Whenever possible, they are grouped in their same college-prep math courses so they can share the same teacher and homework schedule. Often times, MESA alumni from local UC campuses or state universities serve as group facilitators or tutors. This way they can see how it all plays out, and have more time to reinforce the concept and help each other out. With matching funds from districts, participating schools provide one teacher per grade, beginning at the middle school level, to serve as a MESA Advisor. According to Jim Fritch, a MESA Advisor at Center High School in Antelope, north of Sacramento, the advisors are playing more active roles in the new MSPs.
Great engineers are also builders and artists.
Like most MESA sites, Center High offers Academic Excellence Workshops, individual academic plans, SAT preparation, career and college exploration, incentive awards and parent leadership training. Sometimes they don't realize that it's important not to ignore other academics. The long-term results of MESA's intervention are impressive. When Fritch started nine years ago there were no calculus students. Today, he has a full class of 30.