Minority Scholars was a program that helped minority students prepare for college and kept Honors and Advanced Placement students going at a good pace in their classes. The sponsors of the program were social studies teacher, Jimmie Foster, and former English teacher Diane Allen. 

The program was founded in 1998; it was brought back in 2021 after 10 years and ended this year due to Allen retiring. 

Minority students at Central are underrepresented in Honors and AP classes, according to a Register analysis in 2023. Hispanic and Latino were 33.8% of students at Central but only 25.6% of honors students and 17.6% of AP students. Black and African American students were 25.8% of students at Central but only 22.3% of honors students and 16.2% of AP students. 

Minority Scholars was an invite-only program and was held during students’ lunch period on A-days. Students would write college essays, do mock interviews, get involved in volunteering and socialize. 

“That class is where I learned how to make a resume. No other class sophomore year teaches you how to do that. It’s the year you start applying for jobs, so it was a really important skill,” senior Alexia Vu said. 

The program also gave students the chance to get in touch with their cultural backgrounds and share them with other students. Culture Day gave students the opportunity to bring a dish that pertained to their culture. 

“Both years I brought quesadillas, which is a pastry from El Salvador. You get to talk about it to everyone. That was a really cool day, definitely one of my favorites,” senior Ruth Rivera said. 

The key parts of the program, like information about college and getting prepared for the future in general, started to be presented in classes like Freshman Seminar and Personal Finance. 

“A lot of students are going to be able to do those things and learn the skills sooner,” Vu said. 

“By the end of the program we were doing things that just about every student was getting [in other classes],” Foster said.