Class act: WOOF: Moving past old problems to future success
By:
Carol BrydolfSummer 2013
Up until fairly recently, youngsters who wound up at Kaweah High—a continuation school in Tulare County’s Exeter Unified School District—came to this alternative education program feeling pretty bad about themselves and their future prospects.
“These students too often felt that all their chances and hopes for success had faded,” says Denise Akin, the high school’s principal.
The negative attitudes that potential employers and other members of the local community displayed about alternative education students—many of whom, after all, had washed out of conventional schools because of academic or behavior problems—did nothing to boost students’ self-esteem.
“We’re a small community,” Akin says. “The widespread public perception about these students was that they had been in jail and/or were in trouble.”
But things began to change for the better in the spring of 2009. That’s when district and high school staff sat down with local community service providers for what turned out to be a critically important brainstorming session. Disturbed about disappointing academic and social performance among Kaweah students, the group was looking for some new answers.
“We wanted to know: Why were the graduation rates, attendance and expectations so low at our continuation high school?” Akin recalls. “What would it take to change the community’s perception of the students attending the continuation school and rally support for their success?”
What emerged from that modest discussion is a groundbreaking collaborative program that won a Golden Bell Award from CSBA last year in the Innovating High Schools category—an honor bestowed on innovative services that have been proved to make a difference in the lives of students, and that can be replicated in other schools, districts and county offices of education.
Working On Our Future got its start as a pilot program at Kaweah High School, which typically has an enrollment of between 60 and 90 students. Despite its doggy acronym, WOOF has nothing to do with canines and everything to do with transforming lives.
“It began as a focus group meeting,” Akin remembers. “It grew into something larger than we could have imagined.”
In close collaboration with staff at the Boys & Girls Club of the Sequoias, reformers devised a three-pronged strategy that focused on academic intervention and enrichment, life skills development and job and career preparedness.
Akin says the collaborative partnership between the district and the Boys & Girls Club is critical to WOOF’s success. The organizations share data, space, staff and resources to provide comprehensive services to students. Grants and financial donations from nonprofits, business and the community also support the program.
Students who maintain acceptable grades, attendance and behavior are eligible to leave the Kaweah campus during regular school hours to take elective courses at the local Boys & Girls Club’s Teen Center. The club provides the facility and some staff, Exeter teachers accompany students to the club and align instruction to district curriculum. WOOF also encourages students to take advantage of the club’s after-school services, which keep kids engaged and off the street.
Participation in WOOF is a privilege, not a given. “They have to earn it, and they can be fired,” Akin says.
The first semester that the electives were offered, 17 students qualified to take these enrichment courses. By year’s end, 40 students met the standard that allowed them to spend the final period of each school day at the club.
WOOF also recruits potential employers to help teach students how to apply for a job, make a good impression in an interview and refine the talents that make for a good employee. By building connections between students and potential employers, WOOF uses real-world experiences to teach youngsters how to be reliable and conscientious. Representatives from local businesses conduct practice interviews and sometimes hire and mentor students who impress them. Succeeding in a job often gives students confidence that they can do well in school as well.
In just a few short years, WOOF has shown results.
More students are graduating and either going to college or succeeding in the workplace, Akin says. Attendance is up and behavior problems are down. WOOF’s success was all the more impressive, given that the program was launched at the very time when the worst of the state’s budget cuts to public education were beginning to hit home.
Exeter has opened the program to include students in other district alternative education and independent study programs. Neighboring districts are also taking notice. The Fresno Unified School District and the Fresno County Boys & Girls Club have implemented portions of the program, as has a collaborative of service providers in rural Tulare County. Combining work experience with a focus on academics has turned out to be a winning formula.
“Some of these youngsters did not know what it meant to be job ready,” says former Exeter schools Superintendent Renee Whitson, who retired last year after nearly two decades of service. “At first, it may just be a job. But as they begin to do well, they begin to believe in themselves. People look at them differently. It’s literally a transformative experience.”