The NET Charter High School, located in Central City of New Orleans, works with a very unique student population. Recruiting some of the city's most disadvantaged youth, NET staff have developed an innovational school structure that attempts to work with students around their busy schedules to earn a high school diploma before the age of 21 (the age at which the state will stop funding their public education).
But in addition to the pride the school has earned over the 26 students that have successfully graduated since the school opened 2 years ago, the staff and students continue to quarrell with the deep violence that continues to grip the streets of New Orleans and which has claimed the lives of 5 of its students. And according to a recent NOLA.com profile of the school:
The school's staff know it comes with the territory, as hard as that is to face. 'We go out and recruit kids who are highly at risk for this happening,' Ostberg says. 'And sometimes it does.'Click here to read the Times-Picayune's profile of the NET Charter High School.
What this 40-year-veteran of the public education system finds unique and motivating about the NET model is that they work with students around their schedules. In a city where 1 in 4 still don't have a high school education, I witnessed far too many students that weren't successful under the traditional school model. But rather than adapt, most administrators and teachers continue to try and force a traditional student to fit the traditional mold.
Educators both locally and nationally could learn real lessons from these educators that are fighting to work with those that have been forgotten by the system. The current system clearly just doesn't work for everyone. So we must force ourselves to consider every variable that we control, and adapt each one to meet the exact needs of the students at a point that works for the student, not for the system.
What do you think?
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| Joey-Lehrman |
