Teens GEAR UP for a Rewarding Future Federally funded college and career readiness program GEAR UP supports students on their path to a rewarding future

Teens

for a Rewarding Future

By Julia Antopol Hirsch

One student is working

toward her nursing degree; another plans to major in business so she can run her own bakery; a third student aims to plant trees on Mars. What do all these students have in common? Their dreams have been guided and supported by the mentors in the GEAR UP program.

Signed into law by President Clinton in 1998, Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) is a federally funded college and career readiness program that helps students in grades seven through 12 prepare for postsecondary education and learn life skills.

Vancouver Public Schools (VPS) is now in its third cycle of the GEAR UP program, and it has proven to be a very successful grant program, with verified higher graduation rates and a higher percentage of students going on to postsecondary education.

“There are two models of GEAR UP,” explains Nina Stemm, district coordinator for VPS’s GEAR UP program. “One is the cohort model where we follow an entire class from seventh grade through their first year of postsecondary schooling. And the other is the priority model, where only students who qualify for free and reduced meals are in the program. In Vancouver, we function as a cohort model and follow the class of 2023.”

To qualify for GEAR UP, a school must have 50% or more of their students

enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program. Three middle schools and two high schools within VPS fall under this category. The seventh-graders at Discovery, McLoughlin and Gaiser Middle Schools began the program in the 2017- 18 school year and are now freshmen at Hudson’s Bay and Fort Vancouver High Schools. A small percentage of the students moved on to Skyview, and even though Skyview is not a qualifying high school, the grant allowed those students to continue with the program.

One thousand students are now involved in Vancouver’s GEAR UP. Each qualifying GEAR UP school has two full-time staff members with offices in the buildings who directly support the students. On a broad scale, GEAR UP staff members conduct workshops on college financial aid, choosing the right college, college essay writing, and leadership skills. They occasionally bring in career professionals from the community to offer students examples of real-world applications for the subjects they are studying. On a more individual level, staff members provide social and emotional support, as well

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Top: Collection of college swag used as student incentives for participating in GEAR UP activities. Left: Students visit Oregon State University on a field trip. Photos courtesy GEAR UP.

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as in-class assistance for students who need help with a particular subject. GEAR UP staff members also assist teachers with large projects, workshops and presentations.

“We don’t just focus on four-year college support,” Stemm explains. “There are also students who intend to go to a trade school or a training program, and we support them as well.”

“I moved to Vancouver in my sophomore year and found GEAR UP,” says Brenda Contreras, a GEAR UP alumnus who is now working on her nursing degree. “I’m first generation American and was the first in my family who wanted to go to college. My parents wanted to help me but there were no resources in Spanish, and I had no idea what to do. With the help of Tyler and Nina, I planned a Latino Night where we had Hispanic business leaders come and talk about their journey. It was all in Spanish. When I look back, I was only 15 and I coordinated all that. I couldn’t have done it without people guiding me.” Aviyonce L., a freshman, started GEAR UP with her classmates in seventh grade at Gaiser. She plans on attending a fouryear college to earn a degree in business because she wants to run her own bakery. What she enjoyed the most about the program in middle school was just having a supportive adult to chat with. “Going to lunch and hanging out with the staff was really fun. Sometimes they helped more than the teachers did. They were really supportive.”

Field trips to college campuses and summer camps have also been a mainstay for the GEAR UP program, although with the COVID-19 crisis, those opportunities have all gone online.

“So much of what we do is relationshipbased with in-person activities,” says Stemm, “so the school closures due to the virus have been an adjustment. We’ve been running virtual college tours and partnered with colleges to conduct Zoom workshops. We’re trying anything

Freshman Aviyonce L. plans to earn a degree in business after high school and run her own bakery.

Photo by Jerome Lowe.

we can to keep the students engaged. We’ve even done an online cooking class teaching the kids how to cook a dinner with minimal ingredients--fun things where they can develop the necessary life skills.”

Amelia H., a freshman at Fort Vancouver High School, wants to go to Mars. Her major is going to be biology with an emphasis on botany, learning how organisms grow in space, with a goal to work for NASA as

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Amelia H. of Fort Vancouver High School has been awarded more than $200 in scholarships within the last 12 months for her league and tournament bowling.

Photo by JJ Harris.

Students participating in community service projects for Make a Difference Day. Photo courtesy GEAR UP.

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an astrobiologist or xenobiologist. She’s already checked out Eastern Washington University.

“Just this last week, I watched an online panel from Eastern Washington through GEAR UP,” Amelia told me. “It was great to talk to the college students, even if it was online.”

It was tough to reach out to all the students during the last few months of school, when it was not in session due to the pandemic. “We have students who are juggling a lot more responsibility than usual right now,” Stemm told me in May. “Academics is just one of the many tasks they have throughout the day, so we need to make sure what we are offering students is valuable and provides important skills.”

The staff worked hard to keep the students and families engaged, and plan to continue this into the 2020-21 school year. After all the work they’ve accomplished in the last three years to motivate and support these students, they don’t want to lose their momentum.

“GEAR UP aims to provide every student with the skills they need to pursue their postsecondary goals,” says Stemm, “and, in the end, have fulfilling, meaningful careers.”

That mission of the

GEAR UP program never wavers. Online or off. Go to vancouverfamilymagazine.com to learn what Gaiser Middle School students had to say about social media when Vancouver Family Magazine editor, Nikki Klock, visited the campus as a GEAR UP guest.

Julia Antopol Hirsch lives with her husband and two children in Vancouver, where she is working on her third novel. She is the author of “The Sound of Music: The Making of America’s Favorite Movie,” which was reissued in 2018. She loves to swim and read, and has three mischievous dogs who insist on going to the dog park every day.

Future U

Each autumn, GEAR UP hosts a free “Future U” event for Vancouver School District students. Students visit with representatives from public and private colleges, training programs, trade schools, employers, local unions and military, and get help applying for financial aid. Go to www. vansd.org for updates on 2020’s event.