The Central Valley Math Bridge Program, which was featured in KSEE-24’s Education Matters (Fresno County Schools), has kicked off a student recruitment campaign for its first cohort that will begin in the fall, 2024.

Math Bridge program kicks off with 14 Central Valley
high schools — student recruitment campaign underway

BY OWYNN LANCASTER
Vice President for Academic Strategy – College Bridge

With the advent of the new year, the Central Valley Math Bridge Project is in high gear preparing for the program’s launch this fall at 14 high schools in the nine-county region in partnership with six community college members of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium.

Presented by College Bridge and CVHEC, the program announced this week 14 valley high schools that will start the first cohort in the fall 2024. Student recruitment campaigns are now underway at several of the high school campuses.

“The recruitment campaigns will allow each school to hone in which students they want to support and ‘build the bridge’ with their respective college partners to help students succeed in math,” explains Dr. Nicole Korgie, vice president of Operations at College Bridge and an expert in college counseling and admissions.

This list of participating high schools confirmed to date (listed by their community college partner) also reflects the first phase of recruitment campaigns as noted by the date set for student information sessions at the high schools in parenthesis. Those schools without dates will be included in the second phase of student recruitment to be announced later:

DELTA COLLEGE

Stagg High School (TBD)

Weber Academy (Jan. 25)

MERCED COLLEGE

Golden Valley High School (Jan. 17)

Livingston High School (Jan. 23)

Atwater High School (Feb. 27)

Buhach Colony High School (TBD)

Mariposa High School (Mar. 8)

REEDLEY COLLEGE

Dinuba High School (TBD)

Orosi High School (TBD)

Sanger High School (Mar. 7)

Sanger West High School (TBD)

TAFT COLLEGE

Taft High School (Jan. 16)

WEST HILLS COLLEGE COALINGA

Tranquility High School (TBD)

WEST HILLS COLLEGE LEMOORE

Riverdale High School (Jan. 24)

The Math Bridge program, in partnership with CVHEC and Rand Corp., is designed to improve math outcomes for struggling 11th and 12th graders and streamline Math pathways into college.

Funded by a five-year $4 million grant through the US Department of Education’s Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program, the ambitious endeavor was kicked off in May with a convening of more than 150 valley K-16 educators in Fresno to begin the onboarding process for this historic intersegmental collaboration between CVHEC member community colleges and high schools in their respective service areas.

This past fall, the College Bridge and CVHEC Math Bridge teams visited campuses to onboard participating high schools.

This included the High School Strategy Session component that brings together the College Bridge team with a high school’s administration, entire math department, entire counseling department and partner college’s math faculty for a three-hour discussion to strategize how to tailor a productive Math pathway for students.

Dr. Lynn Cevallos, president of College Bridge, said these strategy sessions provided high school math teachers the opportunity to examine their whole math program, comparing it to the college eligibility of their students and what next real-life choices are available when students graduate high school.

“Sprinkled with some required criteria by the state, these sessions get you a tailored math intervention for students at your high school,” she said. “It is by far one of the most logistically stressful, but fruitful professional discussions around math an educator could have.”

College Bridge is a California non-profit based in Los Angeles County dedicated to forging a path towards both college access and success for underrepresented students.

High Schools interested in participating in the second cohort for the academic year 2025-2026, may contact Owynn Lancaster, vice president for Academic Strategy with College Bridge, at Owynn.Lancaster@college-bridge.org.