We work hard to be responsive to individual needs when it comes to navigating educational systems so we encourage students and families to contact with any questions, concerns or ideas related to preparing and paying for college. We also provide: academic support from GEAR UP Instructional Assistants and College and Graduation Specialists, mentoring from college students, academic support, enrichment opportunities and field trips. We also provide regular workshops on career awareness, college and career planning, scholarships, financial literacy.

There is no paperwork required! All Burlington-Edison students who are part of the Classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025 are automatically part of the GEAR UP family. You do not have to qualify for free and reduced lunch or do anything to sign up.

Unfortunately, we are limited in being able to support your siblings and we do not create programing for students who are not currently 8th, 9th or 10th graders.

Under normal circumstances, GEAR UP offers regular college visits and career exploration field trips. Places we love to visit are: the Western Washington University, the Seattle Art Museum, the state Capitol in Olympia, El Centro de la Raza, the Aeronautical Museum, and more! We also regularly participate in youth conferences, events and workshops. Always pay attention to deadlines to sign up and to whether or not the field trip you are interested in requires an application or is first come, first served.

Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, most GEAR UP field trips are postponed until further notice. We are offering some social-emotional support activities (art kits, wellness checks, Leemos book group) and will continue to partner with Vamos Outdoors for spring activities (see our Enrichment page).

We encourage GEAR UP students, parents, guardians and siblings to sign up to receive messages through the Signal Vine text messaging platform (see below). This allows to send reminders and announcements as well as to respond to individual inquiries. You can also sign up here to receive our monthly newsletter.

In the New Year, we will be resuming our monthly parent meetings, via Zoom instead of in person. Please stay tuned for dates, times and workshop themes.

To receive GEAR UP grant dollars, the Burlington Edison School District participated in an application process led by the University of Washington Minority and Diversity Affairs Office, which is our granting organization. The federal dollars that we receive to support cohort students and families is administered by the UW and we report all spending and services to them to be sure we are compliant with federal grant regulations. Because of our affiliation with the UW, our students do sometimes receive access to campus activities, such as the UW Early Engineering Institute and Discover Days, but we do not have any affiliation with UW Admissions.

The Burlington-Edison School District is actually part of two UW grants - RISE UP (Rural Initatives in Science Education Undergraduate Programs) and SKY (for Skagit, Klickitatat and Yakima counties), as is Mount Vernon School District.

All students in the Classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025 are part of GEAR UP. You cannot be kicked out of our program. However, we do have high expectations for our students because we know they are wonderful human beings who know how to act and treat others well. When on GEAR UP field trips, we expect our students to carry themselves in ways that make their families, school and community proud of them. Our GEAR UP Field Trip Expectations are:

We belong everywhere we go/Pertenecemos en todos los lugares donde vamos

We are active and present participants/Somos participantes activos y presentes

We go together/Vamos juntos

We respect everyone around us/Respetamos toda la gente quien encontramos

We have fun!/ ¡ Nos divertimos!