Letter from Executive Director

Dear Partners & Supporters of Increased College Access & Success in Northern California,

As we at College Summit enter our 10th Year (!) of service to high schools in several Bay Area communities, we continue to be inspired by the dedication and brilliance of students, educators and administrators in so many different high school settings and school systems.  Hints of their great body of work are found in these pages.

As I write we have 55 Peer Leaders from four local high schools being supported and trained at UC Berkeley by 34 caring and trained community leaders, at one of our four 10th Anniversary Summer Workshops.  They are all working extremely hard, and they are supporting each other in strengthening their voices.  They continue to teach us all – in the work of increasing educational access and success - that there is no EASY button to push, as together we counter those who would press the MUTE button for our students.

There is no EASY button in a world of pitiful levels of investment in educating our next generation in California, in a world where our society lacks any sufficient response to the high levels of violence and children living in fear in our economically poorest communities, and in a world where educators and administrators find ways to build relationships with students and educate those students within the context of this challenging world.  There is no EASY button in a world where we seek too-easy solutions and cannot find the courage and compassion, together, to truly invest in our future.

And together we can counter the many ways we push the MUTE button on the multiple options each student should have available to them.  As I am asked about the work I do, with people outside the educational system in particular, I encounter too many assumptions about which kids are supposed to be our next doctors, engineers, leaders, and which kids should “focus on the jobs our society needs.”  Equal opportunity means they should all have those choices, through education, and it is a value not fully realized that is still worth demanding, for our talented youth from all backgrounds.

Knowing how to fit in and belong are important social skills.  And we also encourage all of our brilliant students to strengthen their own voices, and to bend the world to their will at every opportunity.

Warmly,
Paul Collins
Executive Director
College Summit – Northern California