Twenty years ago there were a variety of reasons why these students did not go to school, many were homeless, living in poverty, pregnant, and/or had very little family support. Most of these students had been hurt and no longer trusted adults. One early student said, "I had to find a place to sleep every night and the high school wanted me to focus on Algebra, yah right." The Wenatchee School District knew that a different approach was needed to meet the needs of these students.
These intitial students were not use to attending school or getting along with others. They needed encouragement to attend school and the state knew this. That is why the state created new school laws that allowed students to learn in a different way. It enabled students to demostrate their learning without it being calculated by the number of hours students spent in a classroom chair. These laws allowed for the development of performance based schools. Newly created alternative learning programs could be funded and managed on a combination of student performance results and teacher contact time. This meant that these students could have the flexibility of attending school for minimum hours and still go to work to support their families. It meant small class sizes in order to inidiviulaize instruction. It meant, our staff could really get to know and encourage these young people to finish their education.
It also meant that these rough around the edges students would need patience and understanding on the part of our staff. That is why WestSide has easy access to counseling services and has formed strong relationships with community agencies for family support. When WestSide began we saw many students on campus who smoked, several who had alcohol problems, anger issues were very apparent, many teen parents, most lived in poverty and there were very few parents involved in the school.
You can imagine community members who could not understand how a school would allow students who were seen smoking on campus to stay in school. Imagine an angry young man who used profanity when addressing one of his teachers and he did not get kicked out of school but instead had to see a counselor. The community saw a school that provided day care services for their young mothers which allowed them to attend school. Drug alcohol counselors holding meetings in the schoolhouse, shorter school days, longer lunches, both day and night school programs, no school mascot, no school colors, it just didn't look or sound much like a traditional school.
Of course, WestSide staff knew these were just some of the strategies needed to help these students stay in school. One of the first counselors at WestSide, Mr. Charlie Reynolds, would often say, "We need to get there heads straight first, the rest will come in time." From an outsiders point of view this was all hard to understand and accept, some still don't.
From our early beginnings many stories have been told and shared throughout the community. It was from these early stories, that lead to some negative misperceptions about the WestSide of today. Many community members did not understand our mission, to reconnect students to school and learning. We were adjusting the system at the same time as we were adjusting the child. We knew then what the education world is finding out now, there is more than one way to teach and learn.
The WestSide of today has come a long ways.
In 1987, the school earned its own state accreditation and was allowed to issue its own high school dilpoma. Over 1,000 students have earned an accredited WestSide diploma since we began. WestSide continues to issue a state accrediated diploma each year and the current principal has even served on the state accrediation board approving accrediation for schools across the state. Since we opened our doors over 65 school districts from around the state have come to WestSide to learn how to start up their own alternative learning programs. WestSide helped to develop and still consults with, the local GED program, SkillSource. In order to get started, most alternative learning programs in North Central Washington were assisted by WestSide.
When we started in 1985 we were called, "Wenatchee Valley Alternative High School." That was changed to "WestSide High School" by the students, parents and staff in 1994, as the school is located on the WestSide of Wenatchee. At that time, they also decided on school colors, Crimson and Grey, and a school mascot, the Eagles. This helped give our students a sense of belonging to something special. From the beginning students were allowed to participate at the traditional school in school sports and activities. However, much like it is today, early students wanted to do sometiing together to honor their school. They formed their own basketball team, signed up for a state league schedule and won the Washington Alternative Learning Association State Basketball Championship. Every year we have students who are in band, sports, clubs and have even participated in the Apple Blossom selection process.
Academically, Charlie Reynolds was right. First, we help get their heads straight and then ... college students, military service men and women, independent business owners, lawyers, health care professionals, police officers, technicians, and our favorite, teachers. We are proud of what our graduates have accomplished. We are also proud of our current students. We have more students involved in taking classes at both Wenatchee Valley College (Running Start) and WestSide then ever before. Our students have improved their WASL scores each year. Scholarships are awarded each year and many more are earned as each year passes.
We still work with students who smoke but do not allow smoking on campus any longer. We still have students who need our help with drug and alcohol addiction. We continue to have teen parents but now have a partnership with Wenatchee Valley College to teach our teen parents how to take care of their children, how to be a better parent and how to take care of themselves. Anger continues to be an issue but with our counseling program we have very few instances of violence in our school. In recent years, we are finding that parents and students decide to come to WestSide because it is a great learning option. They like the small school atmosphere, individualized attention and flexible scheduling. Many students come to us to catch up on credits and return back to their traditional setting. Others come because they did not feel like anyone cared about them in the larger schools.
Our students are like anybody elses students. We have scholars with a vision for their future, we have students who just want to get through high school and we have students who are suffering with little hope for their future. We feel with our small school setting, well trained staff, flexible scheduling, individualized approach, clear focus on learning and our unique ability to adjust, we can keep students in school and help them reach for their goals.
The truth is ... best described by one of our students ... "WestSide is like a family, we all have our issues good or bad but we stick together and help each other to be the best we can be." Now that doesn't sound like a bad place to me.
If you have more questions please feel free to call (509) 663-7947
