Giving Students Hope

The Program

The goal of the program is to focus on the education achievement gaps, the gap of academic achievement which persists between students of ethnicity and disadvantaged students from economically disadvantaged families:

• With disabilities
• With limited English proficiency
• From all major ethnic and racial groups

It is expected that the students of the program will have to complete multiple steps in their educational process trying to complete their graduation requirements for the State of Washington. During this process these students will endure some failures before success. Through program-designed relationship building, case management, building individual self esteem and incentives, these unsuccessful steps will be minimized and built upon as milestones on their road to success. The primary target population for Surviving Change students will be "At Risk Students" in middle and high school with a special emphasis on drug/alcohol, gang affiliation, Individual Education Program/Plan students, out of placement adolescence and juvenile offenders. A maximum of 26 students per year will be accepted into the program.

Service Learning

This section of the program focuses on our high achiever High School students who have excelled in English and who have passed the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) which measures students' learning of skills and knowledge. These students are giving back to the community and their peers by tutoring our English as a Second Language (ESL) students to help them to pass, and meet the Washington State requirement for graduation. These students must show they have a certain level of skill in reading, writing, and math to be eligible to graduate. Our students who have met the WASL requirements in English, Writing and Math, tutor other students two hours a day, four days a week to ensure their educational growth.

To learn more about this program and others, please contact Deborah Jackson.