Countywide : Districts Challenged to Urge Higher Learning
A local community organization that last year sent kindergartners to college campuses for a day is now challenging two school districts to start encouraging their own pupils to set their sights on a college education.
Members of Los Amigos of Orange County on Wednesday challenged the Santa Ana Unified and Anaheim City school districts to begin calling kindergartners the class of 2011--the projected year of anticipated college graduation.
In addition, Los Amigos wants all other students--first- through 12th-graders--designated as the class of the year they are expected to graduate from college.
The purpose for such designation is to “continually remind families and their children of the goal of full education through baccalaureate graduation from college or university,” said Galal Kernahan, a Los Amigos spokesman.
Completing a college education will be “more of a necessity of career success in the next century than it has ever been before,” he said. Students, Kernahan said, will begin to plan on higher learning if teachers, principals, parents and the community encourage them to do so.
To that end, Los Amigos is preparing to sponsor the second annual KinderCaminata, an event in which thousands of kindergartners converge on four local college campuses to get a glimpse of higher education and to learn about professions that require college degrees. It will take place March 31.
Officials at the two school districts said they will discuss the Los Amigos challenge at upcoming board of education meetings, Kernahan said.
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