Gravity High School case manager Ginny Taylor plays with seven-month-old Niko Rocha, while his mother, Ashley Barnett, 20, of Chehalis, works on creating a resume while at the school in downtown Chehalis on Thursday afternoon.
Gravity High School case manager Ginny Taylor plays with seven-month-old Niko Rocha, while his mother, Ashley Barnett, 20, of Chehalis, works on creating a resume while at the school in downtown Chehalis on Thursday afternoon.
Mikel Herren, 17, takes a math pre-test on a laptop in front of the "Kudos Board" on Thursday afternoon at Gravity High School in Chehalis.
Olga Slassi, an instructor assistant, works with Mikel Herren, 17, right, on preparing for a math test on Thursday afternoon at Gravity High School in downtown Chehalis.
Some high school students are dealt a hand that may be difficult to play.
Whether it’s an unexpected illness, an unplanned pregnancy or other factors, hundreds of students throughout Lewis County drop out of high schools each year.
In an effort to re-engage those students and provide them with an ample amount of opportunity, GRAVITY High School in Chehalis helps the students through one-on-one assistance and gives them the resources they need to earn their GED.
“There are just a lot of kids that do not fit into a classroom,” Ginny Taylor, case manager at GRAVITY High School, said. “Some of us here have our GED. We didn’t fit into the classroom, and we understand. Our heart goes out to them, and they know that we care.”
Jim Swan, a certified instructor at the Chehalis branch, said the program has been in Lewis County since 2011, although before that other youth-oriented programs took its place.
Powered through the Legislature by the dropout re-engagement program, Swan said, the high school currently has 32 registered students, although only 22 of them are active.
In order to be considered active, students have to spend at least two hours a month at the facility. In an ideal situation, the students would come in at least one hour a week, Swan said.
The students have to show a gain every three months and are also responsible for a weekly check in.
“Obviously the ones that pass and get their GED are the ones that are here on a regular basis,” Swan said. “There is a direct correlation with work and what the results are.”
The high school not only helps students receive their GED, but it helps them with their resumes and mock interviews, hopefully providing them with greater opportunities down the road.
“Once they get that benchmark, all these doors open up to them, and we can look to help them along that way,” Swan said. “Basically what we do is help remove barriers from them — that’s our primary function.”
Students interested in obtaining their GED fill out paperwork and take a preliminary test that gives instructors a baseline idea of where they are in the subjects. Afterward, the students select one of the four subject areas they want to start with and take a GED Ready test on the computer. The test, which is a shortened version of the GED, shows instructors if the student is ready for the actual GED test normally administered at Centralia College.
If the student does not reach satisfactory marks during the GED Ready test, specific assignments are given to them so they can work on the necessary skills to pass the test.
Once a GED is completed in one subject, the student moves on to the next one.
Although Swan has only been at the Chehalis site since September, he has seen a great amount of success stories. One student who was soon to age out of the program at 21, only had a week to pass the last two tests, something he completed in a few days.
“He said he couldn’t be any happier than when he found out he passed his GED,” Swan said. “It’s just the world opens up to them, and the colleges, they don’t care if you have your high school diplomas or your GED as long as you have that, off you go, but you have to have something.”
Taylor said it helps move the students from the fringes of society back into the mainstream, giving them opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be present.
Students who successfully obtain their GED also have the opportunity to graduate, adorned with a cap and gown, in June with the Centralia College students.
“That means a lot to some of them,” Taylor said.
The positives for the students in the program are apparent, but other districts also benefit from the work being done at GRAVITY High School.
When a student drops out and then re-engages at GRAVITY, the district can remove him or her from its dropout rates, helping to increase graduation rates.
“It’s a win-win for the school districts,” Swan said.
To Swan, and the other two employees working to run GRAVITY smoothly, providing the students an opportunity for success is what makes it all worth it.
“Just hearing their success stories … reminds me of when I was teaching and you could see when a student got it, it’s just like wow,” Swan said. “I think we lose that sometimes, and it’s just so powerful. You want for every kid to experience that and some of them, this is the first time they may have experienced any success in a school setting.”
