Aim High began in the summer of 1986 as a small, one-school operation at Lick Wilmerding High School. Soon after, another independent school got word about Lick’s incubation of the Aim High summer program. Aim High wouldn’t stay small for very long.

  In the spring of 1988, Aim High co-founders Alec Lee and Eleanor McBride hosted a workshop at Lick-Wilmerding High School. The purpose of the workshop was to encourage more schools to launch programs like Aim High. Attending this workshop was Mark Salkind, the Head of School at the Urban School of San Francisco. “We very much wanted to start a summer program,” said Salkind. “We had a lot of interest in reaching beyond the walls of Urban, to serve different kinds of students.” A number of factors made Aim High a more appealing choice than reinventing the wheel with their own program. “It was a three-year commitment on the part of the students and families,” said Stephen Thomas, then Urban art teacher and now Head of School at the Oxbow School in Napa. “It was not just kids who were already performing well and who were looking for further enrichment. It was going to be [focused on] academics and life skills. I thought that focus was more reality-based. It was addressing a population that really could use up that kind of energy and attention.”

Two years after the conversation had begun, in the summer of 1990, Aim High finally opened the doors of its second campus at Urban, with Thomas and Urban English teacher Jeanne Felton as the founding site directors. The Urban/Aim High partnership had begun. Over the years, the Urban School and Aim High have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, each bringing out the best in the other.   Shortly after launching the new site, Urban School and Aim High teacher Richard Lautze started a new initiative, by launching what’s now called the Aim High Environmental Home, a weeklong nature experience reserved for Aim High ninth graders in their last year of the program. “Getting kids out in nature was a big part of the Urban plan, and then it spread to the rest of Aim High.” Thomas recalled. To date, thousands of Aim High ninth graders across the Bay Area have participated in the Environmental Home, which all started at Urban. Dozens of Urban students and alumni have gained valuable experience working as Teaching Interns and Lead Teachers. Many have gone on to exemplary careers in education and social service. Additionally, numerous Urban School faculty members have worked at Aim High as Lead Teachers and Site Directors. In fact, one veteran teacher actually joined the Urban faculty because of her experience at Aim High.

Deborah Dent-Samake, or Debbie as she is called by her students, was a teacher at Katherine Delmar Burke School in the Sea Cliff neighborhood when she first learned about Aim High. She was attending a People of Color Conference in LA when she met Stephen Thomas. “He introduced himself and said he worked at Urban,” said Debbie, “He wanted to know if I would be interested in working at a middle school summer program and, though I didn’t know a whole lot about the program, I said yes.” Debbie was initially drawn to Aim High because it gave her an opportunity to teach public school and parochial students. “We could really make a personal connection with students and help cultivate their self-esteem,” said Debbie. “I also went to public school, so there was a personal interest for me as well.” Working at Aim High introduced Debbie to the culture of Urban: “I was impressed with the Urban students who were working as mentors and teachers. It was a very vibrant and exciting place to be. That’s when I fell in love with the school.” After teaching a few summers at Aim High, Debbie joined the Urban School faculty in 1996 and has been teaching History ever since. Besides attracting fantastic educators, like Debbie, to teach at Urban, Aim High opened Urban up to a much larger educational landscape, exposing the school to many families that may not have learned about the school otherwise. “We serve a very small number of kids extremely well,” said Salkind, “and [Aim High] was a way of connecting us with the larger educational community in the city and serving some kids where there is extraordinary need.” Over the years, there has been a large overlap between Urban faculty and Aim High staff, which, we believe, is no coincidence. Aim High provides a re-energizing summer teaching experience that is also an exciting professional development opportunity. “I think it gives [Urban faculty] more experience with teaching students from different communities,” said Debbie, “Whether it’s students who have different religious affiliations, or speak English as a second language… I think it keeps us on our toes and and energized.” As a high school, Urban’s mission is to “ignite a passion for learning and to inspire students to become self-motivated, enthusiastic participants in their education.” This is a mission perfectly aligned with the overarching goals of Aim High. “Aim High not only focuses on academic skills,” said Salkind, “but also on instilling and changing the attitudes and habits necessary to being a good student. I think [Aim High] gives a lot of kids a sense of hope and a sense of possibility for their futures, in some cases that they many not have seen or felt before.”   Due to a campus expansion project, this summer will be one of those rare summers when Aim High will not run at the Urban School. Although we will be at a different campus, we know the Urban “magic” will be as strong as ever.