One team collected funds to buy games and art supplies for an inner-city school. Another organized a gathering in Southeast San Diego to discuss hip-hop culture. Still other teams helped adults with computer problems, collected canned goods for a soup kitchen, and assisted teenagers with college applications.
Team members were seniors at the Preuss School enrolled in the Service Learning Community project. Students were encouraged to focus on an issue and how to address it worldwide, in the U.S., in California, and in their local community. After choosing an area of interest such as government/local politics, business/economy, health/social services, or education, each team surveyed people in the field.
Service Learning is preparation for a way of life—service to others—that the school hopes to instill in all of its students. Preuss, which opened in 1999 as a charter school on the UCSD campus, provides a pathway to four-year colleges for low-income students. It has garnered recognition as a model school that helps to bridge the achievement gap for underrepresented students.
In June 2007, Newsweek magazine ranked Preuss among the top ten of “America’s Best High Schools.” The school’s Academic Performance Index score has placed it among the top public high schools in San Diego County, with 96 percent of its graduates going on to four-year colleges. Additionally, the school was recognized as a California Distinguished School, received the Title I Academic Achievement award for two years running, and was acknowledged by the U.S. Center for Education Reform as one of the nation’s top charter schools.