Performance Learning
photos by jordan white
A new program at the old Tubman hopes to carry at-risk students through graduation and beyond
While late bells across the CSRA are calling reluctant students back to their desks, a new program is targeting Richmond County students predisposed to miss school bells altogether, late or otherwise. The Performance Learning Center at the newly renovated Tubman Educational Center at the old Tubman Middle School uses a nontraditional educational style to try to keep potential dropouts not only in school, but on track to earning a high school diploma. “It’s being offered to the students who are at risk primarily due to some particular barriers in their lives,” says Executive Director of Communities in Schools for Augusta/Richmond County Dr. Eleanor Hopson. “For instance, there may be something going on at home and the student is consistently tardy, consistently absent from school or not participating as he or she should be.” For many Richmond County students, the consequences of other peoples’ lifestyles — parents, siblings, guardians or neighbors — can dramatically impact the way a student views his or her education. Without
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adequate role models, students can fall into destructive behavior with devastating repercussions. “For the young ladies, a lot of times they are getting in trouble and then there’s a child in the picture and they’re distraught and they don’t know which way to turn,” Hopson says. “They want to continue their education, however there’s a barrier.” For the boys, the dropout rate itself can be a deciding factor. Hopson says that a typical, packed ninth grade class will lose 30 percent of its students by 11th or 12th grade. Lacking the motivation to stay, many boys simply follow their friends. According to Regina Reid, a site service coordinator for the program, the Performance Learning Center allows the education process, never considered all that flexible, to adopt to the students’ circumstances, whatever they might be. “We’ll accept students with any non-academic barriers they may have, whether teenage parents or teens having to work — anything where traditional school just isn’t working out for those reasons,” Reid says. “Oftentimes they miss too many
days, they get behind academically and then it’s just hard to pull up in a regular school setting. This gives them the opportunity to work at their own pace and hopefully get through the program.” The goal of the program, of course, is to increase the graduation rate. Since 2003, more than 4,800 students have earned their high school diplomas through Georgia’s 19 PLCs. Communities in Schools in Augusta/ Richmond County is an independent agency working within the schools. It’s housed in Student Services at the Richmond County Board of Education building on Broad Street and provides technical assistance, program evaluation and advocacy to students in need. Dependent on grants, its programs don’t add to the district’s already fragile budgetary problems. “We’re not pulling anything from any of the great budgetary needs of the Richmond County School System,” Hopson says. “We actually bring in grants to help. This Race to the Top grant is being brought in to support the PLC.” Part of the 2009 Recovery Act, Georgia will receive $400 million over
four years thanks to the Race to the Top grant, which was designed to kick start innovative education reform at a local level. Hopson explained that a proposal for the grant had to be written at the local level by Communities in Schools administrators and Richmond County School System administrators, ensuring cooperation between the two. “The Race to the Top grant was granted to develop a Performance Learning Center here with the goal in mind to increase the graduation rate and also to fulfill the needs of the students who are about to drop out of school,” she says. “When the grant was awarded to us, we became a partner with the school system to make this possible and the school system has matched with personnel. The facilitators are certified.” As a drop out prevention agency, Communities in Schools also trains mentors to assist students in all aspects of their lives. “Face to face mentoring is very, very effective,” said Reid, who as a kind of social worker in the school witnesses first hand how important having a reliable adult in your life can be. V. 22 | NO. 51