Getting ahead: High school programs offer chance to work

Scott City is among several local school districts that allow juniors and seniors to take off school early if they have enough credits, good enough grades and good conduct.

Many seniors at Scott City High School are taking advantage of a program called part-time attendance to make extra money or save for college. Mike Johnson, Scott City High School principal, said students in the program are ahead on credits toward graduation, so they are allowed to leave school a couple of hours early. Students apply through him and are approved by the school board.

Students can participate in part-time attendance by semester or for the school year. In the first semester, 16 students signed up, and in the second semester, eight more were added. Johnson said he has 59 seniors this year.

"They try to get out so they can go to work, and yeah, we have some students do it to get a head start," Johnson said. The "vast minority," he said, use part-time attendance to take college classes, especially because the district has offered more dual-credit programs in the past couple of years. Dual-credit classes allow students to earn college credit while in high school and are taught by high school teachers qualified to teach college courses.

Seniors Brandi Enderle, Eryn Uhrhan and Kyle Kerby all wanted -- or want to -- work after school.

Enderle and Kerby enrolled in part-time attendance at the start of the school year and Uhrhan at the beginning of this year. Enderle and Uhrhan said getting enough credits to qualify for the program just kind of happened; Kerby was about one credit short of graduation, but had to go six hours to play sports. He pitches and plays right field for the Scott City baseball team.

Enderle and Kerby have jobs, and Uhrhan is looking for one.

Enderle tutors younger students at St. Joseph School and does after-school care twice a week. Kerby works part time at Foutz Hunting and Fishing in Cape Girardeau and helps his dad, John Kerby, split firewood and makes duck calls.

"By the time that I get out and get to where I need to be, my dad's off work and we can get a lot more stuff done that needs to be," Kerby said.

The students are not set on what they're doing after high school, but have some idea. Enderle said she plans to go into nursing. Enderle wants to teach or become a photographer. Kerby plans to go to college for a degree in business administration.

"But I'm also good with electronics, so I don't know. I haven't quite made up my mind where I'm going to go yet, but I also make duck calls, too," Kerby said.

Being an avid hunter, Kerby said he decided to make duck calls after creating a baseball bat in wood shop. Kerby said you take a chunk of wood, put it on a lathe and "start turning it down and just imagine in your head what you want it to look like."

"Then you've got to buy these parts to cut out the tone board and different things to get it to sound right, Kerby said. "There's definitely a lot that goes into it. ... It took me a while to do it, but I figured out how."

Cape Girardeau

At Central High School, principal Mike Cowan said a "reduced schedule" has been offered for about seven years. This idea, among others, came out of a visit to Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill., as part of "serious consideration" of professional learning communities. PLCs are where educators collaborate to improve student learning.

Central High School has an eight-period day that starts before 8 a.m. Juniors may apply to have seven periods a day and seniors six periods, Cowan said. He talks to freshmen about the possibility. Cowan said the number of participants changes each semester. The school has about 300 juniors and 270 seniors, but not as many students take advantage as one might think, he said.

Used as a dropout prevention tool, it's used to encourage students to keep their grades high, their attendance good and their conduct record clean so they earn these privileges when they reach the upper grades.

Cowan said research has shown if you can keep children on track early, you have a better chance of keeping them in school.

Some students use the time for work, some may use it so they don't have to get up as early, and others take college courses. "We have several, several children who work," Cowan said.

Jackson

Jackson High School's approach is more academic.

Principal Vince Powell said his school doesn't have part-time attendance for seniors, but its agriculture and business programs have students work part of the day and go to school part of the day.

Students secure the jobs themselves and the teacher works with the employer to see how they're progressing. Powell said the teacher also will visit the work site. "That's how the students get their credit. Then the teacher works with the student ... on work skills -- just things you need to be successful; the soft skills and that type of thing," he said.

Soft skills include being punctual, being polite and dressing appropriately.

"As far as them just working to work, we don't have a program like that," Powell said.

Some seniors at Jackson High go to Southeast Missouri State University for part or half a day.

"We also offer a lot of dual credit where the students take the class on our campus and they get high school and college credit. We do have a lot of that. In fact, we have students who theoretically or mathematically can graduate our high school with over 30 hours of college credit if they took all the right classes and that kind of thing," Powell said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address: 3000 Main St., Scott City

1000 S. Silver Springs Road, Cape Girardeau

315 S. Missouri St., Jackson