Chavez Grant to Help College Prep
By John Norton, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.
Nov. 9–A local charter school system is preparing to make an intensive effort to get its graduates ready for college, thanks to a $30,000 grant announced this week.
The funding, awarded by the College Board from funds provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will help students in as early as the seventh grade at Cesar Chavez Academy start preparing for higher education.
The Cesar Chavez School Network, which includes Cesar Chavez Academy and Dolores Huerta Preparatory High in Pueblo and Cesar Chavez Academy-Central in Colorado Springs, was one of 25 recipients nationwide to receive funding under the program. The College Board administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which like the ACT, is used for college entrance.
The local charter school program will receive $10,000 annually over three years along with supplies for new courses, training and advice from consultants while it sets up programs for its middle and high school students.
There even will be help from Internal Revenue Service officials, who will assist parents in preparing tax forms early so that they can have the information they need to fill out financial documents when applying for grants and scholarships. They also will help parents apply for the earned income tax credit, which many area families fail to do every year. Those sessions will be held twice weekly beginning in late November so that parents can start getting their tax documents together early.
Lawrence Hernandez, chief executive officer of the charter school network, said that while efforts like GEAR UP and Upward Bound have met with some successes in getting children from low-in- come families to think about college, this program is different because it is integrated into the school curriculum, including for-credit classes.
The other programs are layered over the school programs with special activities and while they got kids thinking about college, “It’s the details that can cause problems.”
Many young people graduate from high school and go on to college unprepared for the rigors of academic life, time management, financial concerns and even health matters.
The grant-funded program address all of those areas, Hernandez said.
Work will start this year with eighth-graders and something called “Exploring Options.” Next year, a seventh-grade component will be added, he said.
The eighth-grade segment is aimed at getting youngsters to start thinking about college before they even enter high school.
In ninth grade, the program is called, “It’s up to me,” a 10-week program that shows them how to research colleges, develop a personal support network of family, friends and teachers who will help them reach their goals and begin to think about careers and what kind of majors they might declare to enter those fields.
Tenth-graders will spend a full year in “On My Way” classes that are part of the Advancing Academic Achievement program that helps them to transition into college by learning note-taking techniques, how to manage their time and other issues. There’s an early payoff for that training because of the large number of Dolores Huerta upperclassmen who take classes at Pueblo Community College and Colorado State University-Pueblo.
The junior-class program is called, “It’s My Choice,” and requires students to develop a plan for college, identify at least six institutions they might want to attend and learn about the communities surrounding those schools. Hernandez said that they also may be able to tour the colleges.
In their senior year, students enter the final phase, called, “My Next Step,” where they fill out applications and write essays with the help of Dolores Huerta teachers and counselors. A key to any program is counselors, Hernandez said, and the school maintains a ratio of one counselor to 25 students. The school also will pay application fees and mail the paperwork.
Hernandez said that there is a “dangerous misperception” in Pueblo that high school graduates are doing well when they leave for college and that there is a lot of aid because of the total scholarships awarded each year. The problem, he said, “is typically, it’s the same kids getting support.” One high school might say that its graduates earned $2 million but when you look at the many awards that a handful get, he said, “one kid might be getting $500,000 of that.”
Hernandez said that the program will be especially helpful to those youngsters coming from middle-class homes.
“I tell the poor kids, you’ll get a free ride. It’s the ones whose families don’t qualify for grants that have to work hard to pay for school.”
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.
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