High School Connection

Our Next Generation: High School Connection

According to their website, www.ongkids.org, Our Next Generation’s High School Connection program is one that is “designed to provide our teenagers with both a structured program as well as a safe, supervised environment for social activities and opportunities for workforce training and soft-skill development.” This program has been running for approximately six years and includes High School aged kids from both in the neighborhood around Our Next Generation and neighborhoods and high schools across Milwaukee. The majority of the students in the High School Connection are African American. Some even travel up to an hour on the bus to attend every Tuesday and Thursday, due to displacement in their home lives. Many of the students come from troubled backgrounds and may not live with their biological parents and live with friends or other family members. On an average night there are forty students that attend in the two and a half hour period that the program runs.
An average day for the High School Connection begins at 4, when the volunteers and program leaders begin to prepare for the student’s arrival. The Our Next Generation Staff includes education coordinators and program leaders, who are paid staff and interns and volunteers, who usually come from Milwaukee Universities. When the students come in, they sit down with their friends and are given a free meal. Afterwards they work on homework or just play games and socialize until they leave. Although this is an after-school program, it is more of a safe environment to socialize than a structured classroom setting. Many of the students work on homework and can ask the volunteers or staff questions if they need help, but many also just sit and socialize with their friends.
One of the main priorities of Our Next Generation is to create a safe environment for the students. This is apparent both in the actual building and what the staff promotes. They try to teach the students personal development, career and educational enrichment, and they provide tutoring for them, something, which many of them do not get at home. They also aid them in their decision processes and teach them the concept of consequences, which again, is a concept that they rarely get at home. Along with teaching the students these life lessons, they also bring them to tour colleges and learn about different professions. According to their website, seniors who participate in the High School Connection program have a 100% graduation rate, which is an amazing number when compared to the average graduation rate in MPS schools, which according to an article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from April 2008, is just above 50%.
High School Connection is an amazing service to these troubled teens, who might be lost without it. They are given a place to get free food and hang out with their friends in a safe environment. An environment, which also motivates them and tells them they can make something out of their lives, something they probably don’t hear too often, especially from a sincere and willing staff. Although some may argue that this program is treating the symptoms and not the sickness, it is much better than having the Milwaukee youth wither away.


www.ongkids.org
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/29395934.html