Yonkers' Roosevelt High School opens new college center

Ernie Garcia
The Journal News

YONKERS - School officials have opened their first college information center at Roosevelt High School as part of the district's efforts to send more students to college.

"It's all about access," said Superintendent Bernard Pierorazio, speaking at the high school on Friday. "It's all about making sure they receive the best advice, counseling and pathways to getting into the very best schools."

The new $80,000 college center is a collaboration between the district, the Yonkers Partners in Education and the Nepperhan Community Center. The goal is to open such centers in all the district's high schools.

Wendy Nadel, YPIE's executive director, said that the centers will give the city's children essential support in their college searches that children in wealthier districts get from their college-educated parents.

"A lot of these kids are first-time collegegoers in their families, and many don't have that support at home," said Nadel, whose organization received a two-year grant from the New York Life Foundation to operate Roosevelt's center.

The college centers complement YPIE's ongoing initiative to pay for Yonkers students' preparation courses for the Scholastic Aptitude Test. About 300 high school juniors and seniors have taken the courses, and some have seen huge score increases that have broadened their college prospects.

Zacharie Gilliam, 17, a senior at Roosevelt, attended the center's inauguration and said his score rose from 1150 to 1800 with the extra help. The top possible score is 2400.

The test-preparation courses are standard practice in wealthy districts, but Gilliam said he had never heard of them until he was offered a free course.

Prior to the college center's opening, college coaching at Roosevelt was done by the school's guidance counselors, said Marissa Givens, 17, a senior. Givens said that school counselors persuaded many of her classmates to apply to at least five colleges, including prestigious institutions.

The Class of 2008 received about $21 million in college scholarships, about $8 million more than in the previous year, Pierorazio said. The college center opening is part of the district's new college-attendance campaign.

On Nov. 18, the district will hold a ceremony for the Class of 2022 at each of the city's public elementary schools. All the prekindergartners will be given T-shirts emblazoned with "College is in my future."

On Friday, about 250 students at Mark Twain Middle School also attended a college assembly, the first installment of the Heroes & Leaders program that will feature visits by the presidents of Herbert Lehman College-CUNY on Nov. 20 and The Cooper Union on Nov. 24.

Eileen Rivera, Mark Twain's principal, said it's never too early to put college in the minds of children.

"We're trying to give them an early start," Rivera said. "We actually have students going to the elementary school to speak to the preschoolers."