This needs-based scholarship program awards three students who are pursuing a college education. Two $14,000 scholarships will be awarded toward a university/college education and one $8,000 scholarship will be awarded toward a vocational or community college education. All scholarships are distributed over a 2-year period. Priority is given to students who have not received a substantial scholarship from other entities.

The application is available on-line this year at http://www.highlineschoolsfoundation.org/scholarships/stiascholarshipapplication.html

The application deadline is Friday, March 23, 2012.

Students should seek the help of their school’s counselor with the application, or to contact the Foundation office at info@highlineschoolsfoundation.org or (206) 248-5196.

“The STIA scholarship I was fortunate enough to receive allowed me to focus more of my attention on my classes and less on worrying about paying my college costs. It was a real motivator for me.” -Christina Shull, former STIA scholarship recipient

Yet for more than 55,000 low-income student growing up in South Seattle and South King, education results are shockingly poor. We currently import more talent than we grow locally; the effects are devastating for our children and our communities.   The difference in attainment between those who migrate here and those who grow up here is staggering.

The Community Center for Education Results (CCER) was founded to work in partnership with communities and organizations that want to dramatically improve results at all stages of the education continuum, from “cradle through college and career.” The goal of CCER is to make the Puget Sound the region that produces the best-educated people in the world.

CCER’s Road Map Project aims to double the number of students in South King County and South Seattle who are on track to graduate from college or earn a career credential by 2020. The current Roadmap goal is to get 100 percent of all eligible 8th graders in the project region signed up for the College Bound Scholarship by June 30 of this year.

For the first time ever the region’s school districts are working collaboratively to increase the number of eligible students signed up for the scholarship, which covers the cost of tuition at Washington’s public colleges and universities.

Low-income students are asked to sign a pledge to graduate from high school, demonstrate good citizenship, and seek admission to a college or university; those who sign the pledge by June 30 of their 8th grade year are eligible.

“To date, 61% of eligible 8^th graders in the region have signed up,” reported Mary Jean Ryan, Executive Director of the Community Center for Education Results, which coordinates the Road Map Project.

The Road Map region includes the following school districts: Auburn, Federal Way, Highline, Kent, Renton, South Seattle and Tukwila.

To get more information and sign-up for the College Bound Scholarship, please visit:  http://www.collegesuccessfoundation.org/collegebound.

(Content provided by CCER.)

Burien nonprofit New Futures, which serves local low-income children, youth and families, will celebrate the academic achievements of four students at a May 4th benefit breakfast honoring the 2011 New Futures Scholars.

The Sixth Annual Get Inspired! Breakfast will be held from 7:30am – 8:30am at the Washington State Convention Center and emceed by KIRO’s Angela Russell, features four Highline School District students who will each receive a $1,500 scholarship for higher education.

Last year’s winners were Cecilia Mora, Genesis Guardado, Yadira Trujillo Lopez, and Bikram Subba.

“It’s a fabulous opportunity we offer to these students, to recognize their work and inspire their higher education endeavors,” said New Futures Executive Director Mario Paredes. “Not only do we hold the opportunity to inspire these four scholars, but also their families and friends, and the other youth throughout New Futures programs who aspire to reach for higher accomplishments.”

One of last year’s New Futures Get Inspired! scholars, Bikram Subba, was also awarded a $5,000 scholarship from the 2010 Sun Life Financial’s Rising Star Awards. His photo was recently featured in The B-Town Blog, alongside Venus Williams. Bikram is currently pursuing a career in medical administration at Highline Community College and dreams of improving the health care system.

“I want to make the system better so that people do not have to struggle like they do now,” Bikram said.

Anyone interested in learning more about New Futures’ work is invited to attend the breakfast event, and guests will be asked to make a contribution. For more information, visit www.newfutures.org or contact Katie Boehm at katieb@newfutures.org or at (206) 248-9647.

