idealist.org

Eastside College Preparatory School is a private secondary school founded in 1996 in order to provide underserved students from East Palo Alto with a college preparatory education within their own community. With the closure of the only local high school in 1976, low-income minority students from East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park began being bused out of their community to high schools in outlying neighborhoods. Placement in lower academic tracks, negative peer pressure, fear of isolation from their community and the difficulties inherent in being bused to unfamiliar schools combined to create a dramatic breakdown in these students’ education. By the mid 1990’s, 65% of East Palo Alto secondary students had dropped out of high school. Of those who did graduate, less than 10% were enrolling in four-year colleges.

The purpose of Eastside College Preparatory School is to halt this alarming trend by providing students in East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park with a college preparatory education in their own community. Eastside’s unique approach, requiring extraordinary dedication from both students and faculty, is geared towards one central mission: the enrollment of each and every Eastside graduate in a four-year college or university.

To date, Eastside has achieved its mission with unmitigated success. Six classes of seniors have graduated from Eastside; all of those graduates were accepted to four-year colleges, including Stanford University, Santa Clara University, Sonoma State, St. Mary’s College, Princeton University, U.C. Berkeley, Columbia University, Emory University, Smith College, Barnard University, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University.

Eastside serves children in grades 6 through 12. The student body reflects the community’s ethnic makeup: Latino (54%), African-American (38%), and Pacific Islander (8%). More than 95% of these students are the first in their families to attend college. While East Palo Alto is rich in culture, ethnicity and potential, it is a disadvantaged community financially. Therefore, no student is turned away for lack of funds.