Breakthrough SJC Completes 11th Summer Helping Underserved Local Students

As Breakthrough SJC begins its 11th year, the program’s success is coming full circle.

 

The tuition-free summer and after-school program created and hosted by St. Margaret’s Episcopal School is designed to help highly motivated, underserved middle school and high school students in San Juan Capistrano through academic enrichment and guidance. Around 150 students are involved in the program, including 90 students entering grades 7-9 who participated in the just-completed summer session on the St. Margaret’s campus.

 

This summer’s students had a unique link to past Breakthrough success stories.

 

Students are taught and mentored by teaching fellows—high achieving college and high school students from across the nation. Of the 20 teaching fellows who led the summer program this year, six are Breakthrough alumni themselves--an unprecedented number that illustrates the program’s ability to nurture high-achieving role models who are in turn motivated to give back.

 

“I have this vision that 10, 20, 30 years from now, Breakthrough students will have graduated college and will be leaders in our community,” said Victor Cota, director of Breakthrough SJC. “They will own businesses, do public service, be active citizens, and serve as models for future generations. When I see our Breakthrough alumni coming back to teach the younger students, I get so excited because I know that we are well on our way toward that vision.”

 

Of those six Breakthrough alumni, three are 2016 high school graduates entering college this fall. Those three are part of the 94 percent of 2016 Breakthrough SJC grads who have enrolled in either a four-year or two-year college (the remaining 6 percent have enlisted in the military). Of those going directly to four-year colleges, all have plans in place to graduate with less than $25,000 in federal student loan debt.

 

The summer program is designed to provide a springboard for students in grades 7-9 before they head into the next school year. This year’s summer theme was “Find Your Voice,” and teaching fellows used the 2016 election year as inspiration for students to develop their own voice on important world issues and start their own dialogue on such topics.

 

Consistent with the theme, Breakthrough SJC for the first time held a summer student council election. About 20 students ran for office, with seven winning elected positions. Those seven took on leadership roles that included putting on the “BT’s Got Talent” summer talent show and organizing other events.

 

The 20 teaching fellows are mentored by four instructional coaches, typically full-time teachers themselves. One instructional coach this summer was a St. Margaret’s faculty member—Middle School science teacher Kevin Estipular.

 

The summer was a successful kick-off into year 11 of the Breakthrough SJC program—which will continue throughout the school year with after-school tutoring, college counseling, standardized test preparation and more for Breakthrough students in grades 7-12.

Check out more about Breakthrough SJC on page 19 of the Capistrano Dispatch, about alumni Vanessa Rodriguez's return to teach at Breakthrough SJC.