Six SFDS parents (Barbara Abbott, Susan Byrd, Samantha Cho, Steve Fillipow, Liz Halifax, and Lea Stevens) joined 18 other volunteers on a pair of Saturdays in March to help Breakthrough admit its next class of students.
The interview days, held March 13 and 20 at SFDS, are an integral part of Breakthrough’s student selection process. Applicants sit down for an interview; take math and reading assessments; and participate in a group activity. The applicants are fourth graders at public schools in San Francisco – with a small number from parochial schools.
While this may sound like an intense process for fourth graders to be subjected to, it’s essential for Breakthrough to make strategic investments. We want students who are highly motivated and excited to take on extra work after school and in the summer. They need to meet a certain academic threshold─at or above grade level in most cases─and to have few or no behavioral issues. In addition, they must exhibit socio-economic need. We look for students who attend an under-resourced school; qualify for free or reduced-price lunches; speak a language other than English at home; and/or will be the first in their families to attend a four-year college.
Despite the academic prowess and high aspirations of the students we admit, they, unfortunately, are much less likely than higher-income to students to continue achieving at a high level throughout school and, ultimately, to graduate from a four-year college, according to a recent study by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (find it here). Not only are they already behind by first grade; they tend to fall back at alarming rates as they move on in school. Enrichment programs like Breakthrough therefore have an important role to play in helping motivated, low-income students keep up with their better-resourced peers across the country; stay excited about learning; and keep their sights high.
Down the road, this investment yields dividends. For instance, 90% of Breakthrough students in the high school class of 2008 are now in college. By contrast, district-wide, only 43% of students that year graduated high school having met the A-G requirements needed for admission to the UC system.
To assemble Breakthrough’s high school class of 2018, our program staff conducted recruitment presentations at 14 SFUSD elementary schools in January. We received 105 applications; of these, 72 passed the initial screening and were invited to interview. Approximately 35, or one-third, will be admitted.
While the volunteers’ charge is a serious one, we do our best to ensure they are well trained and have a manageable set of responsibilities. We also ply them with coffee, bagels, sandwiches, and baklava.
“I was glad to help,” Steve Fillipow said afterwards. “It was fun.”
