June 23, 2006

Preuss School At UCSD To Hold Graduation June 30

By Pat JaCoby

Seniors at the Preuss School will mark the culmination of a longer school year and longer school days than their counterparts in traditional schools during graduation ceremonies to be held at 4 p.m. June 30 at the charter school on the University of California, San Diego campus.

State Senator Jackie Speier, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, chair of the Senate subcommittee on higher education, will serve as commencement speaker. She has recently authored proposed legislation that will provide public schools with $36.4 million to hire credentialed counselors, and has been a lead proponent in helping the University of California work with K-12 schools to prepare low-income students to qualify for admission to college.

The estimated 600 guests will be welcomed by students in 13 languages:
Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Laotian, Hindi, Farsi, Arabic, Anharic, Tigrynia, Tagalog, Kapampangan, Hawaiian and English.

Also greeting guests will be Doris Alvarez, principal; Cecil Lytle, chair of the Board of Trustees, and David R. Miller, associate vice chancellor, Academic Planning and Resources, UCSD. John DeBeck, San Diego Board of Education, will accept the class on behalf of the Board of Education.

Kelly Diep, headed to Harvard University in the fall, will represent her class as valedictorian. Serving as senior class president, she established the first Model United Nations Chapter on the campus, formed a non-profit agency called Teens for the Future to provide SAT tutorial support for teenagers, and took college level courses at UCSD in calculus and social sciences.

Vu Hong, who has been admitted to MIT, and Chris Khavarian, accepted by Stanford University, will serve as salutatorians. Hong, a super star in the field of science, also plays the trumpet in a youth symphony and is an accomplished pianist. Khavarian, a campus and community leader, has received some $70,000 in scholarships from more than five foundations.

The Preuss School is a middle and high school dedicated to providing an intensive college preparatory education for motivated low income students who will become the first in their families to graduate from college. The school year is 204 days vs. the traditional 187 days; the school day is seven hours vs. the traditional six hours, and class size is 25-27 students vs. 34 students district-wide.

The school, jointly chartered by the San Diego Unified School District and UCSD, opened in 1999 with 150 students in grades six through eight. Currently, there are 767 students in grades six through twelve. Nearly a third of the graduating class were members of the original sixth grade class of 50.

The class of 2006 is the Preuss School’s third graduating class. Thirteen members will attend UCSD in the fall, and 39 have been admitted to other UC campuses.