The Preuss School to Mark 10th Anniversary with April 17 Celebration of Achievements

March 25 , 2009

By Pat JaCoby

Every day for four years, Jesse Lopez, the son of immigrant field laborers, woke at 6 a.m. to travel from his home in San Ysidro to the Preuss School at the University of California, San Diego. A member of the Preuss School’s first graduating class, he went on to earn a college degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2008 and now works for a Wall Street firm.

Jesse Lopez

On April 17 he will continue his remarkable journey when he appears as featured speaker at the Preuss School’s 10th anniversary celebration at the Scripps Seaside Forum.

Lopez was one of the initial 150 Preuss School students who began studies in portable classrooms under a model that provided an intensive college prep education for motivated low-income students who would become the first in their families to graduate from college. Ten years later, 750 middle and high school students attend classes on their own campus at UC San Diego; 95 percent of the graduates have been accepted to universities.

A dozen of these graduates, now Preuss School alumni attending colleges throughout the U.S., will be special guests at the dinner, which also will include an auction and a performance by the Preuss School Chorale.

Lopez’s academic path received scholarship help from the Bill Gates Foundation, The Patricia and Christopher Weil Family Foundation, The Preuss Foundation, and MIT. He joined a study abroad program at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2007 and served an internship at The Monitor Group, a Wall Street firm where he now provides business consulting services.

The event  committee is chaired by Peggy Preuss, Robin Nordhoff and Sue Raffee Barrett. The honorary committee includes Julia R. Brown, Malin Burnham, Robert Dynes, Anne Evans, Ed Frieman, Ed Gillenwaters, Mel Katz, Henry Nordhoff, John Otterson, Peter Preuss, Duane and Renee Roth, Fiona Tudor and Christopher and Patricia Weil.

In its relatively short history, The Preuss School has become known as one of the top high schools in the nation. In 2008 rankings, it was named as 6th best high school in the nation by Newsweek, as 8th best high school in the U.S. by US News and World Report, and the top low-income school in California by BusinessWeek.

The school employs three critical aspects in its education practices: An expanded school year, an expanded school day, and small class size. Preuss students log 74,669 instructional minutes compared to the state requirement of 64,800. To be eligible for entry to the school a student must meet three criteria: He or she is from a low-income family, the student has no parent or guardian who has graduated from a four-year college or university, and the student has the academic potential and motivation to benefit from an intensive college preparatory program.

For further information contact mmcclaren@ucsd.edu or 858 822-6616.

Media Contact: Pat JaCoby, 858-534-7404 or pjacoby@ucsd.edu