Lucy Filppu, MA

FCE Board Member

AP Capstone and English Teacher at Palo Alto High

My name is Lucy Filppu and I am a teacher at Palo Alto High School. Prior to that, I was the co-founder of a children’s educational website and spent over a decade as a professional writer in New York City. In my teaching career, I have firsthand experience watching the divide that keeps under-resourced students from accessing the tools they need to attend and finish four year college. These students have talents and possibilities that cannot be realized without purposeful, systematic help. That is one reason I launched a Peer Mentorship Pathway at Palo Alto High School following the work of Opportunity Insights at Harvard University. The pathway spreads economic connectedness among students, allowing lower income teens access to vital social capital. My passion for serving lower income, promising students also drives my interest in Foundation for a College Education (FCE). With its proven track record of assisting students to realize their college potential, FCE fills a need that most high schools cannot. Students are given consistent resources to develop their potential, year after year. At a time of great political and economic divisions, nonprofits such as FCE are crucial. They operate beyond barriers. They unite, bring together and allow our most promising youth to rise up into a society that desperately needs them. It would be my deepest honor to serve on the board of FCE and to do my part to help this exemplary institution realize its goals.