What's New at EPAPA
Congratulations, Mayor Martinez!!
We are so proud that our very own Laura Martinez, our after school program director, has been elected the mayor of East Palo Alto! Laura is in her third year of her term on the City Council. She previously served as Vice Mayor. For more information, check out the story in the San Jose Mercury News.
March 1, 2011: Groundbreaking Ceremony for Our New Home!
On March 1, 2011 we broke ground at 1039 Garden Street, the permanent home for our secondary school. Many of our community partners joined us to celebrate this momentous occasion in our school community's history. So many individuals and organizations have contributed to help make this dream a reality, but we would be remiss if we didn't express our gratitude for the support of Sequoia Union High School District, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, our local funders and Advisory Board, Pacific Charter School Development, the City of East Palo Alto (the council and staff), and the tireless staff at Aspire's home office. Most of all, we'd like to thank our students and families, for their fortitude and vision.Be a permanent part of our school's history.
» Click here to donate a brick
June 2010: EPAPA Graduates its First Class!
On June 19, 2010, our founding class exchanged acceptances letters to four-year colleges for high school diplomas. This first graduation ceremony represents years of hard work and perseverance on the part of the families, students and staff at EPAPA, but everyone recognizes that there is much more work to be done to realize our dreams of college success. Nevertheless, this was a historic celebration that marked an important milestone in the lives of our students, their families, and the community of East Palo Alto. We would like to send a special thank you to the Four Seasons Hotel for their gracious hospitality in hosting our first graduation ceremony — it was appropriate to host this momentous event in such a classy locale. Check out some pictures from the event.March 2010: 100% of EPAPA Seniors Are Accepted to Four-Year Schools
In a community where more than half the young people don't graduate from high school and less than ten percent possess a college degree, the founding class at East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy has done what some said was impossible. Some of our students were told, "you're not going to make it" by adults in their lives who didn't believe that they could graduate, let alone attend a four-year school. Once again our students have proved their doubters—and sometimes even themselves—wrong. We appreciate that members of the local media were willing to highlight the positive accomplishments of our students: please check out the articles written about our seniors in the Palo Alto Weekly and San Jose Mercury News.Seniors Create College-Bound Video for College Summit
As part of a national contest organized by educational partner College Summit, our seniors created a video to highlight the importance of going to college at East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy. The EPAPA video, which was written, directed and edited entirely by students, was selected as one of the finalists in the competition. Congratulations again, EPAPA! You can check out the video, as well as many others, on our school's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/epapapictures.Dreams Become Reality: EPAPA Seniors are Accepted to College!
As of Thanksgiving, eight of our seniors have received acceptance letters from CSU East Bay (and one from Cal State LA). Clearly we're not at the "finish line" yet -- these are conditional acceptance letters, and our students still have lots of work to do. But we're thrilled that their hard work and perseverence is beginning to pay off! And we're excited for many more of those letters to come in! Congralations EPAPA seniors!Our First Acceptance!
Carla Hernandez was admitted to Cal State LA! Congratulations, Carla! We're sure there are many more acceptances on the way.
100% of EPAPA Seniors Apply to College
As of mid-November, all of the members of the class of 2010 have submitted at least four college applications. We've started with the California State Universities and will be moving on to the University of California system, as well as a variety of public and private schools throughout the state and the country. Click on any of the pictures below to see our students submitting their first college applications -- college success is one step closer!