The East San Jose GEAR UP Community Achievement Project is a unique community based organization dedicated to increasing the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter into college. This project grew out of a desire to work with students in the East San Jose area and provide them with more opportunities to succeed in life. To date, the GEAR UP project has a successful program operating at Andrew Hill, Overfelt, Yerba Buena, and Independence High Schools. GEAR UP provides extensive services to over 1600 families whose students attend GEAR UP's four high schools.

East San Jose GEAR UP Community Achievement Project Accomplishments:

• The East San Jose GEAR UP is on track to double the amount of graduates who are prepared to attend a four year college or university when compared to the graduating class of 2000. From the graduating class of 2000 only 249 graduates went to four-year colleges and universities. An assessment done this year by East San Jose GEAR UP counselors indicates that 472 youth are on track to have completed the requirements to go to a four-year college or university. This is a 90% possible improvement.
  
  
• Serves 1,680 unduplicated students and offers parents a wide variety of services.
  
  
• Has provided 2,156,300 hours of direct service to youth and parents. A unit of service equals one hour of direct service per student. The average cost of providing a unit of service is $1.39 an hour.
  
  
• Students gave GEAR UP services an overall positive satisfaction rating of 80%.
  
  
• 89% of students surveyed indicated that because of East San Jose GEAR UP they plan to go to a college or university.
  
  
• Built a dedicated staff who are committed to serve the culturally diverse youth and parents. A strength of the program is the multiethnic, multilingual staff. The staff is comprised of counselors who hold Masters Degrees and/or are PPS credential eligible, Community Action Specialists (CAS) who are parents from the community, interns, and high school peer counselors. Together, they have built strong relationships with students, parents, and teachers.

• Saturday and evening classes in reading, writing, and math
  
  
• Academic tutoring and support
  
  
• In-home counseling and academic planning
  
  
• College awareness workshops
  
  
• Innovative teacher training
  
  
• Individual and group counseling
  
  
• College advising
  
  
• Mentors and on-line mentoring