Rough seas ahead for high school's COMPASS program

By Richard Gaines, Staff writer. Gloucester Daily Times, May 10, 2005, page A1

Under their tutor's eye, 11 high school seniors sat around a classroom table yesterday studying science and history. Many are planning for college, and one — Nicole Chianciola — doesn't have to worry about how to pay for it.

Her MCAS scores earned her the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship — a full, four-year ticket to a state school.

Their achievements were unlikely.

All were ill-equipped for high school for the usual reasons.

Chianciola, 18, described herself as a dropout in the making.

"I didn't really fit in," she said. "I was just a number."

Shara Agostine, 17, said she'd "made up three years in one."

They and their classmates agreed with parents, the high school guidance staff and in some cases the courts that they weren't going to make it in the big school.

"As a freshman," said Tony Barbara, 19, "I didn't like the atmosphere. I tended not to come to school. Now, my attendance is almost perfect."

"High school is not for everyone," noted Alyssa Elwell, 18.

It was for that reason that the School Committee partnered with Action Inc. to establish the off-campus COMPASS program in the social service agency's basement on Main Street.

High school Principal Joseph Sullivan called COMPASS a successful "safety net" for students who would have been lost and "need sanctuary."

In the two years since, it has been taking alienated students from the high school and matching them with tutors, who take them through curriculums at customized paces. This affords them family-like attention and insulation from the system that works for the majority.

The results have been stunning.

Last year, all five COMPASS students graduated. Four went on to college and one enlisted in the military. This year all 11 seniors are expected to pick up diplomas.

The COMPASS program has won praise similar to Sullivan's from the School Committee and Superintendent Christopher Farmer. He said COMPASS "provides an important service for students who are at risk and have lost touch with the school system."

But now the program itself is at risk.

The $32 million School Committee budget was approved in March without $24,000 for the two COMPASS tutors, who work 19 1/2 hours a week (at a rate of $17.50 an hour) with up to 20 students, including the 11 graduating seniors.

Action officials decry the decision not to pay for the tutors because the agency has gathered $137,000 from other sources — including the city's Community Development Block Grant program — to create the "wrap-around" services that give the program its nurturing capacity.

The lead backer is the U.S. Department of Labor, whose North Shore Workforce Investment Board sees the COMPASS program as a potential national model. It gave COMPASS $95,000 for next year.

"What they do is good stuff," said the board's Shari Cornett. "It's blossomed" with elements that are transferable nationwide.

In addition, Action has assembled another $130,000 in grants to build an entire two-room, 1,800-square-foot school in the basement, replete with commons and offices for future classes.

"Without the tutors, we'll have to give the money back," said Ronna Resnick, Action's director of employment and training. "We're maxed out."

The School Committee's decision not to pay for the program while continuing a parallel alternative program, known as Alliance, in the high school proper turned out to be at odds with the recommendation of the independent school audit team from MGT of America.

MGT, whose report was released last month, found that the Alliance program "has been unable to measure its success over the years." It assigns three union teachers to give an enriched education to 11 students with similar problems to those at the COMPASS program.

"Conversely," MGT found, "the COMPASS program has all the key components of an effective alternative education program that MGT believes are research-based." The auditors added that COMPASS, whose two tutors work with up to 20 students," can produce both quantitative and qualitative data to support its success."

MGT advised the city to transfer the resources from Alliance to COMPASS to make it grow.

"The resources used to support the Alliance program can be shifted to support the expansion of the COMPASS program," it wrote a month after the School Committee voted not to continue funding the COMPASS tutors.

With an average teacher's salary of $50,000, the resources committed to Alliance cost the city $150,000, not counting benefits, for its three teachers.

William Rochford, executive director of Action, said he had not been forewarned that the tutors' $24,000 was in jeopardy, so he made no presentation to the School Committee.

After the cut was made, he appealed to School Committee Chairman Jonathan Pope without success. Pope told the Times yesterday, "The window is basically closed."

Pope agreed with the audit team, Sullivan, Farmer, and the Department of Labor, that the COMPASS program warrants continuation.

"It's a good program," he said.

But he added that the tight budget, which led to the laying off of nine teachers and two administrators, was to blame, and noted that the Alliance program remains.

"We offer a program," he said. "Other kids don't want to come to our program."

Pope said the choice was to maintain a program within the high school.

"We have to back into our main mission, to serve the kids who want to go to our schools," he added. He described COMPASS as "not in our program."Resnick disagreed. "He's so misinformed," she said. "These are Gloucester High School students. These are high school students who happen to take classes in a different building. When they get their degree, they're going to shake the superintendent's hand."Pope suggested that Action appeal for funding from the City Council."COMPASS' money doesn't have to come through us," he said.The council will hold its hearing on the School Department's $32 million budget next Tuesday.

For related articles:

COMPASS program a success Gloucester Daily Times (letter) May 27, 2005
Tutor program in need of assistance Gloucester Daily Times 5/13/05
COMPASS program deserves school support Gloucester Daily Times Editorial 5/11/05