A Man With a Mission

Nationally, 1 in 3 high school students in the class of 2006 didn’t graduate, according to a study by the Editorial Projects in Education (EDE) Research Center. Things looked even bleaker for urban school districts, especially those serving low-economic students.
Rather than waiting for things to improve in public education, Rajiv “Raj” Vinnakota co-founded The SEED Foundation and The SEED School for underserved children, and they have changed hundreds of lives over the past 10 years.

Warren and Sophia are two of those students whose lives changed over the course of their six years at The SEED School. Warren entered as a shy seventh grader who then matured into a confident young man with artistic aspirations and strong communications skills. Sophia entered as a seventh grader too. SEED offered her an academic program that nurtured her love of books. Sophia thrived in SEED’s intensive educational environment and expanded her interests. While at SEED, she attended a summer writing workshop, participated in the travel abroad program, and had the opportunity to visit colleges throughout the country. Both were admitted and on track to graduate from college.

Raj is a man committed to his students and knew starting The SEED Foundation and The SEED School was his path to follow. As an associate at Mercer Management Consulting, where he worked on strategic and financial projects in a variety of industries, Raj considered going to medical school, but realized that was no longer his dream.

“My parents are both educators. My mom was a second grade teacher in the Milwaukee Public School System; my dad is a professor at Marquette University. My dad grew up in a town of 600 people as a rice farmer in the middle of India. His father earned about 30 rupees a month and spent 75 to 80 percent of it making sure that his four sons and two daughters all went to school. Now they all have college degrees; they all live here. And though I never met my grandfather; I got his name. That’s my connection to him, and the connection of education has basically pervaded my life.”

“Knowing that I wanted to leave management consulting, I started thinking about what do I want to do next. It was during conversations with friends, with my parents, and with other people that my friends and I really started focusing on the issues of urban education.”

One of my friends said, ‘Why aren’t there boarding schools for some of these kids that can provide a strong, nurturing environment, plus define a very positive academic and social culture?’ And it was that simple thought that then led to my taking a leave of absence a few years later and actually deciding to pursue the idea.”

That simple idea is The SEED Foundation and The SEED School. The SEED Foundation was established, with co-founder Eric Adler, in 1997 in Washington D.C. to launch college preparatory public boarding schools to benefit urban children. A SEED School, according to SEED’s Web site, “is based on a model created by The SEED Foundation that integrates a rigorous academic program with a nurturing boarding program.

The academic program is college preparatory in focus, while the boarding program teaches life skills and provides a safe and secure environment 24 hours a day.” Students at The SEED School do not pay tuition and live on campus full-time.

Raj’s interest in serving under served kids doesn’t just come from an interest in education, but also from a genuine drive in serving those who could really benefit from the opportunity. Raj’s motivation to serve these kids runs deep.

“There’s a hypothesis here that you can actually serve children very well if you provide them with all of these services and support systems that we’re doing. No matter who the student is, it is possible to prepare him or her for college. I think that too many people are writing off urban youth, urban families and urban education. And if we’re able to prepare them for college and successfully demonstrate that success not just one school, but a number of schools, you really change the conversation. The conversation is no longer, ‘We don’t even know what to do. We’re throwing up our hands.’ The conversation becomes, ‘we do know what to do. We have some idea.’ It costs us more money; it takes more time, but it’s not a matter of not even knowing what the solutions are.”

Knowing what to do is the biggest strength of The SEED School. The School educates its students on a college-prep level, but the School also wants the students to have a real-world education as well. Through social studies classes and other programs, students learn how to get involved with the community, whether they are participating in marches or rallies. It’s important for the students to “know their place in the world and know what role they can play.” Since about 5 percent of students come from within a six-mile radius of the School, students also take active roles in fundraisers, community events, walks, park clean-ups and painting different places. The biggest act of “giving back” can be seen when students return after graduation to talk with the remaining students. They are asked to do this at least once a year. Recently, SEED began an annual fund for each class, so that each graduating class can contribute financially to the Foundation. This is only the beginning of what he hopes his students will go on to achieve as good humans.

“I think the most important thing that my generation and the generation I’m teaching [can do] is to be good stewards of this earth, to make active decisions about things we do every day and how they impact people, ecosystems, nature, everything. And I’m not saying that we need to necessarily cut ourselves off from all resources; rather, we need to be smart about what we do and the decisions that we make as individuals and as counties, cities, states, nations and the world. And that I think is the most important thing I can do in terms of educating others.”

In addition, SEED makes it possible for some students to travel to abroad for two to three weeks in the summer or longer.

“It’s a program we developed with the Greek government, who has been an amazing partner. The students who are interested in going to Greece have to take an extra course in addition to their regular course load. From those students, we then choose eight to go to Greece to spend time there. The trip is coordinated with their course. For our arriving juniors or arriving seniors, we also have a program called Experiment in International Living. The program literally sends three to four of our students to live in the homes in foreign countries of the families for eight weeks during the summer.”

Raj believes that these summer abroad cultural experiences give students the opportunity to talk with their college roommates and other people beyond Washington DC.

With all he has accomplished, Raj doesn’t think his job is finished, not at all. He said that this is 10 years and counting with many more to go.

“I want to be able to demonstrate that it is possible to start five or 10 SEED schools up throughout the country; it is possible to prepare any student for college. We’re helping to fundamentally change the discussion that society may be writing off some of our kids, and that’s just not fair because we can’t do that, and we don’t need to do that.”