In College Bound Program, Seeing Is Believing : A one-time dropout himself, the Anaheim school superintendent helps set up family field trips for at-risk students.

When Meliton Lopez dropped out of school at 7 to help tend the family’s goat herd in Mexico, he never dreamed that college was in his future.

“We were farmers and herders,” he says. “I went to school one year. Once you learned the basics, you did not continue.”

After moving to the United States at 15, Lopez went back to school, earning not only a high school diploma but a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas. Later he received a master’s and a Ph.D.

Today, as superintendent of the Anaheim City School District, Lopez sees a lot of kids--many of them potential dropouts--who have never dreamed of going to college. “I let them know that if I can make it, then I have the confidence that they can make it, too,” he says.

To show them how, Lopez has helped establish two unusual “field trips.” One takes groups of sixth-graders on a tour of Fullerton College. The other takes entire families to Cal State Fullerton.

“There is no question that the drop-out rate among Hispanics is pretty high,” Lopez says. “So we wanted to begin early to see what kids could do to see themselves beyond the sixth grade. The idea was that kids would visit the college and get an orientation of college life from other students from similar backgrounds who had made it and were now in college.”

Each is are designed to reach youngsters who may not otherwise consider higher education.

This year, about 1,000 sixth-grade pupils will participate in the Fullerton College program called College Bound, which is designed to give kids an opportunity to learn how college can help achieve goals.

Also this year, 80 families, most recent immigrants, will participate in a new program called La Universidad de la Familia at Cal State Fullerton. For four Saturdays, the specially selected families will attend classes at the university, where the kids will learn about computers, while their parents learn how to improve their parenting skills.

The philosophy behind College Bound is to provide positive role models, according to Joe Reyes Jr., coordinator for Extended Opportunity Programs and Services at Fullerton College.

“In talking to the superintendent at Anaheim, he mentioned that there were very few role models, few people in the immediate families who would encourage education because they were too busy surviving, trying to meet basic needs. The role models we provide them are the students themselves,” he says.

Through College Bound, now in its third year, about 3,000 children have visited the Fullerton College campus, where they meet with students, instructors and administrators. “We show them the different types of class structures,” Reyes says, “like biology labs, computer labs, skills centers. Then they tour the campus so they can see there is a lot more to coming to class than reading a book.”

Children also get to see that college is available to them, Reyes says. “We dispel the myth that you have to be rich to go to college,” he says. “There are loans, scholarships, economic support.”

Participants go away with the feeling that they too can receive a higher education, Reyes says.

“They often say, ‘Now I know I can go to college,’ or ‘I didn’t know I could attend college and still stay at home.’ Others realize that there are different vocational programs available to them.”

Ultimately, the children learn that it is important to stay in school, Reyes says. “This is the age when many of them began to mentally drop out,” he says. “But if they go into junior high school with a clear sense of what is achievable beyond high school, it may keep them in; it may be the incentive to get them to complete the next six years.”

The importance of staying in school is also part of the message youngsters receive in La Universidad de la Familia at Cal State Fullerton, according to Lyn Richie-Walker, project director.

“We felt that if we could bring them over to the campus, we could demystify the college for them,” she says. “They begin to say, ‘Wait, I can do this; this is obtainable; this is a goal I can accomplish.’ Instead of dropping out now, they learn, ‘I have got to get through middle school, then high school, so I can get here.’ Instead of seeing education as places to get out of, they see it as places to get into.”

For participants in both programs, the college visits are inspirational, according to Lopez, who accompanied a recent group to Cal State Fullerton. “The first day we went, it was a glowing feeling; everyone was mesmerized. The parents let us know that, indeed, they were overwhelmed with pleasure. It was their first time on a university campus.”

“Most of the parents have not even gone through the primary grades,” he says. “A lot of them grew up on farms, which by our standards use very primitive tools. They may have gone to school two or three years and learned how to read and write, and then it was hard labor for the rest of their lives. Now they are in a new culture where education is mandatory for 12 or 13 years. . . .So just the setting is overwhelming.”

During the Cal State Fullerton program, parents learn about the educational system in the United States, and they learn skills that enable them to deal with their own children, who have been targeted by the district as potential dropouts, Lopez says.

Four of the 21 schools in the Anaheim district are participating in La Universidad de la Familia, according to Lopez. “We picked kids who were identified because they are at risk, either because they are recent immigrants or because they are having trouble adjusting to school,” he says.

The College Bound visits, which began in February, will continue until May, while the Cal State Fullerton visits, which began in January, will continue until August. Lopez says it is too soon to say how many children actually stay in school as a result of the two programs, but he adds: “We believe we are making a difference.”