By Chris Moran
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 20, 2002

SAN YSIDRO – All South County ninth-graders who complete college prep courses with at least a B average are automatically admitted to San Diego State University in 2006 – unless they're from San Ysidro.

Two years ago SDSU and the Sweetwater Union High School District formed the Compact for Success, which includes seventh-, eighth-and ninth-graders. Sweetwater has raised $1.5 million in scholarship money for the compact students in the three grades.

The compact is the centerpiece of Sweetwater's campaign to produce more college-ready graduates. Students must complete six years of prerequisites in Sweetwater middle and high schools to qualify.

San Ysidro students are left out because they do not attend Sweetwater middle schools, so they miss part of the sequence.

In 1974, San Ysidro residents voted 419 to 246 to approve a ballot proposition to withdraw their seventh-and eighth-graders from the Sweetwater district and keep them in San Ysidro.

Elementary school districts in Chula Vista, National City and Imperial Beach send students to Sweetwater after sixth grade; San Ysidro keeps its students through eighth grade.

Parent Christina Alamillo learned of San Ysidro's exclusion from the compact program through an announcement at San Ysidro High, where her son is a freshman.

"Once again there we are, San Ysidro being left out," Alamillo said. "They (also) tried to leave us out with the building of a new high school."

San Ysidro High opened this summer, with some South County leaders saying it was decades overdue.

Fewer than half of the residents in San Ysidro's 92173 ZIP code have graduated from high school, and only 6 percent have a four-year college degree, according to census data.

Sweetwater Superintendent Ed Brand, who approached San Diego State President Stephen Weber with the idea for the compact, said he didn't invite San Ysidro to the table because it would have complicated the already difficult job of bringing two large institutions to a detailed agreement.

Lionel "Skip" Meno, dean of the College of Education at San Diego State, said: "I think we had enough to do with a district the size of Sweetwater that was a pretty major undertaking in and of itself. The goal (of) let's get a man on the moon is very simple. Getting it done is very complex."

The exclusion of San Ysidro means freshman Pedro Ortiz, who attended Montgomery Middle School in Otay Mesa, is eligible for the compact. Ninth-grader Joel Castillon, who sits next to him in geometry class, is not because he went to San Ysidro Middle School.

"I have to try harder to get to college," Joel said.

Larry Perondi, who runs the compact program for Sweetwater, acknowledged the situation is "awkward" but said all Sweetwater district high school students will benefit from the college-prep coursework, higher expectations and motivation the compact provides.

"The byproduct of the compact is that there's a higher level of rigor throughout the district, so they (San Ysidro students) will be the beneficiaries of that," Brand said.

"It eats at me," said San Ysidro High Principal Hector Espinoza of the exclusion of nearly 500 of his 537 ninth-graders. He has tried to bolster their chances of attending college through a new club called the SYH Foundation.

The acronym was chosen to match the school's initials, but the club's full name is the Stanford Yale Harvard Foundation.

Espinoza said that through motivational speakers, campus tours and other college prep activities, the club will help encourage students to strive for admission to the nation's most competitive universities. He hopes to raise money to fund scholarships and travel expenses for students who want to visit out-of-state campuses.

San Diego State has demanded that Sweetwater push more students to take rigorous college-prep courses in exchange for the guaranteed admission. In part because of the compact, the percentage of Sweetwater eighth-graders taking algebra has tripled over the past five years, said Don Kemp, a Sweetwater assistant superintendent. San Diego State's Meno said the San Ysidro School District needs to make the same kind of commitment.

Meanwhile, the San Ysidro district has not helped its own cause. Meno said San Diego State is waiting for a permanent superintendent to demonstrate the the district's long-term commitment to meeting the middle-school requirements of the compact.

Superintendent Jose M. Torres, who had begun negotiating with San Diego State officials to enter the compact, was fired in June. The district has not begun to seek his permanent successor.

Meno said it's possible that a quick-acting and committed new San Ysidro superintendent could get this year's sixth-graders eligible for the compact.

"Everybody has the kids' best interest at heart. Nobody wants to exclude them," Espinoza said. "It's just a matter of getting the adults together and having a plan that will make it work."

In the meantime, he said, he is "frustrated, disappointed that we would have to put some kids in a have and have-not situation."

Chris Moran: (619) 498-6637; chris.moran@uniontrib.com