Ep 59 | Free 4-Year College Scholarship? [RELOADED]

SPEAKER_00 0:00

As early as seventh grade, they can say, I'm going to college. Now that is going to change a student's outlook. All of a sudden, they want to do better, keep their grades up, not get in any trouble because they don't want to lose the scholarship. And we find that they want to make their mentor proud.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. Kids, they're curious. They're funny. They're the future. And let's be real, they're expensive. For many families, college is never a thought because the simple fact that it's financially out of reach. My next guest is the county coordinator of Take Stock in Children, a statewide program that's changing that for Scambia County kids. Today she's going to share how it works, who qualifies, and why it's more than just money. Indiana to Florida, second generation teacher, passionate mentor, Sally Lee. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. You have such good teacher vibes. Like I just feel them so deeply in my soul. You remind me of my aunt and all my relatives who are teachers. Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I have. Both of my parents were teachers. My mom taught special ed, and my dad was a college professor and coach, and just education has always been important.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

So it was never a thought.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Well, that fits. It fits so much. Now, when I first heard about this program, I thought, okay, take stocking kids. It must be difficult to qualify for. So can you tell us what the requirements are for eligibility?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Sure. We are looking for students who are good students. They don't have to be straight A's, but good students with good citizenship, good attendance, and mainly the financial situation where they might not be able to go to college. Their family just couldn't afford it. So the number one qualifier for the program is qualifying for free or reduced lunch. And then we do look at grades, but just a C average can get a student into the program. We like to see better than that, but good grades, good attendance, good citizenship. And I'll talk later about the mentor portion, but that's another part of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

So a C now is also what a 2.5?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

And what does good citizen citizenship mean?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

No crime, no drugs for sure. That's a deal breaker for the program. And of course, we want good citizenship in school. So if students get a referral, they can stay in the program, but we're going to definitely be in conversation with them. We can put them on probation. We want to see our students be good examples and do the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

And so if they qualify, then they get four years tuition paid for college, is that correct? That's right.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

And that's that's an amazing thing for a seventh grader to realize that college is possible. Not only possible, but they will be able to go as long as they do those things we just talked about: good grades, citizenship, and attendance.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Does it have to be a college within Florida?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

This program runs through the College Prepaid Foundation and so Florida Prepaid. So yes, the students go to a public school in Florida and it's four years. Our scholarships are for the state college rate. So a student can go to Pensacola State College, for example. All their tuition and fees would be paid for a full four years. So that's pretty amazing. Some of our students, though, want to go to a university, and that's also possible, but uh it's more expensive. And so the student would need to make up the higher tuition cost, but they can do that through Pell Grants, and almost all of our students are going to qualify and receive the free grant money, the Pell Grants. Um of them get bright futures, and some of them get other scholarships, and they use that with our take stock scholarship to be able to afford a university. And what about trade schools? That's definitely a possibility. And we do have some students who are going to Georgetone or uh getting certificates through Pensacola State College. That definitely definitely is also part of it.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

So if a student uh get qualifies for the program, they're in it, they're in tenth grade, but then they change schools. What happens then?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

As long as it's a public school, they stay in the program. Okay. Um if they move to a different county, that other county also has a take stock program and they will sort of adopt our student. We're gonna hold their scholarship, but that program will get them a mentor and will provide us with the updates on their grades. So they definitely can still stay in the program.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

So talk to me about the mentor portion because I can tell you're just dying to bring that up. And I think it's a really special feature of the program.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

It is a wonderful thing. This every student has a community mentor who volunteers to go meet with the student at the school once a week. And we tell the mentors that if they don't remember chemistry or algebra, that's okay because we're not really looking for tutors for the student. We're looking for mentors, somebody that will be an encourager, a cheerleader for them, somebody they can talk to about school, about college, about life in general, but mainly somebody to believe in them and to give them the hope and the confidence that they can go to college.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Well, I remember being in high school, my parents and I could barely keep track of my soccer schedule, much less all of the dynamic aspects of college application. And it would have been so nice to have a mentor that is just an outside person who has the energy and mental bandwidth, right, to sit down and walk them through that. So are the mentors particularly uh trained in a certain way, or is it um what's the qualification process for your mentors?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

The main thing we're looking for is somebody that cares and that has time to be a consistent presence for the student. So the hope is that they can meet at the school for 30 to 45 minutes once a week. Um we like to have our mentors have at least college experience, if not a degree, because they're going to be helping the student get ready for college, and having that experience is certainly helpful. The one thing I tell parents is this is going to be another adult who cares about your child. The mentor is not trying to replace a parent, not a psychologist, and I say not an ATM. Um the mentor is not even supposed to give the student money or buy them things. The mentor is there to be that special adult friend who can help.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

