In The News.
By Hailey Heinz / Journal Staff Writer on Tue, Jul 19, 2011
How best to entice a teenager to do schoolwork during the lazy summer months? Cold, hard cash.
That’s the solution Scott Glasrud and his staff at Southwest Secondary charter high school came up with. The school reimbursed families for every day students attended summer school to make up credits that were failed or unfinished during the previous school year.
Glasrud, who heads the school, said the effort is aimed at helping students catch up and graduate on time.
“We decided to create a summer internship program, because often students won’t go to summer school because they want to work,” Glasrud said. “We’ve got to do something to get the kids graduated in four years.”
The program isn’t an internship per se, but more of a program that repays students and their families for attendance. Students wishing to attend pay $200 upfront for the cost of having a teacher staff the school for two hours per day, for 20 days in June. For every hour the students attended, they received a “stipend” of $5. If they had perfect attendance, they ended up with a full refund.
For Ashley Zacharias, the program inspired her to perfect attendance.
“What they did for the summer program I love, because it’s hard to be able to pay for summer school when your family doesn’t have that much money,” she said. “Getting it paid back is really great. You know that even though you’re giving the money at first, you’ll get it back if you do what you’re supposed to.”
Zacharias, 18, didn’t get completely caught up during the summer session, but she made progress on several classes and plans to finish them online during the rest of the summer. She will enter her 12th-grade year still one credit short of senior status, but has a plan to make up the credit and graduate on time next spring.
Southwest Secondary has a 50.9 percent graduation rate, which is below the statewide rate and which the school is trying to drive up through this credit recovery program.
Glasrud said he is happy with the progress students made, although he said it could have been stronger if they had done more work at home.
Overall, 19 students participated in the program, completing 21 half-credit courses. The program had an 84 percent attendance rate, and $2,690 will be paid out in stipends. Glasrud said he sees a bright future for the program, and may expand on it next year.
Posted July 19, 2011