Year-round, the Gateway Cities Charter School accepts students between the ages of 18 and 25 who have not achieved high school diplomas.
“If you have some young person who wants to finish and get their high school diploma, this is the place to do it,” said Mike Bassett, executive director and CEO of the Conservation Corps of Long Beach and Gateway Cities Charter School. “A young person without a diploma nowadays is in dire straits. Even McDonald’s requires a high school diploma.”
The Conservation Corps of Long Beach (CCLB) has been in operation since 1987. Gateway Cities Charter School was formed as a separate corporation from the CCLB for accountability purposes, Bassett said. However, the corporation had to remain affiliated with Long Beach in order to meet a statute of requirements from the State of California.
Gateway Cities Charter School has been in operation since July of last year.
Charter programs typically deal with at-risk youth who have mainly dropped out of high school or are unemployed. But the charter, by law, has to accept all applicants, and no matter what economic conditions people are in, they can enroll and get a high school diploma.
“It’s a good opportunity for them to take advantage of their back yard, per se,” said Megan Clark, executive assistant to the CEO of the CCLB. “They can grow and go on to further education instead of just accepting not having a high school diploma. They can go forward and pursue other goals, and that’s what we want for all of our students.”
Gateway Cities Charter School operates on a “quarter versus semester” system. Students can register at any time during the year and opt for their preferred method of learning.
It’s a system that strays away from the “traditional” form of learning and identifies itself more along the lines of the college model.
“For that reason, we are really successful with our young people,” Bassett said. “Our last graduation was 58 students, and we had 700 people at the graduation. That gives you some idea of the interest. A lot of these young people are the first ones in their families to graduate.”
An added benefit is that students enrolled in the school have priority listing with the CCLB’s Recycling and Work Projects crews.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Conservation-Corps-school-2.jpg” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”Students and staff at the Gateway Cities Charter School attend a meeting at the educational site in Bixby Knolls. Teachers at the school are all required to have California credentials. Currently, the school has 35 staff members working with 90 students.” captionposition=”right”] Gateway Cities Charter School has also been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). Schools that are rated well by WASC teams are typically given one full year of accreditation. Gateway Cities Charter School received three years.
“Oh, I think it’s wonderful,” said Larry Forester, CCLB board secretary and Gateway Cities Charter School vice-chair of the board. “It’s a phenomenal advantage to have our own charter school because now we can go and take other students in that age bracket that have not gotten degrees and let them come in also.”
Gateway Cities Charter School is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Students are not required to pay to enroll in the school, and funding is garnered through daily attendance.
Gateway’s independence from the CCLB is from a pure operational standpoint, Forester said. With the aforementioned WASC accreditation, Gateway is a fully operational charter school for the next three years, and this allows a wider acceptance of students, not just CCLB members.
“The opportunity is phenomenal,” Forester said, praising the ability for people that have fallen out of the system of high school education to now return at no cost and earn a degree.
“I think…that, statistically, a high school education can guarantee them about $7000 more a year,” he said. “It’s great.”
Bassett agrees.
“The quality is there,” Bassett said. “Our hopes are reaching this group of young people that for whatever reason, and I guarantee you the reasons are as many and varied as we have students, they dropped out of school. Sometimes peer pressure. Sometimes falling behind. We have teachers that are unusually capable of working with young adults and get them caught up, so to speak.”
Teachers at the charter school all are required to have California credentials. Currently, the school has 35 staff members working with 90 students. It proves to be a challenge for teachers as all students have different credit requirements, which makes it difficult to assess individual progress.
However, at any given time, members of the CCLB are available at the program’s disposal if help is needed, Bassett said. The school can even go as far as to holding more than 200 students.
It’s free education for young individuals who need it the most, Bassett said.
“There’s no psychological obstacles in the sense that everybody is equal,” he said. “I think for those that didn’t finish their high school and thought they couldn’t, that’s a lot of what they believed. This is their chance to get that thing out of the way. It’s an interesting commitment from these young folks. It takes a lot of courage to say ‘Hey, I want to go back to school. I’m an adult, but I need to go get my high school diploma.’ They’re just great young people.”
To learn more about Gateway Cities Charter School, call (562) 216-1790, visit the school at 3635 Atlantic Ave. or visit cclb-corps.org .