And a safe adult. Yeah. My aunt is the executive director of a nonprofit here in Pensacola, and she talks about five safe adults when she is talking to kids, one for each finger on your hand. And I think in addition to that, how great it would be if each kid also had another set of adults, one for talking to about career choices, college choices, you know, all the different areas of life so that the burden isn't completely on the parents to do all of that.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

And we do provide some training for our mentors, and they have a mentor toolkit which gives suggested activities and topics they can talk about. And all of our mentors are fingerprinted and screened, and they only meet in a public place, like in the media center at school.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

And you said activities. Do you is it allowed to do off-site activities with the mentors and the mentees?

SPEAKER_00 8:33

No. Um, the contact can only be in a monitored situation. Now, the exception would be if it's a tick stock event, of course. We have two dinners, one at the beginning of the year and one at the end of the year, and the parent brings the student to the event and the mentor can come and meet with them. So that gives a nice uh way for the parent and the mentor to meet. But other than that, there's no outside activities.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

And what about uh virtual communication? So many kids liked, prefer to text than to call or to meet in person.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Well, and that became extremely important when the pandemic hit. Um, obviously, our program had been set up for in-person mentoring only, and now all of a sudden the schools were closed and the mentors could not meet in person with the student. So, luckily, the take stock program statewide had been working on a special take stock app that they were going to use for logging sessions and setting them up, but they quickly pivoted and turned that app into a texting app that was monitored. So we get key keyword alerts. If anything untoward is said, I get a notice about it. Um, and the mentor and the student can get on this app. It's only the mentor and the student then that can connect. And then the conversation is monitored. So that allowed our program to continue during that pandemic time. They couldn't meet in person, but they could meet using this special app. And the Department of Education actually gave the approval that that was considered monitored mentoring the way it was set up. Um, the nice thing is that continues now because some of the mentors cannot get to the school every week, or it's hard for them to get there every week. And so maybe they meet in person twice a week, but then virtually using the app the other times.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

The other thing they added to that app was a video chat feature so they can actually see each other, but again, all that is monitored and recorded. So it is a safe platform, but it's a really good one.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Well, that's so much more connectability. And absolutely I don't know if that's that's a word. I feel like I sound like it's well, we'll go with it, we'll go with it. But it just sounds like it it connects the the kids with the community, and especially during quarantine, like you said, when they were so disconnected. But the more genuinely connected they can feel, then the better they're gonna do in school, they're gonna be more at ease with their social development. So I I I just am so impressed that this program has been around since the 90s, and yet it's really up to date with how kids today want to communicate. That's impressive.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

And then I also want to mention the other person that works with me on this program, it's Jeannie Kimbrell, and she's our college success coach. And so it is her job to go around the district to every school and to actually meet with the students. I don't get to see them in person too often, but that's her job. Um, so she talks to students on a regular basis, she's the one that checks their grades, and if anybody is having trouble, she's gonna help them get a plan in place so that they can get back on track.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

And so many of the kids also went virtual during the pandemic. Um, and then some of them are on like a hybrid of virtual and in-person. There's a lot of it's less black and white now on you know how kids are receiving their education. Can kids who do virtual school qualify for this or how is that being navigated? Yes, they they definitely can as long as it's a public virtual school. So not home school, but virtual school. Okay, so that's an important distinction between the two.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

They have to be in a public school, and that was a challenge for our students, many of them. Um for some of them, doing remote learning was really hard and they struggled. Um, we saw it in in the grades for some of our students, but um, the district has been wonderful working with students who have kind of fallen behind, giving them opportunities to make up credits, to do um summer school, um, and now that they're back in class, they're doing so much better. So we've definitely seen some hard times, but some improvement for sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

How do you feel like this program contributes to the motivation of kids in school?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Well, as I said before, as early as the seventh grade, now all of a sudden a student who never even thought about college wasn't anywhere on their radar, now all of a sudden they have a college scholarship being held for them. And as early as seventh grade, they can say, I'm going to college. Now that is going to change a student's outlook. All of a sudden, they want to do better, keep their grades up, not get in any trouble because they don't want to lose the scholarship. And we find that they want to make their mentor proud.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Absolutely. Do you have any specific examples, stories that come to mind of uh student success?

