Star Academy shines

It doesn’t look like a typical high school classroom, and that’s because it isn’t.

The Stall High School classroom with the ball chairs and laptops is home to the school’s Star Academy, a place where students who are behind can complete eighth and ninth grades in one year. They use the laptops for individualized lessons at their own pace, and the ball chairs allow them more movement than stiff, plastic ones.

“We’re trying to meet the needs of nontraditional kids in a nontraditional way because a traditional setting hasn’t worked for these kids,” said Anna Dassing, one of the school’s assistant principals and director of the Star Academy.

This is the program’s third year. All 19 of the students involved last year completed it successfully and moved on to 10th grade this year. The concept that it’s built around — accelerating students through their courses to give them a better shot at graduating — is being replicated across the district this year. Stall and five other high schools have started similar programs, and Charleston County School is spending about $720,000 in federal stimulus money on this.

“We need to do more for these over-age, credit-deficient students,” said Lou Martin, the associate superintendent who oversees high schools. “It’s up to us to get them back on track, not just meeting the bare minimum, but prepared to go on.”

Individual schools have tried in the past to help overage students catch up, but this is the first time they’re being aggressive about identifying needy students and putting them in a formal program, Martin said. Overage students are more likely to drop out, and the goal is to prevent that from happening.

Stall High began its Star Academy with state Department of Education funding, and 16 schools statewide, including Berkeley High in Berkeley County, have similar programs. The Star Academy is considered a “model program” by the National Dropout Prevention Center.

The program is the product of a private company, and it comes with computers, furniture and instructional materials. Charleston school leaders basically have duplicated what the company provides in their high schools.

At Stall High, teachers and administrators screen, interview and handpick participants. The program isn’t intended for students who read at an elementary grade level, who constantly miss school, who are more than a couple of years older than those in their grade or who have severe behavioral problems.

It is designed for motivated students who can read on a middle-school level and can work independently, Dassing said. Students might have fallen behind because of an expulsion, problems at home or sickness, and this gives them a chance to earn high school credits and catch up to their peers, she said.

“If we don’t want them to drop out of high school, then we need to hook them onto high school and get them invested in high school,” she said.

The Star Academy classes are small — a total of 22 students divided between two teachers. Boys and girls are separated, and the same teachers stay with students for most of the day. They spend about half of the year in eighth grade and the other half in ninth, with the goal of earning at least six high school credits. Teachers give them one-on-one attention and instruction, but students also work independently on computers.

Most of the Star Academy students need a significant amount of attention and encouragement because they have significant emotional and social needs, Dassing said. Some students’ parents are in jail, some live in group homes and others are being raised by grandparents; she explained that one Star Academy student has the needs of two typical high schoolers. That’s why it’s critically important to have the right teachers working with these students, she said.

“You’ve got to find the right fit,” she said. “You have to have high expectations with the support. It’s a motherly approach — expect a lot but also make sure you’re taking care of kids. The rapport we have with these kids is why they keep coming back.”

English and global studies teacher Joan Blanchard said the program works for over-age students because of all its components, especially the small group setting and the ability for students’ lessons to be individualized and self-paced.

Sophomore Tasha McFadden participated in the Star Academy program last year. She had fallen behind her classmates after an expulsion, and she felt out of place in her middle school classes because she was older than the other seventh-graders. She liked being able to learn at her own speed and was proud that she accomplished her goal — getting into her “right” grade. Now she’s in honors classes, plays basketball and is a member of the Future Business Leaders of America club.

Fourteen-year-old Nia White is in the Star Academy this year after she failed eighth grade last year because of distractions outside of school. Her classes aren’t easy, but she likes the small group instruction and says she feels comfortable talking to her teachers.

“I’m going to keep pushing myself to finish,” she said.