Waldport and Toledo high schools are getting $1.2 million to increase their graduates’ participation in college or training programs over the next seven years.
The two Lincoln County school are the recipients of more than a third of the $3.5 million in federal funds coming to the Oregon GEAR UP program, administered by Oregon State University.
The GEAR UP program, through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, funds rural schools’ efforts to increase first-generation post-secondary attendance and access for low-income students. The program helps students prepare for bachelor’s degrees, associate degrees, certificates, apprenticeships and other training after high school.
“We have support for preparing students for college and helping them graduate, but then they are on their own,” said Waldport Principal Amy Skirvin. “We have a gap between high school and college that needs to be filled.”
Skirvin said the grant will allow hiring a coordinator to help students access the variety of GEAR UP services and activities. Those include academic tutoring, financial literacy, completion of financial aid applications, college tours and parent engagement programs, among others. GEAR UP also works with students in their first year of college to get them through the transition.
“Our goal will be to increase our on-time graduation rate and our post-secondary education rate,” Skirvin said. “We are excited to have the support and help from GEAR UP to track our students’ post-secondary education. We want our students to leave Waldport High School college and career ready.”
Majalise Tolan, the Linoln County School District’s director of secondary education, said GEAR UP has benefited district students before.
“Having facilitated a GEAR UP grant (as principal) at Taft 7-12 and seeing the strong work GEAR UP did at Newport Middle and Newport High School, I am excited to see the Toledo and Waldport schools and communities join in this learning for post-secondary success,” Tolan said in a news release announcing the grant.
She complimented the work of Skirvin, Toledo principal Brent Belveal and their staffs in collaborating on the GEAR UP applications.
GEAR UP featured the Taft 7-12 program on its website in January 2021 and the Newport Middle and High program was featured the previous October. Both schools documented increases in post-secondary enrollment for graduates.
