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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to visit the James Flood Magnet School in Menlo Park on Thursday to meet with eighth-grade students involved with a program she co-founded 15 years ago.
Known as the Center for a New Generation, the program aims to increase the high school graduation rate in the Ravenswood City School District.
Ms. Rice, along with philanthropist Susan Ford (now Ford-Dorsey), established the program at Menlo Oaks School in Menlo Park 15 years ago when Ms. Rice was a Stanford professor, said Chris Canter, spokesman for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula, which has run the Center since 1996.
The program was relocated to Flood School several years later.
Ms. Rice has continued to support the program, he said. During her Thursday visit, she will be joined by Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign affairs minister. She plans to meet with students in the program and have a discussion with the Center’s eighth-grade class, said Mr. Canter.
Two years ago, the program was expanded to include children from kindergarten through eighth grade, and today has 350 students enrolled, he said.
In the past year, the program was extended to two more Ravenswood district schools — Edison McNair Academy in East Palo Alto and Belle Haven School in east Menlo Park. Last week, said Mr. Canter, the Center learned it had been approved for a grant from the California Department of Education to establish the program at Hoover School in Redwood City. The new site will open this fall, he said.
“In the past three years, nearly 100 percent of graduating eighth-graders from the Center’s Flood School program have been accepted to high-performing high schools or other college-focused programs,” said Peter Fortenbaugh, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula. “The likelihood that they will graduate from high school and go on to college is high.”
The program is highly structured and effective, said Sean Mendy, the director of the Center’s Flood School site. Students participate in the program each weekday afternoon from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Small group classes are run by teachers and college-age mentors. Each day includes a homework period followed by academic enrichment activities and electives.
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