YES program expands
Karen Peterson photo
Students Elizabeth Morigeau and Haley McCormack help paint the YES program classroom.
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The Youth Education for Success program, better known as the YES program, started up last year within the Arlee High School to help students earn diplomas, and the program is expanding to help more students, including teen parents.
“The best situation for a student is in the traditional classroom but sometimes that doesn’t work for a number of reasons,” said Rhonda Kinney, YES program teacher. “We started this to address the many needs of students and increase graduation rates.”
Three students graduated from the grant-funded program last year.
“If we have one graduate, that is a success,” she said. “That is one more student getting an education.”
Twenty-nine students are enrolled in the program this year and six will soon graduate.
“It’s growing and becoming a resource for more students,” Kinney said. “We also had a lot of out of district students come in. We want to help students, but the work isn’t easy. We want to provide a quality education with high expectations.”
Students work online in a classroom within the high school to earn credits.
“I help support and motivate them,” she said. “The teachers here also help with subjects like physics that I know less about.”
The program hasn’t worked for everyone.
“Last year, we had five teen parents,” she said. “None of them graduated. We had to look at reasons why that population wasn’t successful.”
Expanding the program outside of school to qualifying students might be a solution. Two teen parents have signed up to try out the new method.
“We’ve hired a new part time teacher — English teacher Kyle Newman — to give me time to go out and meet with teen parents to talk about credit recovery and their needs,” she said. “They work online independently. This program allows me to go out and give them support. We also have a student who can’t make it to school with extreme medical needs using this program.”
The alternative school offers a variety of options, including full-time enrollment in the YES program or a blended schedule with the program and traditional classes. Brandon Hanken, 17, is one of the students with a blended schedule.
“It’s helped me catch up and get the credits I need to graduate,” he said.
Haley McCormack, 17, moved to the district and discovered she was missing required classes she needed to graduate. She also has a blended schedule.
“I have enough credits, but I didn’t have the same classes Arlee requires to graduate, so this program helped me make those up,” she said.
Elizabeth Morigeau, 18, is a senior taking a few classes through the YES program.
“Online math didn’t work for me,” she said. “I need to be in the classroom to ask questions, but in health, which is a subject I know a lot about, I went right through it on my own. One way isn’t better. This just allows me to work at my own pace.”
Elizabeth said a diploma is important.
“You can’t do a whole lot without graduating from high school,” she said. “Without a diploma you are limited. I don’t do well with limited, and I like to have options that work with the way I learn. This gives me that.”
