Puente Employee Directory

Puente was founded in 1981 by Felix Galaviz and Patricia McGrath at Chabot College in Hayward. The program was launched as a grassroots initiative to address the low rate of academic achievement among Mexican American and Latino students. In an effort to understand the possible causes of this high dropout rate, Galaviz and McGrath reviewed over 2,0... 00 student transcripts. They discovered three key patterns among Latino students: students were avoiding academic counseling students were not enrolling in college-level writing courses students were the first in their families to attend college The Puente model that McGrath and Galaviz designed to address these three problems comprised three components: rigorous language arts instruction, sustained academic counseling, and mentoring by members of the professional community. After an initial pilot of the program proved highly successful, the program was replicated in three additional community colleges. To date, the community college program has expanded to 59 sites throughout the state. Based on its success with community college students, Puente received private funding to pilot its model in selected high schools in 1993. This pilot also proved highly successful, and the program has since been replicated in 33 California high schools.Read More