Please make Breakthroughs possible by joining us for Raise Your Hand, our annual fundraiser. Scheduled for Wednesday, February 8, from 6 – 9 pm at SFDS, the event raises critical operating funds while also providing an insider’s perspective on education reform efforts.

This year’s keynote address will be delivered by Sacramento Mayor, Kevin Johnson. Mr. Johnson has been involved in education and community development projects in Sacramento for several decades. He helped to launch, and has served as CEO of, St. HOPE, a community revitalization effort serving his old neighborhood of Oak Park. Currently, he co-chairs U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Mayors Advisory Council, and chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on Public Education. He also founded STAND UP, a non-profit organization advocating for excellent public schools. Mr. Johnson was an all-star point guard for the Phoenix Suns and a two-time All-Pac 10 player at UC Berkeley. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley and is a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School’s Summer Leadership Institute. Click here for a thought-provoking interview with Mayor Johnson on leadership and community development in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Tickets are available now. Please watch for an invitation in your mailbox early next week, or click here to purchase tickets online between now and January 29.

Breakthrough extends a special thank you to our lead supporters this year: Barbara and Fred Abbott; Linda and Andy Ach; AT&T; Melissa Buckley and Rajesh Atluru; Cathy and Sandy Dean; Laura and John Fisher; Randi and Bob Fisher; Giants Community Fund; James Irvine Foundation; The Jenerosity Foundation; Susan Byrd and Mark Lampert; Jane and Roger Mortimer; June and Cody Marcel; Ann and Brian Roberts; Elizabeth and Andrew Spokes; Walmart Foundation; the Weinstein Family Charitable Foundation; and Jenni and Hassan Zaidi.

For more information, please contact event planning committee members Barbara Abbott, Megan Howard, Nicole Krassner, or Jane Mortimer, or Breakthrough Executive Director Andy Shin.

At our end-of-semester potluck dinner on December 7, Breakthrough students, tutors, and their families came together to celebrate three months of hard work. After a brief program recognizing participants, guests conversed over everything from salad to chicken stew.

Breakthrough’s after-school program this fall benefited from the efforts of 46 tutors, including 13 SFDS eighth graders: Alex, Benny, Byron, Corinna, Ellie, Gloria, Griffin, Jeannie, Mia, Michelle, Nathaniel, Noah, and Sarah. Each committed to one afternoon weekly and was matched with a small number of Breakthrough fifth and sixth graders, helping them with academics as well as organizational skills. This meant applying lessons that tutors might themselves have internalized just recently – such as how to conduct research online and keep track of sources.

“I helped [my tutee] with new concepts in math and gave her tips on how to check her work,” says Sarah. “I also gave her advice on how to research, what sources to use, and how to take notes.”

Tutors sometimes find themselves reflecting on, and gaining a renewed appreciation for, their own teachers. “I think Ms. Paine is a great teacher because of her passion for history, the subject she teaches, and her strong knowledge of the subject,” writes one tutor. “She stands out because of her organized teaching style and her ability to keep an upbeat attitude throughout our class discussions and activities. [This approach] helps preserve a safe learning environment for the students.”

“Mr. Keller did many things to help me in class,” writes another. “He taught me many tips and tricks in math, and how to apply them so that I would get better grades. He also helped me become confident in myself, even when times seem tough. I wish to bring this to the playing field so that my tutees are also confident and positive.”

Tutors are expected to report back weekly on their tutees’ progress and to assume responsibility for their learning while on-site. “The challenges are making sure that tutoring time does not turn into a time to only talk instead of learn; and explaining something in a way that 5^th and 6^th graders will understand,” says Benny.

At times, it means tracking down an unknown answer – an experience most teachers are familiar with. It also means questioning one’s pre-conceptions. As Sarah points out, we hear so much about the problems with public schools that it’s easy to assume public school kids lack motivation. But this is often not the case. “The kids are great,” she says. “It was really rewarding, because my tutee was really willing to hear my advice and try to improve. She was already a great student when I met her – interested in her work, focused, and hard-working. I just helped her by giving her some tools and tips to do even better.”

