Submitted college application? Check.
Accepted to college? Check.
Virtually all of the seniors at Central High in the Helena-West Helena School District have ticked those biggies off their to-do lists -- and it is still just the first semester of the school year.
Ninety-eight seniors and one junior who has sufficient credits to graduate in 2018 have received acceptance letters into two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas and across the country. That's out of the 105-student, 12th-grade class.
The college acceptance rate is a feat accomplished in some part because Central High participates in what is now known as the Delta College Attainment Network.
The initiative was started in 2014 by KIPP Delta Public Schools that is headquartered in Helena-West Helena. The network, previously known as KIPP Through College, is funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville and provides KIPP Delta Collegiate High and Central with full-time, on-site college advisers. Lee County School District, an original network member, has since dropped out, but Cross County has begun to participate.
KIPP Delta, the actual recipient and manager of the Walton Family Foundation grant, employs and trains the college advisers in the network with the goal of supporting kids in getting to and through college.
The college advisers -- who are different from state-licensed high school counselors -- are tasked in a nutshell with making it known to students that college is a viable choice for them and helping the students do what it takes to submit successful applications.
"We try to have each student submit at least five applications, even if some of those are to two-year schools," Central college adviser Tonisha Gant said.
Gant and Central's other adviser, Beth Thompson, help juniors and seniors identify their interests and their schools. They assist students in registering for one or more administrations of the ACT college entrance exam and exams for military service. They provide ACT study materials and ensure that eligible students acquire waivers of test fees and college application fees. The advisers mail transcripts, scores and recommendations to save the students the postage. And then they aid students and parents with the forms for scholarships and other kinds of college financial aid to further smooth the way to college.
"We also take them to different campuses ... so they can get a feel for a school," Gant said of the students. "Sometimes they will say 'I want to go to this school' but they have never been there, so we want them to see if the school is a good fit for them. We also bring in as many college representatives as possible to visit with students in the lunchroom, in the classroom or in an assembly."
Once the Helena-West Helena students are enrolled at a college campus, the advisers and, more recently, three alumni advisers, keep in touch by phone, email or in person with the college students to provide advice and support for them.
Briana Hardison, 17, a Central senior, is at the top of her class academically and motivated to be one of those on a college campus this time next year.
"I've applied to 28 or 29, and I've been accepted to 21," said Hardison, who is still waiting on additional acceptance letters before selecting from a list that includes campuses such as Tuskegee, Iowa State and University of Memphis as well as Arkansas institutions.
"My dream is to get a degree," said Hardison, who plans to study social work and/or psychology. "The advisers have worked with me to make sure that I am very aware of the costs, the scholarships the colleges are offering, and that I am weighing all my options in deciding the best place for me to go."
The advisers also have encouraged her to keep taking the ACT exam to raise her scores as a way to increase scholarship money she might receive.
Courvoisiea Harris, also a 17-year-old Central senior, stuck to five applications to schools he would like to attend and, so far, he has been accepted at Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock. Already a pastor at his home church, Harris said he would like to study international business as well as theology and ministerial studies.
He called Central's college advisers "really good" at helping students.
"They push us with applications and financial aid forms to make sure we get those things done," Harris said. "They remind us of the importance of going to college to get what we want to out of life."
Both Harris and Hardison praised the Delta College Attainment Network and their Central High classmates for the nearly perfect college acceptance rate that puts their hometown and Central in the spotlight.
"There are good things and good people coming out of Helena-West Helena," Harris said.
The Central High program was provided at no cost to the district in its initial two years, Superintendent John Hoy said Friday. The district's School Board voted earlier this year to continue in the network at a district cost of $118,055 a year for three years, starting this year.
Hoy said he is sold on as many students as possible going to college or at least being prepared to go because he knows that college completers make more money over a career than do others, even for some of the same work.
He also acknowledged the school of thought that not all students are meant to go to college and that it can be considered "wasteful" for students to start college but stop short of earning a degree.
Hoy takes a broader view.
"It might be [financially wasteful] in one generation, but we have to think about more than one generation," he said. "My thinking is that it is better for a child to be raised in a household with a parent who at least went to college. That parent can tell the child about the experience and help the child get through college even if the parent didn't. I don't think it's a waste of money."
Scott Shirey is the founder and executive director of KIPP Delta Public Schools, an open-enrollment charter school system that got its Arkansas start in Helena-West Helena and expanded to Blytheville and Forrest City.
"What's exciting about this, and I thought a real testament, the pilot phase of the grant was all Walton money," Shirey said. "For this most recent phase, the grant requires the partnering school districts to have skin in the game" resulting in Helena-West Helena contributing to some of the cost.
"That's great that a traditional school is willing to say, 'Yes, we found enough value in this that we want to put to put skin in the game and pay for some of these services,' " Shirey said.
Like Central, KIPP Delta Collegiate High School routinely has greater than 95 percent of its students accepted, including some students with cognitive disabilities, into at least one college. That prompted Shirey's interest in expanding the support to other school systems in the Arkansas Delta.
"It really is exciting, and that's why we came forward. We wanted to see the entire community uplifted," he said about Phillips County. " I think everybody wins when the kids win. That's the way we should be thinking about it."
Metro on 12/04/2017