Education: College Operates Several New Programs in Heart of The Community
San Diego State University officially opened its doors in City Heights last week.
The school has extension classrooms throughout the county, but its location at 4283 El Cajon Blvd., in the old Lloyd’s furniture store, is different.
The SDSU City Heights Community Center is an outreach from the university to the citizens and students of City Heights. The facility will cater to programs aimed at improving the educational skills and opportunities for a community considered one of the most diverse in San Diego.
“It’s really a pleasure to see these buildings come alive,” said San Diego State President Stephen Weber. “But it’s more than a nice space, it will have programs that will enrich this community.”
Weber said when the idea was proposed for San Diego State to implement the program, the decision was easy.
“It’s a chance for us to learn,” he said. “We’re a learning organization, and here we have a wonderful laboratory.”
Weber said the school takes part in numerous community service programs in the county, but this is the only one directly administered by the university.
The community center was made possible in part through an $18 million gift from Price Charities as part of that organization’s goal to revitalize City Heights. The SDSU Foundation contributed $1.7 million to purchase the buildings and has provided in excess of $1.2 million in improvements.
Although a portion of the program has been operating in half of the 84,000-square-foot facility for more than a year, last week marked the expansion of the center that will house eight programs run by the university’s staff.
Already up and running at the site is a literacy center, an initiative of the SDSU College of Education, which serves as a training ground for teachers looking to become reading specialists. The literacy center also provides members of the community with high-quality, low-cost tutoring to improve reading and language arts skills.
The City Heights Educational Pilot, a collaboration among SDSU, Price Charities, the San Diego Unified School District and the San Diego Educational Association, also operates in the center.
The program facilitates educational outreach to Hoover High School, Monroe Clark Middle School and Rosa Parks Elementary School , all within blocks of the community center.
Other programs housed in the center include: the CHOICE program, which attempts to keep at-risk youth on the right track; South Coastal Information Center, which houses cultural resource records, reports and maps; the Community Technology Center, which is set to open later this year and provide 100 computer workstations and technology instruction to City Heights students; the Malcolm Center for Community Counseling, which will provide mental health services; and Mission Federal Credit Union, which will be staffed by Hoover High School students.
Mission Federal has plans to house two additional credit unions in schools under construction, one in Spring Valley and another at Westview High School in the Poway Unified School District. LeeAnn Hardman, who will manage the City Heights branch, said the program is a part of the credit union’s financial literacy program.
“We take students and teach them the financial literacy and career skills that they will be able to take with them anywhere they want to go,” Hardman said. “We’ve been teaching financial literacy for about three years.”
