The roots of what is known today as the Santa Ana Partnership reach back to the 1983-84 program year when the region’s first inter-segmental partnership formed with leadership from Manuel Gomez of the University of California, Irvine (UCI) under the auspices of Project STEP (the Student/Teacher Educational Partnership). Project STEP included the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD), Santa Ana College, UCI, California State University, Fullerton, and Chapman University. The coalition was initially formed in response to the rapidly changing demographics of the SAUSD, which was growing exponentially and equally rapidly becoming an overwhelmingly Latino, English language learning student body. The focus of Project STEP was to identify areas of academic vulnerability among SAUSD students and bring all entities together to address them. This initial analysis resulted in the establishment of a four-pronged structure, which has endured through the evolution of the partnership. The core components of Project STEP and of our current partnership are 1) research and evaluation, 2) direct academic and co-curricular work with students, 3) professional development for teachers at all levels, and 4) establishment of an organizing framework that insures parent and community involvement is not left to chance, maintains communication among all partners, helps to delineate specific roles and functions, and facilitates cross-pollination among related reform efforts. 

            In 1991, Santa Ana was invited to become part of the Urban Partnership Program, an initiative that the Ford Foundation was launching to significantly increase the participation of traditionally underserved urban students in higher education. Santa Ana hosted the first National Convening of the Urban Partnership in 1992, and the last in 1999. In the near decade in-between, a constellation of initiatives was developed and institutionalized that dramatically changed the landscape for students at all levels in the greater Santa Ana area. The partnership’s work continues to be nourished by a wide variety of funding sources which include continued funding from the Ford Foundation for the Collaborating for Education Reform Initiative, or CERI, the United States Department of Education for the GEAR UP program, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for ENLACE, and a number of others;  but perhaps most importantly, through the funding and resources associated with our own institutions to serve and support currently enrolled students.