Being expelled from high school is an emotional and trying time for both students and their families. And with the tough financial state in which the Michigan City Area Schools find themselves, there is not much they can do about keeping an expelled student on track and back to school with a chance to graduate on time.
But that’s where Program Excel hopes to come in.
Joshua Moran, director of Avenue Family Center - a tutoring service in Michigan City - has outlined a plan for students expelled from Michigan City High School to be set up with a teacher and mentor and take part in a credit recovery program that will ideally inspire them to return to school after their suspension expires and ultimately graduate with their class.
“Getting expelled is devastating for students,” Moran said during an informational meeting Monday at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Michigan City. “We will address the needs every student has.”
The idea for a program designed to help expelled kids get back on track came from Xavier Botana, associate superintendent for Michigan City Area Schools. Moran said Botana approached him during last school year and “expressed great concern that students who get expelled have nowhere to turn,” asking Moran to come up with a plan to help those students.
During the 2012-13 school year, data shows 50 students were expelled from Michigan City Area Schools, with 30 being from the high school alone. Data for this past school year has yet to be released.
“We have been in conversations with Joshua to have Avenue Family Center provide ongoing educational and mental health support to students who are expelled,” Botana said. “We are very interested in continuing to work through how to get this operationalized. Students who are expelled, oftentimes made a mistake and learn from that mistake. While they are out, we currently cannot provide any instructional support, thus they fall behind.”
Botana said the program would target students who are “still interested in staying on track academically while they serve their punishment for serious school infractions.”
Moran and his wife, Susan (a licensed teacher who plans to help in the educational aspect of the program) set up Program Excel.
How it will work
When a student gets expelled from Michigan City High School, they will be referred to the Avenue Family Center’s Program Excel, where the student will meet with Moran, the program teacher and a parent to come up with a timetable plan to get the student back at school with the necessary credits.
The three components of the program, Moran said, are “educating, mentoring and accountability.”
The educating aspect will include the student spending four days a week in a classroom environment and work through the credit recovery software provided by the schools. The student will also receive guidance and support needed to push through and successfully complete the plan - the mentoring aspect. A weekly evaluation to make sure the student is on track with the goals they set at the start of the program will also be available.
“Without accountability, most people will not move in the direction they are supposed to go,” Moran said.
But before this system is put into place, much help will be needed through volunteers and donations and/or financial contributions.
The school system is not in a position to contribute financially, but will be asked to donate classroom space (possibly at the former Elston Middle School that closed this year), 16 computers (15 for students and 1 for the instructor) and internet access.
From there, $50,000 will still be needed to run the program for the first school year. That amount will be needed to cover the salary of one teacher and all resources. The cost per student to participate in this will be roughly $3,400.
“We will also need 15 mentors to make this happen,” Moran said. “They need to be willing to commit to at least one hour per week.”
While the state of Indiana prohibits the expulsion of a student in the public school system for more than a year, there is no requirement for any school system in the state to adopt a program such as Program Excel.
“I want Michigan City to be ahead of the curve,” Moran said. “We need to address how to get students back on track and back to school to graduate statewide.”
On the expelled student family’s end, the cost is currently set at $25 a day, but Moran said he is hoping to “drastically lower that price through sponsors from the community.”
And while this program will not be mandatory for expelled students, it will be “strongly recommended,” Moran said, noting that he will reach out to all of them provided he gets the information.
“We will do everything we can to get them on track,” he said.
The use of the classroom space, internet and coursework software on the part of the schools needs to be approved by the board of education before the program takes flight.
Botana said “a number of issues” need to be addressed before this is presented to the board.
“Specifically, we need to find a suitable location (we've been talking about Elston possibly being a site), we need to ensure that they have access to our online coursework so that the students can take online classes (with Avenue instructors providing instruction to students) and work through the student referral process,” he said. “The school is not working on funding for this. Avenue is doing its own fundraising for the instructional (and mentoring and mental health components).”
Moran said during Monday’s informational meeting the target start date is September 8, but that means the board would need to approve it at their August meeting. Botana said he is unsure if it will be ready by then, but the school is “still working toward that goal.”
“It will take a community to get this going,” Moran added. “We need to have the community behind it in hours, man-power and money. It’s important to have that support so people that help can eventually say ‘I owned that’ and ‘I supported something that made a great difference.’”
Sponsorship opportunities
If you would like to sponsor a student, there are six levels of sponsorship available. A year sponsor at the cost of $3,400; $1,700 to be a semester sponsor; $850 for a quarter sponsor; a month sponsor for $375; $95 for a week and $25 for a day.
To donate, make a check payable to Avenue Family Center, PO Box 8725 Michigan City, IN 46360 or fill out the form online here.