Local News Riverside students ‘Reach Higher,’ campaign for Michelle Obama to visit their school

By Ryan Hagen

Michelle Obama said to reach higher. So Norte Vista High School in Riverside is reaching for a visit from the former first lady.

Inspired by Obama’s “Reach Higher” initiative, which encourages students to attend college or professional training after high school, students and staff members at the school have launched a focused effort to get her to speak on campus.

Obama hasn’t indicated whether she might come. But as she tours the country to promote her memoir, “Becoming,” she’s already given some personal attention to Norte Vista.

“I know how much effort and energy all of you students are putting into the college process, and I know how high you’re reaching every day,” Obama said in a video message to Riverside County students announcing they would get tickets to her book tour in Los Angeles.

When the Riverside County Office of Education tweeted its appreciation, showing Norte Vista students reacting to the message, Obama repeated the message to her 12 million Twitter followers.

While she already planned to go to college, the experience was inspiring, said Deja Summerville, 17.

“She made it so much less scary,” said Summerville, a junior who’s a year away from applying to college. “It made me realize she’s an actual person who eats and sleeps and does human things.”

Similarly, Reach Higher’s trips to Southern California colleges showed Ricardo Esperanza, 17, that the campuses aren’t the imposing and foreign places he’d pictured before.

“I’ve never been a field-trip type of person, but I see now these places are just schools  — I can go there,”  said Esparza, who’s set to attend Chaffey College. “I’ve always seen them as someplace too high for my level of achievement … College isn’t out of reach.”

Without Reach Higher, Esparza said he would likely still be struggling as he tried to fill out college applications and financial aid forms, unsure what to look for in a college.

The percentage of Norte Vista students attending college rose from 53 percent in the class of 2016 to 65 percent in the class of 2018, while the percentage filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, has risen from 67 percent to 80 percent, said Priscilla Grijalva, a counselor at the school and organizer of the Reach Higher campaign.

In hopes of spreading the inspiration further, about 400 seniors — more than 80 percent of the class — wrote to Obama asking her to speak at the school’s college signing day or at graduation in May. So did local dignitaries, from the Alvord school board to Congress, Grijalva said.

In his letter, state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, said he believed the school’s embrace of the Reach Higher and Better Make Room campaigns contributed to the higher college acceptance rates in the community.

“These young men and women have taken the pledge to ‘Reach Higher’ in their educational goals and to inspire future generations to pursue post- high school education,” Roth wrote. “They are the embodiment of Southern California’s very bright future.”

Esparza said he can’t say enough about how Reach Higher changed his educational path, but there’s one message he wants to emphasize.

“Michelle Obama,” Esparza said, “come to Norte Vista.”