Program keeps kids in school
Toolbox
By PATRICK McARDLE STAFF WRITER - Published: October 24, 2009
BENNINGTON — Administrators at Mount Anthony Union High School believe the Twilight program, an alternative education path entering its second year, is off to a strong start in helping students graduate and develop employment skills.
At a recent meeting of the Mount Anthony Union School Board, educators and students said the program was helping to keep students in school.
"(The Twilight program) is the best thing the school has ever done for me," said Shawn Hollis, a senior in the program. "I would have dropped out of school by now or been kicked out by now. I got in trouble every day."
Mount Anthony Union High School Principal Sue Maguire said the program was created with three goals: Improve graduation rates, give students the skills to obtain and maintain employment, and build partnerships with the local business community.
Students in the Twilight program attend classes from 2:30 to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Classes are taught by teachers from the high school, Nathan Reutter, Joe Mundt and Jim Fischer.
The later classes are a way to separate at-risk students from friends who may have been a bad influence, provide more one-on-one interaction with students and teachers, and offer an alternative for students who don't do well with the standard school schedule.
Meg Honsinger, a guidance counselor at the high school and administrator of the Twilight program, said students are graded daily on a "triple-A" form for appearance, academics and attitude.
The program is designed to be similar to an employment experience so students have to go through an interview process to be admitted and must account for any absences, just as employees do in the workplace, Honsinger said.
There are 13 students in the program. The six seniors who were in the first year of the program in the 2008-09 school year graduated.
John Camelio, an employment specialist with the program, told the School Board that Twilight was based on a similar program he, Maguire and teachers had visited in Hartford, Conn., about five years ago.
To add a component to the program, Camelio said he and Larry Johnson, the other employment specialist for Twilight, met with local industrial employers, NSK Steering Systems America, Plasan and Vermont Composites.
However, late last year the plan for those employers to take on some of the students hit a snag.
"Then the economy bottomed out, the economy fell apart and we were stuck, as employment specialists, trying to find positions for students where there were no positions out there," he said.
The owners of the Chapel Hill Mobile Home Park in Bennington stepped forward and allowed the students to work on rehabilitating a mobile home, a project the students worked on over the summer that is nearly complete.
Camelio said the leaders of the program found that it was important for students to start with the academic portion of Twilight because students coming in had to struggle with problems - "everything from homelessness to a terrible record of academics due to attendance" - to be ready for the employment component.
Teachers involved in the program said it seems to be working. Reutter said he had students grow to become leaders while Fischer said he didn't think some of the students would be able to "survive" through their time at high school to graduation without Twilight.
School Board member Leon Johnson complimented the program and said it wasn't just about improving graduation rates.
"We're looking for vital individuals to be able to go through the school and (then) sustain themselves as employable individuals and be able to contribute well to the society (they're) living in," he said.
Maguire said students could enter the program of their own volition or be recommended by a parent, guardian or teacher.
patrick.mcardle@rutlandherald.com
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