Advocates of a local charter school for foster teens hope it will break ground in late 2012 and pave the way for a bright future ahead of youth who frequently fall by the wayside after high school.
The Children’s Project Academy purchased a 114-acre site in Los Alamos last November after the Santa Barbara County Board Education approved a charter petition for the organization to move forward with the residential school.
The Academy will open with about 20 students in 7th and 8th grades, and plans to add 20 extra 7th grade students per year. The group ultimately expects the school to serve up to 120 students, from grades 7 to 12.
Children’s Project Academy founder and CEO Wendy Read said she and her team have been working on the project since 2003, shortly after the organization formed to brainstorm ideas on how to improve outcomes for foster youth in the county. Each year, roughly 20,000 young people are “emancipated” from the U.S. foster care system into the real world. On average, only 54% graduated high school while 84% became parents. About a quarter go homeless.
Statistics for Santa Barbara County are no less grim. Many of the problems plaguing foster teens precede “aging out” of the foster care system. Within 18 months of emancipation, 40 to 50% of foster youth become homeless, according to The League of Women Voters of California Education Fund.
Read said the school will be designed to help foster youth overcome the pitfalls that can lead to quitting school, poverty, crime or drug addiction. “The studies that we’ve seen focus on two deficiencies of the current system: foster children move around too much, and they don’t develop lifetime connections to mentoring adults,” she noted. Research shows that foster youth change schools about once every six months, and some lose an average of four to six months of education with each transfer. Bouncing from school to school has a harmful effect on foster youth, noted Eric Burrows, Children’s Project board chair and a state teacher of the year.
“I talk to these kids on an ongoing basis, and they say if they could stay in one school and get people interested in them, they could succeed,” said Burrows, who teaches at San Marcos High School in Goleta. “This model will give these kids a permanent place where they can feel not only that permanence, but also the skills and knowledge that will allow them to succeed in college and beyond.”
The school will enable students to live with foster parents and alongside teachers, and it will offer residential and educational programs to instill the youth with a strong sense of community and civic responsibility. Read said board members modeled the residential program largely after the ones offered at Cate, Dunn and Midland schools. But at the Academy, students will live in quarters with no more than six residents and a certified foster parent.
“We’re sort of adding an extra layer of a family-like environment because our foster teens oftentimes have never experienced that,” Read explained.
Students will gain a sense of belonging from being around others like themselves and from living with a parental figure for the duration of their education, Read added. Pupils will also choose mentors who will work with them for the six years they attend. Read said teachers are lining up for slots at the school. “Young people don’t go into teaching these days unless they’re committed to a sense of justice and a desire to make a difference in people’s lives,” she stated. “They’re definitely interested in a model where they can work closely with the students and engage with them, whether it means making cookies for them or having them over to help with homework.”
Read anticipates that at full capacity, the campus will provide an income for about 100 people. The first students to attend the school will have done so by choice. They will be offered admission after the Academy’s staff has worked with judges and social workers to recruit youth who are a good match for the school. Read said it’s important for the teens to decide whether they want to attend the school.
“We don’t want them to look at the school as an institution,” she said. “We want kids to apply because they want to be here, and will take responsibility for the choice.”
Students also will be encouraged to apply for employment to work on or off campus.
The school will include a cultural and family center, a student union building, athletics, art programs, a medical clinic, and a strong agricultural program. Of the 114 acres, 100 are zoned for agriculture, allowing for a myriad of educational and recreational opportunities, such as hiking, horseback riding and gardening. Although most of the Academy’s standard living and educational operating costs will be paid for by existing funding for foster youth, the Children’s Project still has a fundraising challenge ahead. The group has raised about $1 million to date but needs much more. Members have sent out an annual appeal letter, urging that “We at the Children’s Project don’t want you to give until it hurts, we want you to give until it feels good.”
Another challenge is dispelling misconceptions people have about foster children, as well as concerns about the vision and purpose of the charter school. Read said some people confuse the dependency court, a last stop for the county’s most seriously neglected or abused youth, with delinquency court for juvenile offenders. “We’re taking in kids who enter the court system through no fault of their own.”
“I can’t think of a more fruitful endeavor than a school that will provide the best in academic, community and vocational programs for the kids,” said Burrows.
For more information about The Children’s Project Academy, visit childrensprojectsb.org.