Four years ago Armando Maravilla came out of Longfellow Middle school a C-student. Due to graduate from Berkeley High School next week, Maravilla is now heading to San Francisco State University, planning to study psychology. How he got from there to here has a lot to do with the Bridge Program at Berkeley High, he believes. The Bridge Program takes C-students from middle school – about 30 every year — and offers them summer programs, afterschool homework support, and lots of advice, nagging and hand-holding by dedicated teachers. The goal is to keep those C students from slipping, and hopefully make them B and A students. “It felt helpful – all the advice, the summer programs, the information — how you’re supposed to talk to teachers,” said Maravilla. In all, the Bridge Program served 114 Berkeley High students this year, most of them Latino and African-American, and most from low-income families. It is one of several programs at Berkeley High meant to address the achievement gap between these students of color and their white classmates. This achievement gap exists not only at Berkeley High — where black and Latino students are scoring lower on tests such as the state exit […]
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