Focus on TUSD - March 2008

Foundation Scholarships Will Go to Elementary School Students
Qualifying fifth- and sixth-graders in Tucson Unified School District elementary schools will get a jump start on financing their college education with the help of a $12,500 challenge grant the Stocker Foundation has awarded to the Educational Enrichment Foundation, which is the supporting foundation for TUSD.

The grant will pay for a new program--Focus on the Future--that will award scholarships beginning next spring. Scholarships will be given to students who show outstanding academic promise and who come from TUSD economically disadvantaged families. Preference will be given to "firsters," those who would be the first in their families to attend college.

Focus on the Future scholarships will award a college scholarship to at least one student in every TUSD elementary school within three years. Robert Padilla, EEF executive director, said, "Providing some form of college incentives to elementary students is not unprecedented. However, doing so across an entire school district the size of TUSD represents a major innovation." TUSD has 73 elementary schools.

The scholarships will be supplemented by campus visits to either Pima Community College or the University of Arizona at least once each year. Visits to the Flandrau Planetarium, meetings with teachers, department heads, deans, and interviews with college students will be planned. Students will also get help on researching other college scholarships.

For more information contact EEF at 520-325-8688 or at eef@theriver.com.

Photos in the March issue by Jes Ruvalcaba of Communications & Media Relations, unless otherwise noted.

The deadline to submit material for the April Focus is Friday, April 11. The Focus will be published Monday, April 21. Email submissions to Chyrl Hill Lander or Sharon Dunham in the Communications & Media Relations Department or use the online Tip Sheet.