Peninsula Bridge, the summer academic program that has helped 3,000 kids from low-income families succeed in high school over the past 16 years, has reached a crossroads.
New initiatives are in the works to strengthen and reinvigorate the nonprofit Bridge program that this year will bring up to 230 incoming fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders from East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City and San Mateo to private school campuses for a five-week summer session.
Grainger Marburg, the new executive director, and the board are working to revamp the core academic program, cluster each grade level at one campus, and explore partnerships with other organizations, such as College Track in East Palo Alto, to provide year-round opportunities for Bridge students.
A former high school teacher, Peace Corps volunteer and community foundation program manager, Mr. Marburg, at 40, says he is excited to be “at the right place at the right time.”
Peninsula Bridge is facing the challenge of becoming more effective in helping kids from underserved communities build dreams for the future.
“The education piece has always been a strong part of my life,” says Mr. Marburg, but his Peace Corps experience teaching in Pohnpei, Micronesia, was “a tuning point.”
“My understanding crystallized about some of the inequities,” says Mr. Marburg. “We don’t give everyone a fair chance.”
He cites statistics that support the need for outreach programs such as Bridge:
• Low-income students are 67 percent less likely than their high-income peers to enroll in college track “gateway” courses such as algebra and honors English.
• The graduation rate of high school students from the Ravenswood City School District is less than 40 percent.
• Eighty percent of the students who completed the Bridge summer program over its 16 years have successfully entered college-track courses.
A major priority, says Mr. Marburg, is launching a comprehensive, strategic planning process that will evaluate the Bridge program, look toward its future, and analyze the financials.
Already, he has received “some very favorable responses to proposals to help us get to the next level,” he says.
Harvard Community Partners, the organization of Harvard Business School alumni that includes local residents, is offering its services pro bono — without charge — to develop the strategic plan.
More help is coming from the Stanford Alumni Consulting Team, called ACT, that also includes local alumni of the Stanford Business School. This group, also working pro bono, will analyze Peninsula Bridge’s financial infrastructure.
Peninsula Bridge recently received a grant from Community Foundation Silicon Valley to support certain aspects of the strategic planning process.
Mr. Marburg has been busy since taking over the full-time executive director’s job nine months ago from former director Phil Ekedahl of Menlo Park, and the transition was smooth, he says.
Mr. Marburg has developed what he calls “an integrated program model” for the summer session. It connects the participating partner schools and links the grade-level core curriculum with the state content standards.
Under this model, instead of having each school offer a program for three grade levels, all incoming sixth-graders will spend the summer session at Menlo School, all seventh-graders will be at Sacred Heart, and eighth-graders will study at the Woodside Priory School campus in Portola Valley.
The following summer, the students will move by grade level to another campus.
Mr. Marburg says this program change has promise because it allows a campus to focus on a single grade with a strong core curriculum for each grade. Students will have more opportunities to interact with each other and experience three different learning environments.
Students spend mornings five days a week on academics — building math and writing skills — and afternoons taking part in enrichment activities such as photojournalism, dance, art, drama, and digital filmmaking.
This summer, Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, serving mostly students from San Mateo, will continue to have incoming sixth- through eighth-graders.
Castilleja School in Palo Alto will return to the Peninsula Bridge umbrella this summer with a session for incoming fifth-grade girls. Conversations with prospective partner schools for incoming fifth-grade boys is being explored for the summer of 2007.
Peninsula Bridge was the bright idea of three founders in 1989-90. Les DeWitt of Atherton, a community volunteer with a big heart and connections to organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, was the catalyst. He gained support from Sister Peggy Brown, then director of Sacred Heart Schools in Atherton, and Superintendent Charlie Mae Knight of the Ravenswood City School District.
Their goal was to bring middle school kids from the Ravenswood district across the freeway to the Sacred Heart campus for a summer program that would develop their skills, help them succeed in school, and introduce them to new experiences and a different environment.
The Bridge mission continues, but the program has expanded and the emphasis is on helping students be prepared to get on the college prep track if they choose, says Mr. Marburg.
About 230 students — who live in East Palo Alto, areas of Menlo Park, Redwood City and San Mateo and attend mostly public schools — will participate in Bridge’s 17th summer program that begins in mid-June and ends in late July.
The directors at four of the summer sites are employees of the school during the year, doing work related to outreach, diversity and multiculturalism.
The private schools open their campuses to the Bridge program without charge. Bridge pays the staffing and program costs, budgeted at $55,000 for each site. About half of the Peninsula Bridge annual budget of $600,000 comes from individual donors, some of whom have been longtime supporters of the program.
About 98 percent of the Bridge students return the following summer until they start high school, and 98 percent say they believe they will do better academically in high school because of the Bridge experience, says Mr. Marburg.
“We’re working on a more comprehensive evaluation framework to more accurately measure the cumulative impact of our program,” says Mr. Marburg.
INFORMATION
For more information about Peninsula Bridge, go to peninsulabridge.org or call executive director Grainger Marburg at 473-9461.
