The Keltz family of Greenacres welcomed a new school year and a visiting student into their home this September. Alisa Studway from Memphis, Tennessee will be living with the Keltz family while she attends Scarsdale High School for two years as a STEP student. STEP, which is celebrating its 45th anniversary, is the Scarsdale Student Transfer Education Plan, an independent community program that identifies promising students of color and enables them to attend Scarsdale High School for their junior and senior years. The program offers qualified students access to Scarsdale High School's strong college preparatory program and extensive extracurricular activities, as well as the cultural and recreational resources of the New York metropolitan area. While in Scarsdale, each visiting student lives with a host family and is encouraged to become an integral part of the Scarsdale community. By offering students exposure to a different and challenging environment, STEP prepares them to take positions of leadership and responsibility in a multi-cultural society.

Scarsdale's STEP program was founded in 1966. Its original goal was to share the educational opportunities at Scarsdale High School with students from segregated Southern schools of limited resources. Since that time, STEP has expanded its recruitment base to include students of color from areas throughout the United States. Graduates of the program have matriculated at colleges and universities such as Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Fisk, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Ithaca, George Washington, Williams, Washington University and Yale. Many former STEP students have continued their education at the graduate level, pursuing law, medical, business and Ph.D. degrees.

The latest STEP student, Alisa (call her Lisa) ,heard former STEP student, SHS grad and 2009 Lehigh sophomore David Bougard speak about STEP at her high school. She immediately looked up STEP, filled out an application and submitted it. She came to Scarsdale in April with her mom for an interview and the entire STEP board was impressed with her composure, determination and poise.

Lisa says that SHS doesn't seem much different from her old school, just bigger. Her STEP sister, Sarah, runs cross country at SHS and convinced her to join the team as well. She has never run before but now is part of the cross country team. She's exhausted but enjoying it. She is benefitting from the new peer counseling group run by Dean Nancy Thompson and Youth Outreach Worker, Lauren Pomerantz. They meet every Monday for the first half of the year and Keith Martinez, the returning STEP student who is a senior, is an advisor for this group. The STEP Club at the high school has organized a few get-togethers with Lisa; lunch at Metro after the first day of school and dinner at Italian Village on Saturday night, the 10th.

Her host family includes Lynn Buckvar Keltz and Martin Keltz, and their three children, Sarah, a SHS senior, Robbie, a SHS freshman, and Jonathan, in sixth grade at SMS. They expressed interest in becoming a host family a little over a year ago. Sarah is a good friend of Will Hunerson, who hosted another STEP student. She brought the idea of hosting a student to Lynn and Martin who say that their kids were the inspiration for them to welcome a STEP student to their family.

STEP held their Welcome Dinner and Board meeting on Wednesday, September 14th at the home of Beth Ehrich. The organization is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year with a cocktail party on November 5th where they will honor Eric Rothschild, one of the founder's of the program. They expect a number of former STEP students and host families and all are welcome.

This year Elizabeth Gruber is the senior co-chair of STEP with Ilyse Tretter serving as the junior co-chair. This year, SHS has two STEP students in school. STEP student Keith Martinez returned to Scarsdale in time for football practice on August 17th after spending time at home in South Dakota. Earlier in the summer, he went to a college preparatory program, College Horizons, at the University of Rochester and also attended football camp at Franklin and Marshall with the SHS football team. He came back "home" to his Scarsdale family, the Steiners, and fell easily into his routine as a SHS senior. Former STEP student David Bougard is doing well as a sophomore at Lehigh University.

Interested families who would like to learn more about participating in the program should contact STEP at P.O. Box 278, Scarsdale, NY 10583 or email STEP at [email protected]

Pictured at Top: Lisa Studway and Keith Martinez
Pictured Above: Nicole Steiner, Mara Steiner, Keith Martinez, Lisa Studway, Lynn Keltz, and Brandon Steiner