One step at a time, students getting boost toward college
In the computer lab of Edward Devotion School in Brookline, students (from left) Sabrina Vallejo, Thalia Morales, and Sherly Estime work with instructor J.T. Lenoch. (Steps To Success)Priscilla Rodas was assembling care packages to send to Brookline students in college when her 9-year-old son, Oscar, asked whether he could make the packages when he was older. Rodas said no.
“Look buddy, you’ll be one of the kids getting a package,’’’ Rodas told him. “You’ll be one of the ones going to college somewhere.’’
The care packages are how Rodas supports a program that she hopes will help her own children get to college. The program, Steps to Success, is an academic achievement and readiness initiative that targets families, like the Rodases, who live in Brookline public housing.
Next month, Steps to Success will graduate its fifth class from Brookline High School, with nearly 90 percent of the students heading to college.
Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, the program has helped about 100 students from low-income families get accepted to schools that include Dartmouth College, Williams College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The program was created in 2000 with a six-year, $960,000 federal grant to