New Futures works with South King County’s most vulnerable and difficult-to-reach children, youth, and families, operating vibrant community learning centers in four low-income apartment complexes in South King County (3 in Burien and 1 in SeaTac). New Futures’ mission is to partner with families in their communities and with educators to ensure that children succeed in school and life, serving more than 1,800 individuals each year.

From their website:

New Futures’ on-site, strengths-based programs integrate work on four levels: (1) we support children and youth ages 3 to 18 to improve their academic skills, access enrichment opportunities, and plan for their post-secondary academic futures; (2) we partner with parents to help them meet their families’ basic needs, become involved in their children’s schools, and develop their leadership skills; (3) we build community to ease feelings of isolation, strengthen families’ support networks, and improve safety and quality of life in each neighborhood, and (4) we work closely with schools to provide teachers and school leaders with training to strengthen their cultural proficiency and to close the achievement gap.

Our integrated, culturally relevant programs build skills, foster connectedness, and promote strengths. We serve one of Washington State’s most diverse counties: two-thirds of South King County’s recent population increase is due to the arrival of foreign-born residents. These residents, our participants, hail from nearly thirty countries around the world, representing multiple cultures and speaking nearly 70 languages. Of the individuals served by New Futures, 90% are recent immigrants or refugees, nearly half speak little or no English, and 98% earn less than 30% of King County’s median household income ($25,300 for a family of four). Participants in New Futures programs are racially diverse: 67% identify as Latino; 9% as African or African American; 15% as multi-ethnic; and 5% as Asian and 3% as white.

The New Futures Scholars selection committee includes:

• Amy Taylor, New Futures donor
• Carla Jackson, Deputy Superintendant, Highline School District
• Julie Burr Spani, Specialist (Internships and Mentoring), Highline School District; New Futures Board Member
• Mike Martin, City Manager, City of Burien
• Jenn Ramirez Robson, Management Analyst, City of Burien; New Futures Board Member
• Jerry Robison, Councilmember, City of Burien
• Angela Russell, news Anchor, KIRO; and New Futures 2011 Breakfast Benefit Emcee
• Deborah Horne, Reporter, KIRO, and Creator of KIRO InColor
• Dana Boales, Programs Director, New Futures
• Heather Giron Fritts, Development Director, New Futures

Here are last year’s New Futures Scholarship Winners:

2010 New Futures Scholarship winners Cecilia Mora, Genesis Guardado, Yadira Trujillo Lopez, and Bikram Subba.

The Rotary Club of Burien/White Center recently awarded local winners of its 2010 Scholarships, which includes students from Evergreen, Highline, Kennedy and the Puget Sound Skills Center.

The club grants a student from each school for extraordinary community service with a “Service Above Self” award. 

The scholarships recipients this year were:

• Evergreen – Fabian Valencia and Mahlet Assefa
• Highline – Giovanni Torres and Dijana Raco
• Kennedy Catholic – Bridget Grotz and Mary Corbett

The Service Above Self Winners were:

• Evergreen – Nicolas Malagon-Lopez
• Highline – Michelle Wunch
• Kennedy Catholic – Cerice Keller

This year a third scholarship was granted to three sisters within the same family – the Corbett sisters are all graduates of Kennedy Catholic High School:

• Katie (2005)
• Mary (2010)
• Meagan (2008)

Congratulations to this year’s 2010 Scholarship Winners:

"Service Above Self" winner Michelle Wunch.

The Corbett sisters of John F. Kennedy High School.

Highline Community College’s 14 Honors Scholars for the 2008-2009 academic year received $624,000 in financial aid and scholarship offers to continue their education, including Burien student Jennifer Anne Kemp.

The Honors Scholar program’s 70 graduates have earned a combined $2.4 million in scholarships and other financial aid since the program began in 2003.

“The 2008-2009 academic year has been a banner year for the Honors Scholar program,” said Barbara Clinton, the program’s adviser. “The entire group of graduates earned about 25 percent more in financial aid and scholarships than last year’s students.”

The program is open to all students who have 12 credits of college-level work with a 3.5 GPA or higher. The program prepares students for upper division courses, typically offered at a four-year university or college.

