District preparing for Younghouse

Fairfield school board members met two Younghouse administrators at Monday?s meeting and heard more about the Fairfield program that begins with the new school year in August.

Jamie Gerst will be Fairfield?s site director of the academic and behavioral program for up to 10 students, grades 5-12. Previously, Fairfield high school and middle school sent students to the Younghouse program Christamore in Mount Pleasant.

Superintendent Art Sathoff wanted a Fairfield-based program to eliminate transportation behavioral problems and save transportation costs. Throughout the year, the school board members and administrators explored various programs and chose Younghouse.

?Typically we have students in the program who don?t do well in a regular classroom,? said Gerst. ?We offer academics, physical education and chores. The goal of the program is to get students back into the regular school program.?

Gerst said chores could include sweeping a floor. Chores support students? concept of responsibility and contribution.

?It?s amazing how many students have never held a broom before,? she said.

School board members asked questions about such a range of ages of students in the program and typical length of time spent in the program.

?Administrators met with Younghouse staff and asked some of these same questions,? said Sathoff.

?We set up opportunities for older students to be role models,? said Gerst. ?We have different expectations for a fifth grade student than high school students.?

The minimum time spent in the program is 16 weeks for older students and nine weeks for younger students, and some students spend longer, she said.

?Each week, students have the opportunity to move up a level,? said Gerst. ?Each week staff members meet, discuss and collaborate about each student. We limit total students to 10 to keep a five-students-to-one-teacher ratio.

?Students set their own goals because they are more likely to work toward a goal they?ve set themselves than one set by an authority figure. Each day, students evaluate themselves.

?Fairfield has been very supportive and we are looking forward to being in the district,? said Gerst. ?We have staff who are already experienced working in our program coming here.?

Gerst has five years of experience working in the classroom as a youth care worker, said Jack Escorcia, also from Younghouse.

In other school board news:

? Sathoff said conservative estimates for revenue and expenditures were both surpassed for the district?s annual budget, but everything was under control.

?Our spending authority position is improving,? he said.

? The board approved the second reading of policy changes as reviewed and recommended by the policy committee. Policies affected include anti-bulling/harassment; care of school property/vandalism; freedom of expression; student directory information; student photographs; maintaining a school library; physical education requirements and opting out; and removing a policy about Internet appropriate use regulations from board policy to make it part of the student handbook or technology handbook at building levels.

? The board approved the 2012-13 student handbooks for the high school and middle school. Each handbook will be published on the school website and the middle school handbook is published in student assignment journals.