi puts it, “ACES helps me learn new things, things I don’t know.”

After the bell rings at NECP, Tumi spends additional hours practicing math and building social-emotional skills with ACES. Now in his second year of the program, he has become a leader in the classroom – quietly helping his peers when they encounter a tricky problem or concept. A devoted soccer fan and his team’s goalie, Tumi was initially drawn to ACES’s sports-themed curriculum. He shares that his favorite ACES project involved using geometry skills to design and construct a model soccer stadium. “Building the soccer field was my favorite because I was working together with a lot of people.”

That teamwork and connection stands out to Tumi’s father, Washington, who reflects, “ACES gives my kids the chance to interact with other students and develop their social skills and work on new projects in a fun environment. These projects have developed their reasoning, communication, and problem-solving abilities.”

Tumi and his younger brother Thabo are two of the 67 students currently enrolled in ACES programming at Northeast College Prep. ACES students at NECP spend two and a half hours per day, three days per week strengthening math skills and building strong relationships with instructors and classmates in a supportive, engaging learning environment. A cherished member of that classroom community, Site Coordinator Kelley Munson reflects, “Tumi is the sweetest student, and every time I see him, he has a smile on his face. He is a good friend to everyone.” 

Asked if he’d like to see new friends join him in ACES, Tumi nodded his head enthusiastically. “They can learn more math and it’s really fun, there are a lot of people so they should really join!”