Graduation Walk Continues to Lead March for Diplomas
Volunteers gathered at Scavo and other high schools in Des Moines on Saturday for the seventh edition of the successful Graduation Walk.
The 2014 Graduation Walk was the biggest ever. Volunteers knocked on more than 1,200 doors around the community to invite dropouts back to school and get students who had fallen behind back on track towards high school diplomas. This year’s event was smaller by comparison. Only 700 or so homes were targeted. Typically, annual events of all sorts like to grow. But this one seems to be shrinking. And that’s a good thing.
“That’s because there are less students in need of reengagement,” according to Allyson Vukovich, the DMPS Community Partnership Coordinator and organizer of the 2015 Grad Walk which happened on Saturday morning.
This year’s event, the 7th annual, was headquartered at Scavo, the school formerly known as “alternative” that’s been rebranded to “full service.” What better place than this national attention-getting hub deep in the heart of the district on the cutting edge 4th floor at Central Campus?
That rebranding change in terminology is more than mere PR semantics. That was abundantly clear to the group of community volunteers that Scavo School Improvement Leader Mike Cameron took on a pep talk tour of Scavo’s jaw-dropping facilities before they hit the streets to knock on the doors of the disengaged. After what they saw maybe they knocked a little louder and were more convincing in their pitches.
Besides the already up and running daycare center and food pantry that were part of the full service model as soon as the school moved back downtown last January, Scavo is now set to open a comprehensive healthcare clinic that will address dental, physical and mental health issues that may be preventing students from succeeding in the traditional high schools. Eventually the services will extend to students’ families as well, knocking down even more barriers to regular school attendance.
“We’re not just about graduating students,” Scavo principal Rich Blonigan told the troops before they fanned out, “we’re about preparing them.”
Other supports include a senior seminar where students learn the nuance of college and job applications. Community internships are arranged. Partnerships are forged. Doors are opened.
An encouraging corollary of the dwindling number of targeted households is this year’s waiting list for community volunteers, a first in the history of the event. There were actually more people willing to help than were necessary!
One of those tagging along on Cameron’s guided tour was Iowa Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds. “Oh my gosh, I am just blown away…what a message to these kids that they matter and are valued,” she said.
Cameron spoke to that notion. “When we moved in here and the kids saw that everything was brand new they said, ‘You mean we get new stuff?’ They were used to old desks from an elementary school (the newly reopened Moore building on the northwest side) that didn’t even fit some of them. Now they’re right here in the middle of all the great facilities and programs available at Central.”
Vukovich emphasized another new wrinkle in this year’s grad walk. Each of the teams whose home lists included households where English isn’t the primary language included a bilingual member. “We couldn’t cover every one of the languages spoken in our district because there are so many, but we were able to provide for the homes where Spanish is spoken,” she said. That’s key because often improved communication is all it takes to get kids back in school. There are options available now that didn’t used to be and not everyone may be aware of. For instance, some kids fall behind or drop out because they are breadwinners for their families and cannot manage the traditional high school schedule. But Scavo has three shifts; morning, afternoon and even night school now. And all of the comprehensive high schools feature academic support labs. The ASL’s are geared to catch kids up on their credits and return them to mainstream classrooms.
One last aspect of Scavo’s shift to “full service,” a symbolic one that speaks volumes: When the school moved to its customized quarters last year the students were polled to determine a nickname. They voted to call themselves the Phoenix, as in risen from ashes. Cameron told the tourists/volunteers on Saturday morning that an intramural sports program is now in the works that may lead to interscholastic competition in sports like basketball that require relatively low numbers of students to fill out rosters.
No wonder the district’s “other” high school was the subject last spring of a National Public Radio feature about its extraordinary success at student reclamation. No wonder the graduation rate there has more than doubled during Blonigan’s tenure and figures to keep climbing. No wonder the grad walk’s corporate sponsor Wells Fargo, community sponsor United Way and people from all over town are so eager to help DMPS faculty and staff. The t-shirts everybody wore this year were as gray as Saturday morning’s skies. But the prevailing attitude was as bright as the prospects of the students who answered when renewed opportunity came knocking at their door.
