Students Get Boost at PUENTE Center

Hollenbeck Junior High was about to give up on Luis Cisneros last year. The 12-year-old had disrupted class too many times. He threw things, screamed at his teacher and was failing his classes.

Classmates dubbed him “The Terminator.”

As a last resort, his mother brought him to PUENTE Learning Center, pleading with officials of the nonprofit educational program to help her son. (PUENTE, at 501 S. Boyle Ave., stands for People United to Enrich the Neighborhood Through Education.)

Luis was enrolled in the program’s high school tutorial program, which caters to seventh- through 12th-graders, pairing each with an adult volunteer. The students receive job training on computers, which also expands their knowledge in math, English and other subjects.

But more than the academics, said program coordinator Luis Marquez, the pairing of students with an adult who meets with them weekly has proven to be the key to the 3-year-old program’s success. “It is the recognition that they are something valuable. That’s all it takes,” Marquez said.

Of 75 students who began the program this semester, 70 are still attending, he said. (Two of the five who left moved out of the area.) Students attend from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Luis, the former troublemaker, said his transition began after Marquez took him under his wing soon after the semester began. The boy said he has since apologized to his sixth-grade teacher for his past behavior in class. “I’m starting to change a little bit,” he said. “I’m going to get my act together.”

Tony Santana volunteers with his wife, Renee, one night a week, meeting with six students who have been assigned to him and helping in the computer lab. The accountant said he grew up in East Los Angeles and had been looking for a chance to help young people academically in the area when he discovered PUENTE a year ago.

“It helps kids set goals and discipline themselves because they are going to have to tell someone how they did every week and what their grade is in each subject,” he said.

Marquez said some students have been turned away from the program when he doesn’t have enough reliable adult volunteers.

“The kids are too fragile,” Marquez said. “Some come from good, solid families but don’t have the educational resources. Some come from single-parent homes, and some families have drug and alcohol abuse. Poverty is definite.”

Information: (213) 780-8900.