Not all students fit comfortably into the traditional school system, these students often can be individuals who struggle academically, socially, and emotionally.
The benefits of collaboratively tackling this challenging issue all school districts face was brought to a recent meeting hosted by the Rotary Club of Kelowna.
Central Programs and Services offer a wide variety of alternative educational pathways for students to experience success. The Gateway program is one such initiative aimed at providing vulnerable youth opportunities to experience post-secondary trades training.
“Rotary has been involved since Gateway started. As with all trades related education, there are expenses such as tools and books that students have to incur and are not funded by the government. We wanted to ensure no interested student faces a financial barrier in joining the Gateway program. We work closely with the faculty at Central Schools and Programs in identifying the students’ financial needs,” said the president of Rotary Club Kelowna, Rick Potter.
For students in the program, the learning environment supports five principles: trust, hope, confidence, love and attitude. Building on these, Central School in collaboration with Okanagan College, has developed the Gateway program. Gateway is a unique initiative that provides at-risk students, well before completion of Grade 12, an opportunity to explore a variety of vocational trades they may wish to pursue upon graduation.
To date, the Gateway program has hosted 105 students with many students successfully completing the final stage and going on to pursue apprenticeships through Okanagan College.
“Gateway is an experience for the student to build self-esteem and discover what underlying passions they may have in applying themselves. It gives them a reason to want to achieve,” said Gateway teacher Rob Law.