Blog

By Jeremy Thomas

The United Way Pacesetter Awards is fairly new as it is only in its third year, and every year Hazelwood area middle schools have claimed the award. This year was no different as Larimore, Townsend, and Hazelwood Northwest Middle school won the award. To be eligible for the award schools must have at least 60 percent staff participation in the United Way campaign.

All three school principals received a plaque and a standing ovation during the meeting. Daryl Lester expressed his gratitude to the people that have contributed to the United Way foundation.

“I just want to say thank you so much to everyone that has made contribution to the United Way of Greater St. Louis, I can’t express how thankful my organization is to have such hardworking, caring parents and teachers here in Hazelwood,” Lester said.

The meeting also included an interesting view into the Drop-Out Prevention Program offered by all Three Hazelwood High school. There were even a few students at the meeting that gave their perspective of the program.

The main focus of the program is to help assistant student that are at risk of dropping out of school, provide academic support, and keep students on track to graduate. Mentors and volunteer teachers make up the staff of the program and currently there are a little over 150 students enrolled. Two students currently in the program attended the meeting and were able to speak about their experience so far.

“I use to hate going to class, my grades were not good at all, and it didn’t seem like any of my teachers wanted to help even when I asked for help. But ever since I been in the program my grades have gone up, I actually really like school now and I appreciate all my teachers,” Hazelwood Central Junior student Hooper said.  He has plans to graduate in 2014, and wants to go into the marines after graduation

“Before I got into the program, I had a very hard time of paying attention in class and actually doing my homework, I was not satisfied with my grades and neither were my parents and I had serious consideration of dropping out of school, but since I been in the program I have been getting A’s and B’s in all my classes and finally looks forward to graduation,” Hazelwood West Sophomore student Mathews said. He plans to graduate in 2015, and wants to attend the University of Oregon to play football.

The Mid-year accountability reports were presented by principals from  Barrington, Jamestown, Russell, and West Middle schools. The central theme for all of the principals presenting at the meeting were, the plans to either keep up their good state education numbers or find strategies to increase their school progression numbers against the state average. Some of these strategies included compelling conversations with students and more after school education programs.

There were no patron questions at the end of the meeting.