The "Steps To College" program
Terry Salguero
June 2003
Eco Latino
Hispanic youth face some tough challenges in the quest for a college education. Many feel college is unrealistic because they lack financial means to attend a post-secondary institution. Often, no one in their family has gone to college, and their language skills might not be up to the task. Additionally, the thought of being on a college or university campus might be intimidating.
These are the kinds of problems the Board of Regents Hispanic Pilot Project is addressing with its Steps To College program. Steps To College is a five-week summer program for Hispanic middle and high school students. The goal of the program is to help students become more proficient in English, increase their abilities in crucial academic areas and familiarize them with a college or university campus. With a drop-out rate of 44 percent nationally for Hispanic students, something significant needed to be done. Subjects taught in the summer Steps To College program include science, social studies, math and English—all necessary to pass the high school graduation exam. Paola Herra from the Dalton State College Steps program says, "I want to go to college and be a computer engineer. I used to be afraid and very shy, but the teachers here showed me that I was good enough to go to college and that I really could."
The Hispanic Pilot Project has its roots in the Regents Hispanic Task Force. The task force was formed in 1998 to look at how the University Systems of Georgia (USG) should respond to Georgia's changing demographics and to study the reasons for the high drop-out rate and low number of Hispanic high school and college graduates. The task force reached a number of conclusions. First, most school districts did not have enough teachers certified to teach English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) to keep up with the growing Hispanic population. Additionally, many recent immigrants had a low level of education and it was difficult for these parents to help their children with homework or understand the necessity of graduating from high school.
Thus, the mindset of Hispanic parents concerning education was another issue to be addressed. In response to these problems, the Hispanic Task Force made a number of recommendations to the Regents, which provided funding to create the Hispanic Pilot Project. Four universities and colleges now participate in the project including Dalton State, Gainesville College, North Georgia College and State University and UGA. Art Dunning, vice president for public service and outreach at the University of Georgia, works in conjunction with the Office of International Public Service and Outreach. The project seeks to address two objectives: 1) to increase the number of K-12 personnel qualified to teach English as a Second Language; and 2) to develop an outreach/marketing strategy to encourage more Hispanic youth to pursue higher education in the University System of Georgia. The first phase began in March 2001 and ended April 2002.
The project is now into its second phase. "This project is grounded in the idea that ensuring educationa opportunities for Georgia's Hispanic population will result in significant economic benefits for the state. It represents the University System responding to the educational needs of Georgia's growing Hispanic pop-ulation," said Jennifer Frum, assistant director of the Office of International Public Service and Outreach and the project's administrative coordinator. This year's project includes the Steps To College Program, ESOL Endorsement project and the College and University Awareness Program (CUAP). Classes are currently under way for the ESOL Endorsement project, which is designed to provide 150 educators the opportunity to receive their ESOL Endorsement free of charge.
These classes are offered both in a traditional classroom setting and online in order to reach as many teachers as possible. Classes are currently offered in DeKalb, Jackson, Clarke, Hall and Forsythia counties. Participating teachers are, however, employed in 12 different counties representing 25 different public schools. The endorsement class in Clarke County is being held at Fowler Elementary School.
Hector Vega can testify to the value of ESOL classes. When he first came to the United States 13 years ago as an eighth grader, he knew little English. He was one of only two students the ESOL class. According to Vega, the class was his lifeline to the English-speaking world he lived in. "The ESOL class helped me overcome the fear of not knowing English. It was a good support system for me. I knew that if I didn't understand something I heard outside of class, I had someone I could ask, instead of going home without any help or understanding of what was going on." It was Vega's acquisition of the English language that enabled him to prosper. He now owns his own satellite dish business in Athens.
The College and University Awareness program issued a call in August for proposals to implement the goal of making Hispanic students more aware of the educational opportunities that exist for going to college and programs that will help them stay in high school and earn their diplomas. Individuals from around the state with important ties to the Hispanic community were selected to review the proposals.
In late October, seven proposals were selected to receive mini-grant amounts up to $4,500 and represented six areas of the state, including Dalton, Whitfield, Lumpkin, Athens-Clarke, Tift and Griffin in Spalding County. A total of $30,000 was awarded to participating projects for mini-grants. Opening the arena to the community has brought innovative and fresh ideas to the program. It also has stimulated interest in the project by giving others a chance to participate in it.
This is the first year the Steps To College program was implemented at UGA. It was the second year for Dalton State under the direction of Monte Salyer, and the fourth summer for Gainesville College under the direction of Harriet Allison, who had created the original model for a summer school program in 1999. Of Gainesville's original 40 students who attended the first year, 10 now attend Gainesville College.
Like many other counties, Clarke has seen an explosive growth in the number of Hispanic students. According to Mike Wooten, public relations director for the Clarke County school district, 1,485 Hispanic students are enrolled in Clarke County schools. In the two Clarke high schools there are collectively around 95 ESOL students.
Jody Bogla, an ESOL teacher at Clarke Central, also was one of the teachers in the Steps program at UGA. "I've seen improvement in the students' fluency and writing since last spring," said Bogla. "Also, many of our students who were in the program and are freshmen at Clarke Central are doing well in their content area classes, particularly world history. I believe the intensity of the program was a tremendous boost to my beginners because they were exposed to and forced to use English all day, all summer instead of sitting at home speaking their native languages 24 hours a day."
Yazmin Rodriguez, a senior at Clarke Central and student in this year's summer program, told us that she "enjoyed going to the Botanical Gardens and doing a science experiment with the bees. It was also nice that the president of the Hispanic Association from UGA came to talk and offer [his] help to us. We also had other speakers talk about different fields at UGA that we could go into."
Another major problem identified by the Hispanic Task Force is that Hispanic parents often have no idea how to access information about college or even how to help their son or daughter fill out an application for college or apply for financial aid. According to a study by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute released in July 2002, 66 percent of Hispanic parents failed to answer four out of eight basic questions about what it takes to make college a reality. The report comments that college knowledge is a priority and "unless these knowledge deficits are remedied, Hispanic children are likely to miss out on crucial steps leading to college."
The Hispanic Pilot Project is also working on a video that will be used as a tool for informing Hispanic students and their parents about the importance of going to college. It will list some Web sites for scholarship information to help make a college education more affordable. For more information on the Hispanic Pilot Project, check out www.uga.edu/hispanicproject, which also links to comprehensive scholarship information.
Nationally, the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans has a web site that provides parents information to help them become more aware about all aspects of going to college, including how to choose a college and finance a college education. Prospective students and their parents can log on www.yesican.gov. All information is available in both Spanish and English.
Leslie Sanchez, director of the White Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans says, "All children, whatever their circumstances, deserve a chance to learn, achieve academic success and have the opportunity to go on to college." Hopefully, the Hispanic Pilot Project will be a part of making this admirable goal a reality in the state of Georgia.
Terry Salguero is an education program specialist at the School of Teacher Education at the University of Georgia and can be reached at 706-542-7887.