Life Skills Centers are publicly funded, privately managed,” said Kathleen Williams, administrator of the Life Skills Center on state Route 161.
A company called White Hat Management manages the center. White Hat is the liaison between the ODE and has its own personnel, budgeting, curriculum writers and other departments that enforce the state mandates set up by the ODE. “Public education is a monopoly,” said David Brennan, former chairman of the Ohio State Board of the Trustees and proprietor of White Hat.
“Any charter school that takes on this task is well-intentioned, but they need to realize that state mandates must be followed,” Williams said.
The Life Skills Center’s target population is “at risk” students aged 16 to 22. An “at risk” student is one who has been expelled from a traditional school or is in danger of dropping out. It offers them a chance to obtain a state certified high school diploma, but at their own pace.
“At-risk” has taken on a new meaning for us (teachers and staff), because not only do we have those students involved with courts and have learning disabilities, we have a group of students who just got bored in high school. They were so far advanced that they just stopped showing up,” Williams said.
Students attend class for three hours daily if they are working and four hours daily if they are not.
Students of Life Skills must obtain 21 credits and pass all areas of proficiency testing before they are permitted to graduate. Credits are obtained through course work and teaching provided in a purely electronic manner with individualized computer programs.
Students can obtain a credit in as little as three weeks or as long as six months. The goal is to obtain the credit and get closer to graduation and a high school diploma.
“I came here because I was having a hard time in regular high school because I was pregnant. Life Skills doesn’t allow a student to fall behind; you get your credits at your own rate. It’s a good opportunity for people having a hard time finishing school. It’s a second chance,” said TaQuala Jones, a student at Life Skills.
The center offers “Life Skills” classes. These classes are designed to teach the students things nobody has ever taught them. The classes range from basic hygiene to tax preparation.
“In these classes, we have been discussing self-esteem, consequences, planned parenthood, sex education, child care issues and anything surrounding the self,” said Tiffany DeLong, family advocate for the center.
About 25-35 students enroll in the life skills classes. The classes also cover job interviews, resume development and getting the students on the phone to make connections with possible employers.
In order to get a diploma, the students must work a total of 90 days consecutively at a location.
“We don’t just say congrats and hand them a diploma and say, ‘go be productive,’ we say, ‘Here’s your diploma, you already have a job, and you can be productive,” Williams said.
DeLong, as a family advocate, is responsible for helping students fix any problem keeping them from concentrating while they are in school. If a student does not have the proper uniform — a blue button up shirt and khaki pants — DeLong will do what is necessary to get that student the clothes.
There are 265 students enrolled in the center, and the potential for the school is 700. Construction is taking place to add two more computer labs that will seat 150 students each and both teacher and student lounges. Each addition is the result of an overwhelming increase in attendance. There are three Life Skills Centers in Ohio, and more are being planned.
Williams has a degree in psychology, but her background is in law enforcement. She was a parole officer for six years before being promoted to regional manager and ran the state parole of five counties in central Ohio.
Williams, however, grew up on the streets and has been on welfare and made bad decisions that got her in trouble, but she soon realized she needed her education to bring herself out of the slums.
During her involvement in law enforcement, Williams recalled carrying a gun and making arrests daily. She said she was taking men back to prison, and they were crying and saying it wasn’t fair that no one would give them a chance because they didn’t have a diploma.
“I heard this weekly, and when you are constantly hearing it you want to stop this from happening,” Williams said.
There are opinions in Ohio that community schools are stealing students from traditional schools. Both Montgomery from East End and Williams said they just want to see the children in the community succeed, and it doesn’t matter where they attend school, as long as they are attending and learning.
The number of dropouts in Ohio is high, and those students aren’t getting a diploma and aren’t getting a job or any respect from society, Williams said. Community schools try to get just one more student a diploma, and who is one more that had “slipped through the cracks” and wasn’t going to get their diploma.
Teachers at the center are certified or working towards certification as educators in Ohio. The teachers will go above and beyond what is asked of them as teachers, including jumping a car for a student or providing food to them.
“I had taken the LSAT and graduated from Ohio State. I was going to be a lawyer, but teaching sounded better at the time. I am able to teach every subject in a sense; it’s a rigorous curriculum,” said Andrew Pasquinilli, a teacher at the center.
Pasquinilli isn’t teaching for the money; he is teaching to reach a child who would have otherwise fell through the cracks.
