Demolishing Dropout High

“WERE ANY OF YOU worried to start high school?” asked
incoming Reynolds High School ninth grader Clarissa Diaz of the
audience gathered outside Legacy Emanuel Hospital on Wednesday morning,
July 22. The group of assembled dignitaries listening to Diaz speak
included Mayor Sam Adams, County Chair Ted Wheeler, and Portland
Schools Foundation board member Karen Whitman—and all three
raised their hands.

Only 57 percent of Portlanders graduate from high school on time,
and both Wheeler and the mayor have made doubling the graduation rate a
priority by 2013. Diaz was at Legacy last week along with 30 other
Reynolds students on a career site visit as part of Adams and Wheeler’s
new Summer Youth Corps program, which has provided 500 students with
career and college campus visits this summer—aiming to prevent
students dropping out by connecting them with a more defined future.
Summer Youth Corps was developed based on research showing kids going
into ninth grade need to be targeted for special attention, most of
all.

“What’s really on the line this summer is the future economic
vitality of our community,” said Wheeler. “Too many kids fall through
the cracks.”

“Some students’ parents forced them to be in the program, but I
chose to be here,” said Diaz, explaining that the program has
introduced her to new friends and teachers, and has helped her feel
more confident as an incoming freshman. On top of visits to Reed
College, Ecotrust, and the Northwest Film Center, Diaz is also one of
1,000 incoming students taking extra academic classes four days a week
this summer through the Portland Schools Foundation’s new Ninth Grade
Counts program.

“I grew up in this neighborhood, but I didn’t see Emanuel Hospital
as a place to work until I got involved through a volunteer program at
Benson High School,” said Monique Allen, a long-time Emanuel nurse,
addressing the students. “It’s never too late or too early to start
expressing your interests in terms of jobs.”

Youth Corps volunteer coach Jimmy Brown accompanied the Reynolds
students on their tour as they watched a team of nurses resuscitate a
plastic patient named Mr. Smith in the hospital’s simulation suite.
“This is where I had my tonsils out when I was in high school,” said
Brown, who worked for 25 years in the county’s parole and probation
department before joining the Portland Water Bureau.

“I started at Jefferson High School 43 years ago,” he continued.
“And a program a bit like this helped me acclimate to the high school
experience, except it was focused on the school itself—not career
choices or college visits.”

Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, with painted “Asian theme”
toenails, Brown said his fashion choices showed, “I am totally
comfortable with who I am.” He said his toenails had prompted several
conversations with the kids about peer pressure and choosing one’s own
identity.

AmeriCorps volunteer Liz Pacholl took one 13-year-old boy on a side
trip to visit his older sister who had just given birth in the
maternity ward. “We couldn’t find her,” said Pacholl, returning after
an hour. “But we used the walk over there to talk about social skills
and learning life lessons.”

Both Brown and Pacholl think Youth Corps is working, but expressed
concerns about follow-up.

“What could make this program really successful is to continue
connecting with these kids throughout their high school experience,”
said Brown.

Mayor Adams’ education strategies youth coordinator, Reese Lord,
says the plan for Youth Corps is to continue assisting students through
their high school experience, although the plans are yet to be
formalized or released on the program’s website. Lord says the success
of the program will first be measured in November, when the achievement
of kids who went through it will be compared with others, citywide, who
missed out.

In Diaz’s case, at least, the initiatives seem to be working. She
lives with an aunt after seeing her father deported to Tijuana five
years ago, she said, and has never met her mother. But despite those
setbacks, her ambition is clear.

“I want to go to Harvard and be an immigration lawyer,” she told the
Mercury at the conclusion of the tour. “I want to do something
big.”