Giving kids their future at Performance Learning Centers

Program helps students who had given up on getting an education.

Posted: Thursday, Jun. 18, 2009
by Linda Harrill, President/CEO Communities In Schools of NC

Several weeks ago I attended a special graduation celebration for 24 young people at our Performance Learning Center (PLC) in Cabarrus CountyThe small, nontraditional school has about 75 students and was created based on the National Communities In Schools PLC model.

Cabarrus County Schools, Communities In Schools of N.C., and Communities In Schools of Cabarrus County joined forces to open this school, one of five PLCs in the state. Cabarrus schools officials realized that they could not meet the needs of all the students and wanted to offer an alternative to the traditional high school for students, who for family, work, health or academic reasons needed an environment where they could work at their own pace, make up lost time and accelerate their studies. They needed to be away from the drama of high school; most had enough in their personal lives.

Listening to the stories of these kids who had given up on school and had chosen to either drop out or had withdrawn from school gave me both a high and low. A low because for these young people, academics was not the problem; it was all the chaos in their lives that got in their way of being successful. They missed too many days and therefore were going to fail.

One young young lady got sick and her absences added up until she was told she would fail because there was no way for her to make up her work and time. One young man was homeless and giving up on himself, life and school.

But the student who stood out the most to me was the sophisticated young African American woman who said she loved school. She was a straight A student until a family tragedy side-tracked her. Knowing that as a first-time college-going student, she would have to depend on scholarships, she worked hard to maintain her grades and good attendance record. When she ran into obstacles, things fell apart and so did her GPA. As her grades fell so did her chances for scholarships. She lost hope and decided to quit.

Fortunately, in her county they had a PLC and a caring counselor who recommended that before she called it quits she go to the PLC. The PLC was perfect. The school allowed her to retake courses to help raise her GPA. She could work at her own pace and still manage family and health issues. She graduated on June 11 and received a $6,000 CIS/ Wal-Mart scholarship. She will attend Appalachian State University this fall. In her closing remarks she said, “Thank you for giving me back my future.”

On May 20, I spoke at the PLC graduation in Cumberland County where 44 students graduated. These students, like their counterparts in other PLCs in the state, are bright, creative, young people who had gotten off track. Thanks to Communities In Schools and the local school systems working together, these students have had a chance to get back on track.

What are PLCs? They are opportunities for youth who thought they had no future. What is the value of this to these students, their families and our communities? Priceless!