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I CAN DO IT! is an incentive driven, stay-in-school program designed to assist highly at-risk students between 5th and 10th grades. The goal of the program is to help students who have a history of truancy and academic failure to stay in school and complete the requirements for graduation. It also provides experiences which contribute to a wider range of life skills and building of behaviors which will be the basis for success in high school and later life.
Failure in school and the exceedingly high dropout rate are of local and national interest and concern. Thousands of children, especially in our inner-cities, are dropping out of school at alarming rates, with Arizona ranking last in high school dropout rates. Yet, those who are involved with youth in our inner-cities know that dropout rates measured only in high school are only the tip of the ice burg. A high majority of children actually stop going to school or develop the patterns of failure while they are between the 5th and 8th grades. Thousands of our youth are on the streets before they even dream about high school. These children have fallen between the cracks of our system, and outside of measurable data. They live in a world where citations and threat of incarceration are not deterrents. They have learned to live outside of the consequences and the protection of the system. To complicate matters, nothing in their environment tells them to go to school. Their families have rarely completed school and are often in crisis. School is nothing but failure and fighting. Their peer group ridicules their school attendance. Few positive role models are evident. Yet, these very children want to make it! They just don’t know how! It is these children the
I CAN DO IT! program is influencing.
The I CAN DO IT! program consists of three components:
Accountability, Assistance and Incentives.
- Accountability regarding attendance and academic progress is the foundation for responsibility. The schools of each student are contacted weekly and the students get progress forms filled out every three weeks. In this way we partner with the schools, the student, the parent, and our
staff.
- Assistance is the second component, with the provision of personal tutors/mentors for each child who meet weekly with the student. There is also an after school study hall which is run by education students from Arizona State University.
- Incentives are the third component of success for this program. Receiving incentives by the student is dependent upon the student’s successful completion of goals in academics and attendance. As the semester unfolds students will be able to earn such rewards as a home computer, clothes for school, gift certificates, new shoes, and movie tickets. At the end of each semester, if the student has reached their goals, they will be going on groups trips like a ski trip to Colorado, a plane trip to San Antonio, TX , or a camping trip in the Arizona mountains. Every three weeks students participate in activities which enhance their world experience, activities such as horseback riding and playing golf. One of the most powerful incentives is participation in a peer group which meets regularly, sharing the same goals, and dealing with the same issues.
Year
End Report, 2000-2001
Ten
students participated in this year's pilot program. I am
overjoyed to report some of the successes our children attained this
school year. At the end
of the school year we had children earn the following awards:
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4 students on
the honor roll
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1 student on
the ‘A’ honor roll
-
1 student won
Student of the Month
-
3 students
won Student of the Week
-
1 student won
Most Improved Grades
-
1 student won
Best Social Studies Student
-
1 student was
honored in the newspaper for being the first in her family to go
through 8th grade graduation exercises
Next year we hope
to expand the program to include 40 students between 5th
and 10th grades. The
students will be divided up into four different groups, according to
age levels. Their trips
and awards will be grade appropriate, growing with each level.
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