by Jim Boyle
Editor
There’s a ray of sunshine at Zimmerman Middle and High School that’s helping some of the poorest performing middle school students succeed as they move along in their schooling.
The newest Traverse group explored Jay Cooke State Park during a weekend stay in Duluth.
Traverse – which stands for Teaching Respect, Attitude, Versatility, Empathy, Responsibility, Success and Ethics – identifies students performing the bottom 15 percent at a particular grade and brings them through a program of character education, service learning and enrichments.
Even more encouraging to the organizers and supporters of the program is the students in the Traverse program seem to be finding themselves in the process and will hopefully shed some of the behaviors and poor choices their predecessors have made.
School social worker Jenny Manthey and special education teacher Kevin Jost came up with the idea for the program after they spotted a gap in the vast array of programs and services at the school. The Elk River Area School District employees found that the programs offered were not adequately meeting the needs of the kids with grade point averages that put them at the bottom of their grade levels.
Research consisting of reviewing grades, attendance, behavior, chemical usage and graduation rates for the last five years of graduating classes showed only 28 percent of the bottom 15 percent of seventh-graders remained at Zimmerman High School through graduation, and of those students, only 0.08 percent ever made it out of the bottom 15 percent.
This bottom 15 percent accounted for 4,166 behavior referrals and 15,587 absences from school, and 64 percent used drugs, alcohol or both (23 percent were unaccounted for because they left ZMHS at a young age).
That means that only 13 percent didn’t turn to chemical usage.
“We at Zimmerman have so many good programs available to all our students, but the kids that fall in this group typically didn’t take advantage of those programs,” Manthey said.
Traverse is a non-traditional class. In addition to offering character education, service learning and enrichment activities, the class also has a reward system linked to academic success.
Students are recognized for receiving C’s or better in all their classes as well as making the A and B honor rolls.
Manthey and Jost say they believe the class is the first of its kind in Minnesota.
“There are schools that offer character education classes, there are districts that require service learning projects and there are teachers that have brought students to participate in enrichment activities,” Manthey said “However, to have a class geared toward (this group), that includes all three, that keeps the students engaged through a four-year program and that allows the teens to come back as peer mentors in a leadership role, seems to be unique to Zimmerman High School.
The program quickly got the support of Mark Bezek, the superintendent of schools.
“It’s special to me because it is a way of connecting with a group of kids that may not see the value of a formal education and may feel disenfranchised or left behind in the normal school setting,” Bezek said. “I’ve always tried to meet the needs of individual groups of students in a variety of ways. We are fortunate to have caring staff that are willing to go above and beyond for these students by developing programs like this.”
Traverse has been at the Zimmerman secondary school for two years with the support and assistance from Principal Marco Voce and Vice Principal Lisa Johnson.
The class, initially offered to a group of 11th-grade students, showed a 90 percent decrease in behaviors and grades went from 13 F’s their first semester, prior to the class, to two F’s second semester, with the class.
Last year the class was then moved to work with a group of 12 seventh-grade boys. Once again it proved to be very successful. This group finished their previous year with a total of 83 D’s and F’s.
They finished their seventh-grade year with only nine D’s and five F’s in third quarter and four D’s and four F’s in fourth quarter.
This group of 12 also finished fourth quarter with four students receiving C’s or better in all their classes and four others making the B Honor Roll, one of whom just missed the A honor roll.
Service projects that the groups have been involved in so far include manning a water station at Grandma’s Marathon, hosting a toy drive for Ronald McDonald House, preparing and serving a meal at Ronald McDonald House, working concessions for home wrestling and basketball games, staffing games at Zimmerman Elementary’s Carnival, sponsoring a family of four children for Christmas, supporting a school-sponsored food drive, volunteering at a Special Olympics basketball tournament, volunteering at Feed My Starving Children and helping with the Neighbors Helping Neighbors Christmas program.
Manthey and Jost applied for and were fortunate to receive a $25,000 two-year grant from the Otto Bremer Foundation to help fund their innovative program. With the assistance of the grant, there was no cost associated with any of the experiences to the families. The grant is set to expire this December, so further funding options are needed.
This school year, Traverse has the ability to work with two groups of eighth-graders; however, the hope is to make Traverse into a full-time program, which would include two groups from seventh, eighth and ninth grade each and one group from 10th grade.
The first group of Traverse students at Canal Park during their five-day camping trip in Duluth.
The idea is that the kids would start in seventh grade, continue to learn and grow with the program through 10th grade and then return as peer mentors their junior and senior years.
Katherine Solliday, who teaches in the School Within a School program run through Ivan Sand, has seen the kids benefit from Traverse first-hand. Students in it have become more accountable and are seen in the school as new crop of leaders, she said.
One of the most notable changes for Solliday has been a drop in behavior problems. Students are more respectful and willing to do their work. She has not had to write referrals this year.
“They are realizing that they can create positive change in their personal environment and in their community,” she said.
“Traverse helps students find their own worth in their own way. At the same time, they learn to care about others and respect classmates and teaching staff.”
The responses from the kids and parents involved in this course have been overwhelmingly positive. In a letter from one parent, the program was said to be a “ray of sunshine amidst dark clouds” for her son who has academic and behavioral struggles.
One student had 11 F’s in his core classes in the sixth grade, yet with the help of Traverse, by seventh grade’s fourth quarter, he had C’s or better in all his classes.
“He would stop by my room to give me grade updates, head held high, smiling and high-fiving over his accomplishments,” Manthey said. “He has gained not only academic success, but he feels better about himself, has a positive attitude and encourages others.”
Kim Kowalczyk said her son went from nearly failing grades to the A-honor roll.
“He has gone from being in the principal’s office on a weekly basis to being a student leader,” she said.
Manthey said there is a growing excitement at the potential of not only keeping these students, who were in the bottom 15 percent, in school through graduation, but also changing the course of their future as they build academic success, self-confidence and self-reliance.
Keeping kids in school also helps the school district’s finances.
In the past five years of graduating classes, only 34 out of 125 students in the bottom 15 percent of seventh grade remained at ZMHS through graduation.
“If we can keep those kids in school until they graduate, there is the possibility of keeping just under $3 million in the budget,” Manthey said.
The money needed to cover the costs of all the activities is dependent on grants and donations.