A $3.5 billion settlement deal between the state and public schools awaits final approval from the voters next year, but as important as funding is to providing kids with the teachers and tools necessary for a good education, money is not the driving force in student success, it’s the people who provide them with the opportunities.
Schools in the area face some daunting challenges with a high percentage of students living in poverty stricken homes and many living a significant distance from school.
Winslow Unified School District Superintendent Lance Heister outlined some of the efforts being made in his district to help students perform at their best and reach their potential once they leave high school, something that can be especially hard for students with no family history of college attendance or completion.
“It has to be a very coordinated plan to effect any change in first time college goers,” stated Heister, who explained that a concerted effort begins in junior high with an Education and Career Action Plan (ECAP), an aspect of a computer class that emphasizes career exploration.
Once students get a feel for what is available, they move on to learning what path they would need to take to achieve their particular goal–a challenge met by the district’s academic counselors. “Our counselors meet with each student, all 725 of them, twice each semester in their ninth through 12th grade years. These meetings are usually done with the students in computer labs looking at career planning software in lots of 15 to 20 students at one time,” he explained.
The next few pieces happen mostly in the student’s junior and senior years. “We give a daytime, in-school, ACT (college readiness) test for all juniors in the spring of their junior year, so about 95 percent of our juniors take the ACT,” stated Heister, adding that the test is an important component because it’s at that point that most students realize they are more ready for college than they thought.
“Also, with our intersession schedule, we offer dedicated ACT prep classes, so a lot of juniors attend this in order to raise their grades on the ACT; also, because they know they will eventually take the ACT, a lot of juniors take the ACT prep class during both intersessions in their junior year just to do a little better. But the daytime, weekday ACT offering is very important because it is a culture changer, especially for first time college goers,” he said.
In their senior year students participate in a College Application Campaign. The district invites college graduates from the community to come in and sit with the seniors one morning to advise them on filling out at least one college entry application.
“It’s a good community outreach activity. We usually get about 35 volunteers, and then we include in-state and local college recruiters,” he said, noting that last year 97 percent of the seniors filled out at least one application to at least one college.
“Typically, those applications are to NAU (Northern Arizona University), and we have about 50 percent of those students getting accepted right off the bat. Again, it is designed to change the culture into one that is ‘college going,’” noted Heister.
Also in the senior year, the school hosts several financial aid nights, but Heister says the most important of these is the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) campaign.
“We have been involved with the Arizona Commission for Postsecondary Education on the FAFSA campaign. They have supported us with a software system that provides us with tons of data about which students and parents have completed the application, which ones have partially completed the app, and who hasn’t even begun an app. We then reach out to those parents and students individually to support them in getting the app completed,” Heister noted.
“You wouldn’t believe the reaction parents and students have when they find out that they qualify for about $5,800 a year in Pell grants; free money, doesn’t have to be repaid,” said Heister, adding that parents and students have often been brought to tears after going through the process and being accepted at a college or university.
“Again, it is about changing the mindset and the culture in families where no one has been to college and where they thought no one would ever attend. Anyway, it is a pretty comprehensive effort, and everyone has to be on board, teachers, administration, counselors, because at some point, everyone is going to have to do something out of the box to make all this happen.
“But in the end, all of our numbers have been going up, especially the most important number, college matriculation. We don’t know yet what our numbers of college completers are; we won’t know that for at least another year or so, since we have only had this comprehensive system in place since about the 2013 school year, but so far, so good,” said Heister.
Similar efforts are being made in all schools in the area and the challenge is the same: to take students beyond the moment and into a brighter future.
