News Detail
Breakthrough SJC Attracts Top College Students to St. Margaret’s to Serve as Teaching Fellows
The teaching fellows pick up valuable teaching experience during their summer break, and cherish the opportunity to give back and help motivated students in San Juan Capistrano.
Now in its 12th year, Breakthrough SJC continues to fulfill its mission of helping highly motivated, underrepresented middle school and high school students in San Juan Capistrano realize their potential to excel in high school and graduate from college.
One of the keys to success is the work of teaching fellows, high-achieving students who often come from colleges all over the United States to teach Breakthrough’s vigorous six-week summer program. The teaching fellows pick up valuable teaching experience during their summer break, and cherish the opportunity to give back and help motivated students in San Juan Capistrano.
“Our teaching fellows have a profound impact on the students and program,” said Breakthrough SJC director Victor Cota. “Many of the teaching fellows are first-generation college students themselves and many come from low-income backgrounds, so they set a great example of what is possible and connect personally to the students. When our Breakthrough students develop relationships with teaching fellows year after year, they develop a mentality that ‘Yes, I can enjoy learning, and yes, I can go to college and graduate.’”
More than 80 percent of this year’s Breakthrough SJC teaching fellows attend selective colleges. Here’s a look at a few:
- Tanesha McFadden, a senior at Old Dominion University majoring in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration in primary/elementary education. She has published research on urban education, and is participating in Breakthrough SJC to gain experience, meet new people and become a role model.
- Luis Gonzalez, a student at Georgetown University, is pursuing a double-major in American studies and government with a minor in education, inquiry and justice. A native of Santa Ana, he advocates for increased college access of students from underrepresented communities.
- Julia Choi is an education major at Brown University, who decided to teach at Breakthrough SJC to contextualize her studies with classroom experience.
- Coral Ramos was a Breakthrough student beginning in 2010. She’s now a sophomore at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and she has returned to teach at Breakthrough because she remembers how helpful the program was for her and hopes to make her students feel that way too.
- Christopher Shimizu is a junior at Worcester State in Massachusetts, majoring in English with a minor in secondary education. An aspiring high school teacher, he was once a student at Breakthrough Greater Boston and is the first in his family to go to college. He hopes to help students strive the same way his former Breakthrough teachers helped him.
- Carter LaCrosse attends Northwestern University studying plant biology and music. An aspiring science teacher, he is teaching for Breakthrough SJC because he believes a successful middle school education provides the vital building blocks for a high school diploma and college attendance, and that these goals should be achievable for every single child in America.
- Ayetzy Presa is a former Breakthrough SJC student who now a history major at the University of Redlands. She loved her experience as a student which inspired her to apply as a teacher this summer.
Other teaching fellows include Aidan Anderson (Vassar), Allison Sorgeloos (Arizona State), Anna Johnson (Brown), Ashley Atilano (George Washington), Bernadette Blashill (UC Berkeley), Brandon Torres (Swarthmore), Diana Morales (UCLA), Francisco Gaspar (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), Henry Lutz (UCLA), Nicola Tirpak (Mercer) and Robio Alarcon (Irvine Valley).
Breakthrough SJC is a tuition-free summer and after-school program created and hosted by St. Margaret’s. This summer, 94 students in San Juan Capistrano are participating in the summer program, which is designed to provide a springboard for students in grades 7-9 before they head into the next school year. Another 70 high school students are serving as volunteers.
St. Margaret’s Episcopal School
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