Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
School District 55 is one of 12 groups of schools to be accepted as part of a new Gear-Up program, a federal grant program that encourages students from low-income families to attend college.
The program begins working with students in the seventh grade, Sweet Home High School Principal Pat Stineff said. A six-year cycle that included 16 groups of schools has just finished.
According to Oregon Gear-Up Director Stephanie Carnahan, in material about the program provided by Stineff, some 100 low-income students had financial barriers to attending college substantially mitigated at the end of the program.
The idea is to “give low-income students every opportunity to prepare for and succeed in college,” she said. Each set of schools handles the program in different ways.
The funding for the program is not set and can range between $25,000 and $40,000 per year, Stineff said. When the federal government does provide the funding, the Oregon University System will notify District 55. The program requires matching funds.
The program is a partnership between Sweet Home Junior High, SHHS and the higher education system, Stineff said. Starting in the seventh grade, the schools begin working with specific students, from junior high to graduation.
At the end of that period, the students in the program are eligible for large renewable scholarships and grants, said SHJH Principal Hal Huschka, not just the $500 or $1,000 variety.
The program provides early intervention, Stineff said, and early college awareness with preparation through comprehensive mentoring, counseling, outreach and support.
The federal program objectives are to increase academic performance for post-secondary education among low-income students; increase the rate of graduation and participation in post-secondary education; and increase family knowledge about opportunities in post-secondary education.
At a meeting about the program, Stineff learned that 46 percent of students start post-secondary education and that six in 10 jobs require it. In 2002, 51 percent of students in the highest-income schools attended colleges after high school graduation while only 31 percent in the lowest-income schools attended colleges.
The program specifically targets a group of students who would not normally continue education after high school, Stineff said. During the course of the program, the district will “take kids to colleges and let them know they can go to college.”
It will help make it affordable and provide ways of funding college education while making sure they take the right courses to properly prepare them for college, she said.
One of the reasons students don’t go on to college is money, Huschka said. This will help them past that hurdle.
The program will provide college funds for about 20 students at the end of six years, Huschka said. The Junior High will identify many more students than that for the program to offset attrition from students moving away during the period.
The details of the program are not set yet, Stineff said.
But it will begin with next year’s seventh-grade students, Huschka said.
Kristin Adams, who works at SHHS, applied for the grant.