KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Missouri School District’s dropout rate is nothing to brag about. In fact, it was recently singled out by the U.S. Secretary of Education as possibly the worst district in the country. But there’s one metro high school that’s offering hope in what often seems like a hopeless situation.
The Hope Academy, located on Swope Parkway a few miles east of the Country Club Plaza, is a charter school that isn’t affected by the district’s loss of state accreditation.
The school, which takes up the second floor of the Zion Grove Baptist Church, serves only high school drop-outs – perhaps fitting, since it’s a place of redemption for 280 students who dropped-out of traditional schools.
“They’re here to help you as long as you’re here to help yourself,” said James Randle, 18. He says that he was a year behind and struggling before he came to Hope Academy, where computer classes allow students to attend in person, from home or even the public library.
“Say I have a biology class and iI finish it today, I can get a chemistry class and start on that the same day and not have to wait a semester or a whole new year to wait ,” said Randle.
Hope Academy teacher Michael Wilson says that he used to teach at Central High School, and that he has run into at least five of his former students at Hope.
He says that he knows why many students are motivated to do better at Hope Academy.
“They’ve gone out there and they’ve tried to live and they’ve tried to do things and it hasn’t worked,” said Wilson. “And they realize ‘I’ve got to do something,’ and when they walk in here and they see me they go, ‘Oh, so now I have help’.”
The academy was founded by Rabbi Paul Silbersher and the Pastor Michael Brooks, who is also a Kansas City Missouri Council member. It is sponsored by UMKC, and since its inception in 2009 it has helped 111 former drop-outs earn their high school diploma.
Hope Academy principal and CEO Vonnelle Middleton says that each student has their own education plan.
“You don’t go into a classroom where everyone is working at the same pace,” said Middleton. “They’re not even expected to do so.”
Middleton says that in 2011, the attendance rate at Hope Academy was 95 percent, and the graduation rate was 93 percent. That compares extremely well compared to the rest of the Kansas City Missouri School District, where 60 percent of the students who start 9th grade drop out before they graduate.
The Hope Academy serves students from the ages of 16 to 21. And when they are finished, what they receive isn’t a G.E.D. but an actual high school diploma.
Randle says that he’ll graduate in May, and then will be off to college.
“I’m going to Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas and I’ll be majoring in communications arts, radio and TV broadcasting,” said Randle.