Ms. Scott will present to seventh and eighth graders during advisory in January about the application process for tutoring in the spring semester. Please contact her with questions: (415) 568-3660 or jscott@sfds.net.

Reyhan

Reyhan applied to Breakthrough on the advice of his principal at Visitacion Valley Elementary School.  “I had no idea what it was going to be like,” he remembers. “But I thought it would be helpful to me to understand things.” What he found was a place where learning is celebrated. “All of the students interact with each other. Everybody participates. Everyone helps each other if they have hard times in class.” His teachers also went the extra mile. “Teachers will give you advice on how to understand the homework or class work that we’re doing. They’re very supportive. I’ve learned not to be nervous to ask for help.”

In addition to academics, Reyhan values his Breakthrough experiences outside the classroom. He still remembers scoring a crucial goal during a recess soccer game, and performing Capoeira – an Afro-Brazilian art form – before a sizable crowd at Celebration. He also recalls his overnight outdoor education trip to Point Reyes National Seashore. He was anxious at first after learning the area is a mountain lion habitat. Then he arrived at the campsite and started having fun. “Even though you may be fearful of things,” he says, “once people around you overcome that fear, it doesn’t get to you anymore.”

Reyhan is currently earning excellent grades at A.P. Giannini Middle School and staying busy with basketball and golf. After visiting both UC Berkeley and Stanford with his fellow Breakthrough students, he is committed to attending a top college. He would like to be an engineer.

Linda

When Breakthrough staff presented to the fourth graders at her school, they got Linda’s attention. Linda did well academically, but longed for greater access to books and more individual attention from her teachers, who dealt with large numbers of high-need students.

At Breakthrough, she found what she was looking for. Classes of eight freed her teachers to plan their lessons around their students’ needs and interests. Linda also appreciated their willingness to invest as much time as necessary. “When you don’t understand something, you can find them at lunch,” she says. “They explain it in a different way so you’ll understand it.”

Classes were engaging. Linda remembers learning to solve equations and calculate the circumference of a circle in math class. In health science, she learned about trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup; one day, the whole class ate healthy cheese doodles.

The students at Breakthrough are “really nice. If you have any troubles, they’re more than willing to help you. They’ll support you – they won’t make fun of you. If you need a friend to be there, they’ll tell you about a time they went through the same thing.”

One of the special opportunities Linda appreciated most was Career Day. “You always hear, ‘Oh, I want to be a doctor,’ or, ‘Oh, I want to be a lawyer.’ But you never get to actually visit those places. On Career Day you see what the job is like and you find out about the responsibilities, the schools you need to go to.” Linda visited the central office of San Francisco Unified School District, where she met with staff and saw the computer systems used to store data. She is thinking now that it would be interesting to work in education, helping teachers and thereby helping kids.

Currently, Linda is a seventh grader at The Hamlin School. She feels her time at Breakthrough prepared her well for an independent school – everything from organizing her binder to annotating text.

Last year’s event, featuring Scott Pearson of the U.S. Department of Education, brought 275 guests to the School –SFDS parents as well as friends from around the city – and brought in over $150,000 in contributions. View photos from last year’s event.

Special thanks to this year’s event planning committee: Barbara Abbott, Megan Howard, Nicole Krassner, and Jane Mortimer. Tickets and table sponsorships will be available later this fall!

Andy Shin
Director, Breakthrough SF

For kids with sufficient resources, summer is an opportunity to travel to new parts of the globe or explore a new interest. But, as David Von Drehle wrote last year in Time, “for many children – especially children of low-income families – summer is a season of boredom, inactivity and isolation. Kids can’t go exploring if their neighborhoods aren’t safe. It’s hard to play without toys or playgrounds or open spaces.”

Low-income kids not only grapple with boredom; they also tend to regress academically. A Johns Hopkins study concluded that unequal access to meaningful summer learning opportunities accounts for as much as two-thirds of achievement differences between high- and low-income students.

At Breakthrough, our goal is not only to compensate for summer learning loss, but to launch our students far ahead of where they were when the summer started. For six weeks, Breakthrough kids receive four hours of intensive academic instruction daily in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. They also attend elective classes like dance and debate, and take part in special opportunities like Career Day and outdoor education. Impressively, the students not only submit to this regimen, but truly soak it in. Their hard work is evident in their remarkable gains on the Stanford 10 assessment this past summer: an average of one year of progress in reading and six months of progress in math.

