LTCC grant to help local kids move onward, upward

Lake Tahoe Community College has been awarded a five-year federal grant designed to provide academic support for 500 low-income, first generation college-bound students from South Tahoe Middle School and South Tahoe High. The Department of Education grant will be consist of five annual payments of about $230,000 each, said LTCC spokeswoman Christina Proctor. The college was informed it had been awarded the grant by the offices of California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. 
 "Our grant application received 100 out of 100 possible points," said Tom Greene, LTCC vice president of academic affairs and student services.
The goal of grant, called Talent Search, is to increase the number of youth from disadvantaged backgrounds who complete high school and pursue some sort of postsecondary education, according to the Department of Education. As an imprecise measure of the number of disadvanted children on the South Shore, more than 45 percent of the students at South Tahoe Middle School and South Tahoe High School qualified to participate in the free and reduced lunch program in 2008-09.

The types of services offered through Talent Search include academic, career and financial aid counseling, tutoring, assistance in preparing for college entrance exams and completing college admissions applications, and exposure to post-secondary campuses, cultural events, and other academic programs.
Each of these services are designed to improve participants' persistence in high school, graduation rates with a rigorous secondary school program of study, college enrollment and completion.
LTCC plans on hiring a project director, a program coordinator/high school student support specialist, a middle school student support specialist, a program assistant, and part-time tutors to successfully implement the grant.
"For many students their college trajectory is often determined before they are out of middle school," said Greene. "This is one example of the college and school district partnering to strengthen the educational pathway for South Tahoe students leading to a college degree."