Philip D. Brown

Richmond County Daily Journal

High school, like many other aspects of life, can have some bumps in the road, but four Richmond Raiders preparing for graduation in May say the road doesn’t have to turn into a dead end.

The decline in drop-outs throughout the school system over the past two years indicate this experience may be affecting other students in the same way.

Last week current Richmond Senior High seniors Wendy Clewis, Eric Harrington, Sonya Howlett and Jamie Mann gathered to discuss their experiences at the Richmond County Transitional School last year, and their transition to RSHS.

An informal show of hands among the four scholars showed all would most likely have dropped out had it not been for the opportunity they received to make up classes they’d failed at the high school, while continuing to earn credits toward graduation in the smaller, more one-on-one instruction environment of the Transitional School.

“When I was first (at Richmond Senior High), I got with the wrong crowd and all I did was skip,” Howlett explained her path to the Transitional School. “I missed 40-something days that year.”

For Harrington, the real trouble at the high school began when his grandmother passed away.

“I stayed out for three weeks,” he said. “I was really upset, and when I came back, I’d just put my head on the desk and go to sleep.”

For Mann, absences weren’t an issue, but her school social life got in the way of her grades.

Now back on track to graduate, Clewis recalled the change in attitude she had while at the school when it was located in Hoffman.

“When I started out at Hoffman, I didn’t like it at all,” she recalled her first day when she spoke to no one. “I felt like I was away from everybody. I felt dumb going out there, I mean, I was in a school with one hallway, but then I got used to it ... I wish I was there now.”

The Transitional School was located in Hoffman last year, but was moved to Ashley Chapel at the outset of this school year.

Clewis said the student life was different at the school where class sizes averaged 10 students or less.

“There’s less drama there, nobody gets in fights, nobody stands in your way in the hall,” she explained. “It’s much more quiet, and there’s way more one-on-one attention from the teachers.”

The change of culture reflected in her grades, as well.

“I made the A Honor Roll in the first six weeks I was there,” she said.

Now that they have made the transition back to the high school, the four said the former Transitional students have maintained the “family feeling” they formed while there, Clewis and Harrington explained.

“We stick together - we have our own little clique,” she said.

“With us, nobody’s trying to be better than anybody else,” Harrington added. “We want to see each other do well.”

The four got their report cards Thursday, and though Harrington was the only one to make the A/B Honor Roll, no one made a grade under an 80.

Not only does the anecdotal evidence show that two years into the transitional experiment, the results are proving to be what school officials expected when they created the school. There is statistical data to back it up.

At Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting, Richmond County Schools Superintendent Dr. George Norris presented the board with a six-year dropout comparison rate in the county’s schools.

It revealed high school drop-outs were cut by more than half from the years between the 2006-07 school year, when the number spiked to 202, to the 2008-09 school year when the number was 87.

In the intermediate year, the number of drop-outs was 136.

Though seven students dropped out of the Transitional School in its first year, RCTS Principal Susan Brigman explained one of those students is back there now and performing well in his courses.

“He came to me over the summer, just before school started, and said ‘You were right, I made the biggest mistake of my life,’” Brigman said. “He said he couldn’t find a job, and he didn’t have anything to do, he was just floating around. Now, he’s back, he’s working hard in his classes and he’s in it for the long haul. He’s going to graduate. We’re very pleased with that, that’s what we want to accomplish.”

The Transitional School was created before the 2008-09 school year, as part of the Richmond County Schools realignment plan, along with Leak Street High School to offer alternative learning environments for students who were unsuccessful at RSHS.

“There was a method behind what many people in the county saw as the madness of our realignment plan,” Assistant Superintendent and RCS Curriculum Head Dr. Michael Perry explained in a recent interview. “Richmond County is like a lot of counties, we face challenges with poverty issues, single parents and many of our kids lack structure away from school. The Transitional School and Leak Street have been a tremendous boon for us to help students who need some extra help to get through.”

Brigman explained the philosophy of the Transitional School in regard to its students who have struggled in the academic setting in the past.

“I think it’s important that if they’re already struggling, we want to make them feel they are safe and secure,” she said. “We want them to feel they actually can talk to a teacher, and ask the questions they might have been afraid to ask before.

“For a lot of our students, that was one of the biggest problems. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle in a class with 30 or more students in it.”

Among the skills and behaviors the Transitional School staff tries to instill in its students are not being afraid to raise your hand, being proactive in establishing a relationship with the teacher and not giving up.

“We’ve even told our students to go up and introduce themselves to the teacher right off the bat, and tell them ‘I was at the Transitional School last year, and I may need a little extra help, but I’m in this for the long haul and I’m going to graduate.”

RSHS Senior Project Coordinator works with seniors who attended the Transitional School.

“From speaking with them and monitoring their progress, I think they feel really good about the support they received at the Transitional School,” she said. “I see it as a great opportunity for them to get back on-track and graduate on-time. I think the students see it that way, too. I see it as a drop-out deterrent because they can see the end, and they know they can get back here and graduate.”

“Just judging by the fact that these students are on-track to graduate proves that the Transitional School is doing expected to do,” RCS Public Information Officer Ashley Simmons said. “And there is staff in place at the high school to continue to support these students, because the high school is definitely a different setting. The goal is for them to graduate on-time, and go on to be successful in life.”

As Harrington examined his A/B Honor Roll report card this week, he recalled what his report cards looked like before he attended the Transitional School.

“It was like 66, 68, 60,” he said. “The teachers aren’t bad here, I was just hanging with the wrong crowd, and not doing my work. I don’t blame them for flunking me.”

He acknowledges he was once a high school under-achiever, but is proud to have made the transition to future college student.

He credits much of his success to the attention and support he received from the faculty and staff at the Transitional School.

“They believe in us, they know we can do good,” he said. “I’ve definitely changed the way I look at school, and so have (the other three seniors), now we come to school and we want to do our work, and we don’t even bother with all the other stuff.”

Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.