The mission of the Latin American Youth Center's YouthBuild Public Charter School (YB PCS) is to transform the lives of high school dropouts in the District of Columbia through an educational curriculum that combines academics with vocational training, employability skill-building, and community service to prepare students for college or the workplace while they work to create housing for the city’s low-income residents. The school was founded by the Latin American Youth Center, (LAYC) a well-established nonprofit organization based in the District of Columbia, and a group of community members with a wide-ranging set of experiences and expertise. The school seeks to build on the success of the LAYC’s YouthBuild program by transforming it into a public charter school in order to better serve the needs of greater numbers of young people and achieve improved educational and vocational outcomes.

The school was founded to address the need for educational and vocational options for youth in our nation’s capital, where nearly half of our students drop out of school without graduating. Many of our city’s dropouts come from homes broken by poverty – nearly two-thirds of the city’s children reside in low-income households. We have seen the consequences – gang involvement, street violence, drug dealing and substance abuse, youth unemployment and a diminished quality of life for all who preside in neighborhoods where such problems exist.

Goals

YB PCS opened its doors in September 2005, offering a new start for students aged 16-24 who have dropped out, aged out, or been expelled from regular D.C. public schools. YB PCS offers the following opportunities for its students:

• Provides an opportunity for out-of-school youth to complete their high school education by attaining a GED;
• Offers youth the opportunity to develop vocational skills that can lead to gainful employment;
• Increases youths’ employability levels through leadership development and job readiness skills such as developing an understanding of the importance of regular attendance, punctuality, the ability to engage in respectful interactions with supervisors and coworkers, and the value of responsible personal financial management;
• Provides youth with intensive support services, including counseling, drug treatment groups, assistance with child care and housing, and other case management services to help them reduce the level of risk in their lives and work toward becoming responsible adults and contributing members of society; and
• Engages youth in service to the community by applying their skills to build new or renovate existing housing for low-income residents.

Educational Focus

As an alternative, vocational senior high school, the YB PCS opened with 55 students in its initial class and expects to grow to accept 100 students by year five of its operation. Over the course of a 9-month period, students spend alternating weeks in the classroom and on a construction site. The YB PCS takes a comprehensive approach to transforming lives by engaging students in:

• a rigorous academic curriculum based on innovative, research-proven methods that engage all kinds of learners in order to earn a GED and prepare for post-secondary school or the workplace;
• vocational training that equips students with hands-on construction knowledge and experience that will lead to employment;
• employability skill-building that includes leadership development, substance abuse counseling, mentoring, interpersonal communications, computer basics, conflict management, and life skills training to improve the quality of students’ lives and increase their employability levels;
• community service to create new or renovate existing housing for low-income residents.

Students

YB PCS targets “hard to reach” youth, i.e., those who have dropped out or aged out of or been expelled from public school, primarily minority youth. The YB PCS removes language barriers by providing bilingual instruction and ESL training to our students (many of whom reside in non-English-speaking homes). This also responds to the growing need for bilingual English/Spanish speakers in many career fields.

As an incentive to attract young people with scarce resources, (and those tempted to make money in a faster, riskier way on the streets), the YB PCS offers a stipend of $7 per hour to compensate students for the work they do as part of their vocational training and $10 per day for classroom instruction. We view the incentive as critical to students’ ability to stay in school. Although the incentive is hardly a livable wage, it removes some of the economic pressures which may have contributed to the students’ previous decision to drop out and provides enough financial assistance to keep students stable through the duration of the school year.

In order to enroll in LAYC YB PCS, students must attend a week-long orientation, participate in an interview, complete an academic assessment, submit a writing sample, and provide school transcripts along with proof of age. In order to foster a sense of personal responsibility along with establishing positive group norms, students work together to create a code of conduct which is written into a student contract. By signing the contract, students signify their commitment to following the rules established by the group related to standards of behavior, absence and tardiness guidelines, conflict resolution procedures, etc… This student contract is an important means of recognizing and respecting the different needs of older students. The LAYC YB PCS is not a traditional top-down school based model, but rather a model which integrates youth into all aspects of the life of the school.

LAYC's History with YouthBuild

LAYC's YouthBuild program prepared students for their GEDs, teaching job-readiness skills, providing support services, and engaging youth in community service from 1995 - 2005, when the program transitioned to become a public charter school. During those eleven years, LAYC's YB program had a strong track record of success. In the final three years of operation, for example, 98 percent of YB graduates either secured employment or went on to college or further training.

LAYC continues to provide support to YB PCS, now that the school is up and running. In addition, the school links with partner institutions including the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, MANNA, the Shaw/Columbia Heights Neighborhood Collaborative, the DC Office on Early Childhood Development, the Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs, the Smithsonian Institution, the Wall Street Institute, Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care, and others.

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