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Oh, so many. Uh, we've actually had 125 students who have graduated from college and are out in the world of work. Um, many of those students have told us that without take stock and without a teacher or a counselor encouraging them to apply and then to be in the program, they would have never gone to college and they wouldn't be where they are now. So I oh there's so many examples, but one of them, um, this young lady, um, sadly, her parents were both killed in a car accident when she was in middle school. And her grandmother raised her then and encouraged her to apply for the program. So in seventh grade, she became part of Take Stock, and that gave her the motivation to do her best, knowing now she had a way to go to college. She had an amazing mentor, and in fact, oh gosh, she's been graduated 15 years probably. She and her mentor are still very, very close, and it was a wonderful, wonderful relationship.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

That's so beautiful. What a neat bridge between what's happening at school and what happens after school. Right. You know, it's such a weird time for students because it's like you're an adult, but you don't feel like it, right? And you're expected to make all these life-altering decisions. I think what do you want to do when you grow up is the most horrifying question ever. And but yet I always ask it to when I'm around students.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah. And we usually see on the application, that's one of the things the students write is what, you know, what do you think you want to be? Usually it depends on what the most current television program is. They want to be a CIS investigator or they want to be a veterinarian or something like that, or a pro ball player. Um, but that changes over time.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Well, what I love about the program is it not just it doesn't just focus on what they want to be, but it's who do they want to be, who do they want to become. And by having the mentorship piece in there, I think that really facilitates the who over the what. Yep. Yeah, it's a really neat program. Is there uh many scholarships available? Are they limited?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Um, the way we get our scholarships is through donations locally. So part of my job is to go out and recruit donors. And so those come from civic organizations, from uh family foundations, businesses, or just individuals who want to help change the life of a student. And so the donations we receive we use to buy the scholarships through Florida Prepaid Foundation. And they actually match the donation. So it's nice for me to be able to tell a mentor, if you give me this much money, I can match it when I buy the scholarship. So each year we average about 20 to 25 new students that we're able to pick each year. And we focus on sixth and seventh graders because we want them to have time to be in the program and to really do their best all the way through.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

I think that's very smart. Of those about 25 students, what percentage of them graduate from college typically?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Um the way the figures are, pretty much 99% of them graduate from high school. And then about 96% of them start college, and that's high when you look at state average or peer group average. And then of the ones who start college, 70% get a degree, and again, that's very high. 70% might be a two-year, or but most of them are four-year. And we even have students who have gone on to get a doctorate or are doctors or attorneys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Oh my gosh, you must be so proud. I am. I know. I love how you tote around these beautiful poster boards of your children, right? And yeah, I love that. That's so awesome. What would parents do if they wanted to see about eligibility for their own child?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

The application process happens in the spring of each year through sixth or seventh grade counselors. So even as early as this fall, parents could contact the guidance office and say, whenever it's time to do take stock in children, we want to be considered. So the schools send out an interest letter, I'm gonna say, but unfortunately in middle schools, so don't those don't always get home. Students don't always take home what we hope they will, and sometimes parents don't even know about it. So I'm always looking for ways to alert families that this program exists and that it's an awesome opportunity that they really should look at. So let the guidance office know that they'd like an application for their student, and then in the spring, watch for those applications to be available.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

And if someone wants to be a mentor?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Oh, always looking for mentors. Uh they can contact me. Um are we gonna provide my info somehow? Or you want me just to Yeah, you can say it, and then we'll we'll put it in the easiest thing is probably my email, and that's my uh initial S last name Lee. So S L E E at E C S D F L dot US. And then I would be happy to contact them. We start recruiting in July and August so that mentors can start. I'll tell you what though, the amazing thing is the return rate. We have about 70 to 75 percent of our mentors who keep going and come back every year. Uh that pretty pretty well tells you that mentors love doing this. They get attached to their student. The commitment isn't huge, it's important, but it's just that hour a week. So we're always looking for people who have that time and would love to become a good friend to a young person.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

That's incredible. Last question What do you want people to know about Escambia County schools?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Well, as an educator myself, I know that you have to have a passion for education. And I see that in our district. Um, everyone, from the superintendent to the school board to administrators and teachers and staff, everybody is united for the common vision of wanting to see students succeed. And we do see that our students are receiving help, that that they have teachers who care. Um, it's a it's a wonderful district, and I'm proud to be associated with it.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Well, I'm proud to have met you. Thank you, Sally. This was amazing. All right, I enjoyed it. Thank you for the opportunity. Voices United in Education is a production of Escambia County School District. Special thanks to Pine Forest High School for their recording studio facilities and hospitality.