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Dan Kegley/From left, Millie Spence, Tori Blevins and Kristin Dean show off both their enthusiasm and one of the bags they received proclaiming them GEAR UP participants and members of the NHS Panthers class of 2012.

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Gearing up for the future

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

Twenty-five students sit at cafeteria tables, quiet for the most part, listening as guidance counselors and a principal talk to them about high school life and setting goals beyond receiving their secondary education diploma four long years from now.
These rising freshmen might be excused for fidgeting, talking out of turn, or not paying attention, but these kids, just barely out of Northwood Middle School, are learning what to expect, and what is expected of them, next month when they become high school students.
It’s the middle of summer, July 28 to be exact, a time when many adolescents sleep late and go swimming, and their time “in school” this week takes those wishes into account, starting at 9 a.m. and ending at 2 p.m.
“That’s not so terribly early, and they can still go to the wave pool when it’s over,” said Betty Webb, guidance counselor at Northwood Middle School and driving force behind the Northwood schools’ participation in GEAR UP, or Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness of Undergraduate Programs.
GEAR UP is operated by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia.
“Today has gone well,” said Alice Funk, regional resource manager for GEAR UP/Access Virginia based at Virginia Highlands Community College. Funk described GEAR UP as “a federally funded program with the goal of increasing college attendance rates.”
Webb wrote the grant proposal to bring Smyth County into the program that operates in 25 Virginia school divisions and 38 individual schools. Schools are eligible for GEAR UP programs if 50 percent or more of their seventh-grade students qualify for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program.
These 25 students (a second cohort across the county is in a similar program as they transition from Sugar Grove Combined and Marion Senior High schools) are starting their third year of GEAR UP that began for them and for the county in their seventh grade.
“This discretionary grant program is designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education,” said U.S. Department of Education literature.
Funk praised Smyth County School Superintendent Dr. Michael Robinson and the school board for their support of GEAR UP.
GEAR UP does more than pass out “attaboys,” “attagirls” and lists of colleges and their admissions requirements. Like the orientation this week that included discussion of everything from the high school’s bell schedule to what not to wear, GEAR UP is a hand on students’ shoulders guiding them through their last six public school years and on to college.
“It really gives students a head start in the high school setting,” said Northwood High School Principal Stan Dunham. “Ninth graders really have a big transition. One of the emphases in Virginia is to make the transition easier from middle school to high school.”
GEAR UP requires individualized attention to students to provide the services and assistance they need in their own situations in reaching their own goals. “It offers mentorship to encourage them as they go along,” Dunham said. “They can plan a career as they go along. This is career planning.”
GEAR UP provides comprehensive accounting of the students’ school activities until they graduate.
“These students and others will be tracked all the way through their school careers,” Dunham said. Their achievements, and any less-positive aspects of their school years, will become part of their GEAR UP records.
“Any discipline problems you have will follow you all the way through it,” Dunham told the students, adding that their records will carry weight with future employers who might call to check on their school performance.
“I create a notebook for each one of the students,” said Webb. The notebooks hold their cumulative records through the six years of GEAR UP.
Those records will be especially important by the end of 12th grade, when their performance, among other considerations, will influence the level of scholarships for which they qualify.
A GEAR UP Virginia Scholarship is available and students will fill out that application in their senior year.
A federal Pell grant may be available, pending funding levels, and offers “need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain post-baccalaureate students to promote access to postsecondary education,” grant literature said. “Students may use their grants at any one of approximately 5,400 participating post-secondary institutions.”
At Virginia Highlands Community College, the AIMS scholarship fills in financial gaps left by financial aid that doesn’t not cover the full tuition.
The Appalachian Inter-Mountain Scholars program is funded by the Virginia Tobacco Commission and “encourages Virginia-resident students in Washington County, Smyth County, and the City of Bristol to complete a challenging curriculum and to pursue higher education” by providing the “opportunity to attend up to two years of college without paying any tuition or fees,” program literature said. The program will continue as long as funding is available.
Washington County students must meet the minimum requirements for the Washington County Scholar Program and receive a standard or advanced diploma, scholarship rules said. This year’s graduates “must have been recognized as Washington County Scholars for at least 3 years while enrolled in a Washington County high school including their senior year.”
Virginia High School students “must meet the minimum requirements for the Citizens in Action Program, have at least a 2.5 GPA and receive a standard or advanced diploma. Graduates from the class of 2008 must have been recognized as Citizens in Action Scholars while enrolled at VHS their senior year; class of 2009 for junior and senior years; class of 2010 for sophomore, junior and senior years; thereafter for at least 3 years including their senior year,” the rules said.
Smyth County students “must achieve an unweighted GPA of at least 2.5; maintain a 95% school attendance rate; have no out of school suspensions; and complete 20 hours of community service.”
“We aren’t necessarily pushing Virginia Highlands,” Webb said. “But in case [the students] can’t afford to go immediately to a four-year school, they have their AIM in place.”
GEAR UP operates on six-year grants, and participation in the current GEAR UP is restricted to those who joined two years ago. A second program will begin, assuming a grant proposal is funded, with seventh graders in 2013 – the class of 2018.
Tori Blevins and Kristin Dean, rising ninth-graders in the summer orientation this week at Northwood, are glad to be a part of this GEAR Up cohort.
“It’s exciting to learn about the scholarships,” Blevins said.
“And about the importance of not dropping out,” said Dean.