'Essential 7' criteria boost success rate

By Barbara Trainin Blank, The Patriot-News

April 16, 2010

The day she got the news, Erin Huff cried. With joy.

The Steelton-Highspire High School senior had been accepted by Wesley College in Dover, Del., which she plans to attend next fall. Interested in studying history or education, she'd be the first person in her family to earn a bachelor's degree.

Until last year, a four-year college wasn't on Huff's radar screen.

"I thought it would be really hard, that teachers wouldn't be there for you the way they are in high school," she said.

What changed was the mandatory college-preparation program Steelton-Highspire instituted last year: any student who wants to graduate from the high school must apply to at least one post-secondary school.

"A committee of administrators and teachers talked about the goals we had for our students -- that everyone can succeed if we raised the bar," principal Ryan Neuhard said.

"Raising the bar" meant meeting the "essential seven" criteria for graduation, which also include completing a senior project and taking either the SAT or ACT college exam.

Since the program began during the 2008-09 school year, the graduation rate rose from 75 percent the year before to 97.5 percent last year.

Helping students prepare for college testing and complete college and financial aid applications are Vicki Glenn, the college adviser, and Aja Reynolds. Reynolds, on loan to the district from Penn State's College Advising Corps, is at the high school daily, thanks to support from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.

"It feels like since we started [the program] students are asking about college at a younger age," Reynolds said. "When we have a college fair, even sophomores want to come. There's a more widespread culture now."

Each student also is assigned a mentor -- a district teacher who works one on one with seniors to motivate them and assist with schoolwork. Huff's was math teacher Joe Seruli.

Motivation also is enhanced by a new practice at the high school: posting college acceptance letters on a wall. The school has increased the number of advanced placement classes and expanded dual enrollment, whereby students can take college credits.

The response to the college-preparation program has been "miraculous," Superintendent Deborah Wortham said. "The conversation changed from 'No one in my family ever went to college' to 'There is where I'm going to college.'"

Ryan Hill, also a senior, said he literally "dropped the phone" when his parents called to read him an acceptance letter from Bucknell University in Lewisburg -- with a full NCAA basketball scholarship.

"My parents stressed the importance of education, but I didn't think I wanted to go," Hill said. "I didn't think I could do it. But I had to do it for my parents."

Once Hill was afraid he wouldn't have the time-management skills to succeed in college. That attitude changed, thanks to the college-preparation program and his mentor, head high-school basketball coach Mike Pilsitz.

"He has taught me a lot of lessons, on and off the court," Hill said.

At first, student response to the "essential seven was "You've got to be kidding,'" Glenn said. Now students say "of course" when asked if the program should continue.

On one wall of Wortham's office is the framed cover of a Newsweek issue containing an article about the country's "Top 100 High Schools."

"The Blue Ribbon schools [honored by the federal government] have five criteria. A school like ours, that's not yet Blue Ribbon, has seven," she said proudly.