Breakthrough Silicon Valley (BSV) is a tuition-free program that serves motivated and talented public middle school students and prepares them for rigorous college preparatory high school programs. We offer year-round education, counseling, and advocacy for a diverse group of students who have limited educational and economic opportunities. BSV is part of a national network of sites called the Breakthrough Collaborative, founded as Summerbridge in 1978, with 33 operating today.
Our program is nationally-recognized for its "students teaching students" model. For both our school-year and summer programs, motivated and talented high school and college students serve as the teachers, tutors and role models of our middle school students.
During the school year, we run two major programs. In our after-school math program, we recruit high school and college students to teach and tutor small groups of Breakthrough students. In our high school program, we run college-readiness workshops, offer high school and college counseling and host special events for Breakthrough's high school students.
Our summer program is an intensive eight-week paid teaching internship for which there is a rigorous application process. Hosted by Hillbrook School in Los Gatos, our teaching interns teach math, English, science and more in their own small classroom of Breakthrough students.
In summary, our mission is two-fold: to provide a path to a college for our younger students while inspiring older students to pursue careers in education.