While academics are the top priority, Breakthrough does differ in a few ways from kids’ school-year experience. For one, classes are taught by college students. As part of a competitive summer internship, 20 college students receive in-depth training from professional educators, then try their hand at the craft of teaching. Their enthusiasm and dedication are wonderful from the kids’ standpoint.

Given that it’s summertime, we also sweeten the pot for students with a heavy dose of fun and community. Students are greeted on Golden Gate Avenue each morning by teachers wearing costumes and dancing. We have a good number of Breakthrough cheers (Penguin Dance, Milk Song, etc), and award the Spirit Stick each afternoon to a student who has displayed hard work and good citizenship. And the soccer games at recess are always a highlight. Please take a moment to browse the photos in the accompanying gallery for a sense of all that transpired over the summer!

Breakthrough’s work is possible because of SFDS, which has sponsored the program since 1993 as part of its commitment to community involvement and to academic excellence for all students. For more, please visit our website – www.breakthroughsf.org.

Andy Shin
Executive Director, Breakthrough San Francisco

Breakthrough’s newest class of students is ready to get started. 36 fourth grade students were recently admitted from public elementary schools across the city – from John Muir, a short walk from San Francisco Day School, to George Washington Carver in Bayview. They are motivated kids excited about the opportunity to work hard. As is typical, the vast majority qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch and will be the first in their families to graduate from college. On site several weeks ago for pre-summer assessments, they have begun to hear about the excitement and challenges in store. They will be joined this summer by 36 returning students who are midway through their two-year commitment.

We are grateful to put the beautiful San Francisco Day School facility to good use in the summertime.

“I feel great that Breakthrough is there in the summer and afternoon hours,” one SFDS parent told us. “It’s a huge bonus.”

Also ready to get going are 20 teaching interns. They attend top-tier colleges across the country and were chosen this spring from an applicant pool of 365, for an admissions rate of under 6%; 55% are of color. The class includes two former SFDS students – Michael Duryee-Browner (Class of 2003) and Jessica Fields (Class of 2006) – as well as other fantastic college students. They have a few more days to relax before reporting this weekend for the start of their intensive eight-week internship.

“During my first summer at Breakthrough, I was in a constant state of learning,” wrote Zena, a recent graduate of the University of San Francisco (pictured above with her advisee, Andres). She will be building on that knowledge during her second summer with us.

If you’ll be in town this summer, please stop by to meet our inspiring participants and see the program in action! Visitors’ Days are scheduled for Tuesday, June 28, from 8 – 9:30 am (includes breakfast), and Wednesday, July 20 from 11 am – 1 pm (includes lunch). Click here to RSVP. Or, to set up a separate visit between June 20 and July 29, contact Executive Director Andy Shin at (415) 568-3661 or ashin@sfds.net.

Across the city, young people of all ages are feeling the thrill of admissions season. Eighth graders at SFDS walk through the hallways proudly wearing their new high school sweatshirts, and talk in advisory about what they’re looking forward to. Breakthrough fifth graders pop into our office so we can photocopy the letters offering them admission to middle school.

The joy is inevitably accompanied by pain. It is hard to be turned down for anything without taking the decision as a negative reflection on your worth, or that of your child. And whether the outcome is good or bad, it is preceded by anxiety.

I thought about this recently while evaluating Breakthrough applicants. For two Saturdays in March, fourth graders and their parents came to SFDS to interview for some 35 spots in the next Breakthrough class. Sitting across from them, I was reminded that the stakes are high, particularly given the city’s under-resourced public schools and the families’ very real financial constraints. When asked how college fit into their child’s future, some of the parents cried. For most, their educational careers had ended with high school.

Like admissions committees everywhere, ours did its best to make intelligent decisions about which young people to invest in. We looked for the desire to work hard, a love of learning, and the need for help getting to college. Still, it is not easy to turn away a hopeful eight or nine year old, or his or her parents. We remind them that they will undergo more application processes in the future, and that being turned down is part of the experience. I am sure these words only go so far.

