La Verne Joins College Access Leaders at White House Conference

White House officials invited the University of La Verne to a conference Nov. 17-18 regarding First Lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative, an event where La Verne officials promoted their work in the Ontario-Montclair Schools Foundation’s Promise Scholars program.

The invitation-only conference at San Diego State University drew leaders in the areas of school counseling and college access to discuss how to boost the number of children pursuing education beyond high school.

“We’re brainstorming how we can partner these two large groups,” said Kathy Elderson, La Verne assistant professor of education.

Elderson brought officials from the Promise Scholars Program with her because the project goes to the heart of the First Lady’s initiative.

“I wanted Promise Scholars there because they’re a model program and I think people across the nation would want to hear what they have to say,” Elderson said.

Promise Scholars exposes children in the Ontario-Montclair School District and three Chaffey Joint Union High School district schools to college starting in the fifth grade when students are taken on a community college tour. They also visit a four-year university in the eighth grade, said Leslie Sorenson, Promise Scholars director.

Program volunteers help students with career exploration, financial aid and college applications.

La Verne plays a role in Promise Scholars by providing students from the University’s Master’s in Educational Counseling program to help children navigate the educational pipeline to college. La Verne is the only institution to provide these services to the program. The University helped serve 7,300 students through Promise Scholars in the 2013-14 school year.

“We’re looking forward to (the partnership) deepening and growing over time and it’s unique in that we don’t have that relationship with any other institution,” Sorenson said.

Elderson says La Verne students benefit by being immersed in quality hands-on training, which goes toward their credentialing requirements.

“They’re getting a very broad picture of how we can successfully implement change in the area of college and career readiness,” Elderson said.

The Reach Higher Initiative is part of President Obama’s “North Star” goal, which aims to make America the top country in terms of college graduates by 2020.