Celebrating CLASP’s Twentieth Anniversary

It is CLASP’s 20th anniversary! The Celebrate CLASP party held in November recognized seven tutors who have been with us 15 years or more—from the very beginning of the program. For more about those amazing tutors, click here.

We are exploring our founders and their stories during this anniversary year. It was fortunate that all three pioneers who brought the Claremont After-School Programs into existence were able to celebrate with us in November: Shirley Butler Hughes, Carole Harter and Lissa Petersen. This article features Shirley Butler Hughes and Lissa Petersen. A future article will feature Carole Harter and spotlight our history and other founders.

SHIRLEY BUTLER HUGHES

Shirley Butler Hughes

Shirley Butler Hughes trained as a school guidance counselor and worked in the Pomona Unified School District for over 30 years. Among other assignments, she served as the administrator of PUSD’s Division of Adult and Career Education.

Driven by a personal philosophy to serve others, she said, “I wanted to help children develop academically so that they could become good citizens in their community.” As an expert in adult education, Shirley knew the consequences for students who leave school without completing a high school degree or the equivalent. Her vision was to help students with homework after school while at the same time relieving working parents of the stress of trying to find the time to help their children at home. She believed that helping struggling students early would help to lay the foundation for them to pass the California proficiency requirement for high school graduation (a requirement the state dropped in 2023). As president of the Pomona Valley Section of the National Council of Negro Women, she had access to a ready supply of volunteer tutors.

The City of Pomona stepped forward with some early seed money to realize this dream. The Claremont Unified School District and the City of Claremont provided additional funding. Officials also put Shirley in touch with Sy Braverman, the new owner of Vista Valle Townhomes, an affordable housing complex in Claremont on San Jose Avenue near Vista Del Valle elementary school. Housing the program in the apartment complex’s recreation center fit Sy’s plans to upgrade the quality of life for families living at the site and in the neighborhood. In 1995 the resulting Claremont Tutorial Center opened under Shirley’s leadership for two afternoons a week.

LISSA PETERSEN

Lissa Petersen

Lissa Petersen began tutoring at the Claremont Tutorial Center (CTC) in January 1996, soon after retiring from the Claremont Board of Education. She brought with her a long history of involvement in education. Lissa commented that “teaching is my passion and education has always been extremely interesting to me.”

As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Lissa tutored low-income students in Chicago and one summer worked as a teacher’s aide at a Head Start program in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Later she spent seven years as a high school teacher in Boston and Baltimore.

Arriving in Claremont, Lissa founded, ran, and taught in academic English programs for international students, along with teaching non-fiction writing at Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate University for over 30 years. She recruited her students from Pitzer and the other Claremont Colleges to volunteer as after-school tutors. She also connected the Claremont Tutorial Center with teachers, administrators and resources in the school district and with the Human Services staff at the City of Claremont. And she helped Mrs. Butler Hughes raise additional funds from Claremont nonprofits.

Lissa mentioned that her support stemmed partly from her experience on the Claremont Board of Education. The board made budget cuts year after year because of the loss of property tax revenue due to Proposition 13, passed by voters in 1978. These budget cuts had drastically reduced academic support services available to students outside of the classroom. She also thought these services should be delivered closer to students’ homes and families instead of at school sites, offering a more comfortable and intimate setting and minimizing transportation challenges for families.

In 1999 Shirley and Lissa, with support from Claremont’s Director of Human Services, Dick Guthrie, opened a second tutoring site at the Claremont Village Apartments, a large, affordable housing complex on Arrow Highway between Mountain and Towne avenues. CLASP ultimately came about in 2005 through the merger of the Claremont Tutorial Centers with the Youth Wellness Center afterschool program headed by Carole Harter at Saint Ambrose Episcopal Church.

Lissa served as co-president of the newly formed CLASP board during its first year and continued as an active board member until retiring in 2019. Her combined years of tutoring service to the Tutorial Centers and CLASP amounts to 30 years as of January 2026, and she continues on as an active tutor to this day.