The counterbalance to this sadness is the exhilaration of the students who are accepted. They call our program staff and leave voicemails proclaiming their excitement, their eagerness to take advantage of every opportunity we can put before them. Before long, they will attend our pre-summer orientation session, the official start of their Breakthrough experience.

Breakthrough thanks SFDS parents Bernadette Barker-Plummer, Samantha Cho, and Sandra Kim, along with the 25 other volunteers who generously gave their time to serve on our admissions committee. Your perspectives made a difference!

Guests enjoyed good conversation, a hearty dinner, and delicious local and Italian wines. With help from event designer Nicole Krassner, the SFDS gym was transformed into an elegant space for the reception and dinner service (which, my wife agreed, looked better than our wedding hall.) Scott Pearson of the U.S. Department of Education, a long-time Bay Area resident, provided the keynote address.  He discussed the federal government’s role under President Obama in spurring education reform, and the need for concerned citizens to support effective schools and non-profits while also advocating for policy change.  Next, Enyolli, a Breakthrough sixth grader, shared a personal reflection on her experience in the program.

We were honored to be joined by a number of former SFDS parents at this event, including some from the School’s earliest years – Kaatri and Doug Grigg; Leslie Hume; Roslyn and Lisle Payne; Sally and Toby Rosenblatt; and Barbara Scavullo. We also welcomed some 150 guests from outside the immediate School community – friends of SFDS parents, corporate partners, and staff at peer schools and non-profits. (Click here to view photos from the evening as well as Scott Pearson’s slide deck.)

We are thankful to the community for embracing this event, as funds from the evening will make Breakthrough’s programming possible during the 2011-2012 budget year. While we benefit from extensive in-kind support from the School, we incur personnel and supply costs of roughly $350,000 annually – a good portion of which is raised via the event.

Our sincere appreciation extends to Event Chair Barbara Abbott, the Breakthrough Advisory Board, and the SFDS development office. We would also like to thank lead sponsors Barbara and Fred Abbott; Nicola Miner and Robert Anderson; Anonymous; Cathy and Sandy Dean; Laura and John Fisher; Yelena and Gary Martinovsky; Jane and Roger Mortimer; and the Weinstein Family Charitable Foundation, as well as our 46 other event sponsors. We also are grateful for in-kind support from Attune Foods; Il Molino di Grace; Oliver McCrum Wines; and Starbucks Coffee.

“Raise Your Hand” is a wonderful opportunity to not only advocate for Breakthrough, but also to receive a unique “insider’s perspective” regarding education reform in America.  The keynote speaker, Scott Pearson, is a former Breakthrough trustee and has close ties with the San Francisco community.  He now oversees policy and special initiatives for the Office of Innovation and Improvement, with a focus on charter schools, school choice, innovation and education for military families.  He was also closely involved in distributing the Investing in Innovation (i3) Funds, part of the federal government’s stimulus package.  For those of you who watched President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, you probably heard several remarks in reference to education in America.  It is a critical topic that requires our full attention and I am looking forward to hearing Mr. Pearson shed some light on educational reform strategies for our country.

For those who may be less familiar with Breakthrough’s history with SFDS, I’ll take a moment to elaborate on our relationship.  Breakthrough, formerly known as Summerbridge, has been an integral part of our school’s commitments to education and community.  Although Breakthrough is a national non-profit organization, it originated here in San Francisco, and San Francisco Day School has been a sponsor since 1993.  Breakthrough provides enrichment and support to fifth and sixth graders with limited educational opportunity, ensuring they are academically successful and on the path to college.   At the same time, the program also trains outstanding high school and college students for education careers – hence, ‘when one teaches, two learn.’  After close to twenty years with SF Day, Breakthrough has served more than 750 fifth and sixth graders; trained over 300 aspiring teachers; and provided a meaningful community service opportunity to nearly 1,000 volunteers, including several hundred San Francisco Day School students.

Each year, Breakthrough raises the bar on its ambitious goals for children and I am proud that SFDS continues to serve this supremely worthwhile program.  For more information on Breakthrough or the “Raise Your Hand” event on February 9, please click here.  I hope to see you there!