BUILDING CONFIDENCE
Hemet High using program to help freshmen transition into high school life
BY KEVIN PEARSON
STAFF WRITER [email protected]
Less than a year ago, Karlie Chamberlain routinely turned in her homework but brought home failing grades. She sat in the back of her eighth-grade classroom, hardly saying a word until she came home to beg her mother, Julie, to be home-schooled.
Now Karlie, a freshman at Hemet High, sits in the front of her classes and is among her school’s higher performers. She is one of more than 300 students taking part in a freshman transition program funded by federal stimulus money. Hemet High is one of four schools nationally taking part — the only one west of the Mississippi — and at 2,500 students is the largest school in the program.
“I feel like this is what education is supposed to be,” her mother, Julie Chamberlain said. “It would be nice if every kid had this opportunity.”
The program — Building Assets, Reducing Risks — is funded by the Search Institute with money that is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, boosted by President Barack Obama’s administration to promote job growth. Hemet High received $800,000 for the program over the next four years, most of which will be used on teacher salaries.
The program helps build student confidence in some key subjects as well as helping them build relationships with teachers and fellow students.
With 74 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced lunches — an indication of low income — Hemet High offers a realworld litmus test for the viability of the program.
“We knew it was good stuff,” said Sue Brown, who is coordinating the program at the school. “The question is, could we make it work. We are rocking this program.”
Angie Jerabek designed the program in the 1990s while working at St. Louis Park High School in the Minneapolis suburbs. This program is different from other freshman transition programs, Jerabek said, in that it is all-encompassing, focusing on academics, attendance, substance abuse and problems at home.
At St. Louis Park High, the number of students taking Advanced Placement classes has increased tenfold in the 13 years the program has been in place.
“We’ve been charged with developing a new model of high school,” Jerabek said. “This changes the way teachers operate. The teachers are no longer responsible only for content. They are now responsible for the students.”
MENTORING FRESHMEN
The purpose of the pro gram is to ease freshman transition while increasing academic achievement, using blocks of teachers to work more closely with students and to address the outside factors, such as personal issues, that may hinder students in the classroom.
In the pilot year of the program, half of Hemet High’s freshmen are taking part because the Search Institute needed to establish a control group to determine the baseline for results. Students were selected to participate at random by an outside firm, and many of those not involved are unaware.
Through the first triad reporting period, nearly twice as many students failed a class who were not in program as students who were in the program. Overall grade-point averages were higher in the BARR program, too.
The program extends to math, English and either science or “High School 101” classes. The three teachers involved will all share a pool of students, enabling them to work with one another to address student needs and better monitor their progress.
“Being in the BARR program gives you the opportunity to know your teachers better,” freshman Nola Prickett said. “You have a better relationship. They know everything about you, even the stuff you don’t know that they know.”
Beyond the traditional curriculum, time is taken each week for cultivating relationships, between fel low students and between students and staff. “I Time” projects are designed as team-building drills and over the course of the year, 40 topics will be tackled such as family issues, dealing with stress, self-esteem, resisting peer pressure and chemical dependency.
Hemet High Principal Emily Shaw said a number of teachers have described the process as “rejuvenating” to their careers. The school is hoping for more grant money, since the original sum did not account for larger class sizes in California or higher teacher salaries. The Soboba Tribe of Luiseño Indians intends to donate $10,000 to the school to help that cause.
With those factors in mind, combined with the fact that Hemet is easily the biggest school taking part, Shaw said there was some pressure to succeed with what could be a new education model.
Jerabek said each student will be tracked for six years, including two years after graduation, in hopes of measuring the impact of the program.
“The success of Hemet High is going to determine the success of this grant,” Shaw said. “If Hemet High falls on its face, the whole grant does. If we’re successful, it shows the BARR program can be implemented anywhere.”