It has shaped Gates Millennium Scholars, USA Today Academic All-American, Coca Cola Gold Scholar and Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship and QuestBridge College Match Scholarship winners.

The 2009 scholars will graduate on June 11 and include Boreth (Terry) Long, a national Guistwhite Scholar winner.

The White Center resident was one of the 20 students across the nation who won the honor, a $5,000 scholarship for academic achievement, community service and participation in the national honor society for two-year colleges, Phi Theta Kappa.

Long emigrated from Cambodia to the United States four years ago and has found success in Highline’s Honors Scholar program.

“The program inspired and motivated me to do more in my classes than what was expected,” Long said. “I’ve learned so much and I am confident I will be successful when I transfer to a university.”

He plans on attending the University of Washington in fall 2009 and will graduate with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering at Highline.

In addition, he has maintained a 3.87 GPA while working as a math tutor in Highline’s Math Resource Center and organizing the Fundraising to Make a Difference Club, a group that has helped raise about $500 each quarter to support children’s education and to fight trafficking of women in Cambodia.

In June 2009 he received one of the college’s top awards – the Shirley B. Gordon Academic Excellence Award – a $1,500 scholarship named in honor of Highline’s former president.

“The Honors Scholar program is a must for everyone who comes to Highline,” Long said. “It is a privilege to be part of such a program.”

This year’s 13 other Honors Scholars, by city, are:

• Auburn: Tierney Kuhn, Katherine S. Tacke
• Burien: Jennifer Anne Kemp
• Des Moines: David Ganett, Nari Kim, Mang (Jerry) Li, Kuan-Hung (Eleven) Liu, Robert Martin, Tuyet Anh Nguyen, Jerry Zarski
• Federal Way: Lei Lam (Selina) Chan
• Renton: Ashley L. Matsumoto
• Milton: Rikki-Rachelle Hinz

For more information about Highline’s Honors Scholar program and to read more success stories, visit http://flightline.highline.edu/honors/.

Highline Community College was founded in 1961 as the first community college in King County. With approximately 10,000 students and 350,000 alumni, it is one of the state’s largest institutions of higher education. The college offers a wide range of academic transfer and professional-technical education programs, with day, evening, online and weekend classes.

With the most diverse population of any college in Washington state, Highline takes a multicultural approach to education for the success of all its students and the prosperity of its surrounding communities. Alumni include former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, entrepreneur Junki Yoshida, Washington state poet laureate Sam Green and even Scott Schaefer, Publisher/Editor of this here website.

Hundreds of Highline middle school students have applied for the state College Bound Scholarship, which pays for four years of college tuition, fees, and books for students who stay in school, stay out of trouble, and keep their grades up. Low-income students and students in foster care are eligible for the scholarship.

Statewide, only 29% of eligible students have signed up for the scholarship since it was announced last spring.

In Highline, 71% of eligible students applied.

At Pacific Middle School, 95% of the eligible students sent in applications. Principal Cecilia Beaman says she talked about the scholarship with students and parents at every opportunity. “When a parent came in to talk to me, I signed them up on the spot. As I saw students in the halls, I talked with them, handed them an application, and then dogged them,” she says. Teachers and counselors talked with individual students. A language tutor worked with Latino families to sign students up. “It was a team effort, and we were tenacious,” says Beaman.

Sylvester Middle School signed up 167 students, 82% of those eligible. At both Chinook and Cascade middle schools, well over half of qualifying students applied for the scholarship.

“Getting students to apply was a big priority for us, because getting kids prepared for college is our focus as a school system,” says Highline Superintendent John Welch. “Finances are a barrier for many of our families who want to send their children to college. The College Bound Scholarship removes that barrier, so we work very hard to make sure all our families take advantage of this opportunity.”

When students apply for the scholarship, they pledge to keep their grades above 2.0 GPA, graduate from high school, and be law-abiding citizens. As long as they still meet income requirements at graduation they receive the scholarship, which can be used at any state college or university.