I have never been the academic type. If you asked anybody when I was in school the last thing they would have guessed was that my first real job out of college would be in the field of education, yet here I am. Coming into my Fellowship year I had only the highest of expectations for 12 Plus and I have not been disappointed in the slightest. When I wrote my first blog post (in late September), I was still in the honeymoon phase of this job. The honeymoon is over now, however, and the reality of the job has since set in. The fun parts of being a 12 Plus Fellow are at times overshadowed by the seriousness of the situation, but this also helps us understand why our work is so important. I am still piecing together what exactly the concept of changing a school’s culture means. But I am learning that what 12 Plus does very well is help bring a school closer together.

Within these last five years all three schools of our partner schools have been transformed by the introduction of the PLUS Center, 12 Plus staff, and our message. Although 12 Plus is very much a team with the same mission, each site must adapt to their school’s individual environment, their school’s needs, and their school’s students. We are currently in our second year at Hill Freedman, our newest partner school.  This, combined with the fact that this is Hill Freedman’s first year with a senior class and in a new building, means that we have struggled at times to find our identity. However, from the beginning of Fellows Training, we were told that 12 Plus is a “learning organization.” The process of learning and growth is not always an easy one, which is probably much of the reason that it is so rewarding when we find moments of success.

For me, some of these moments have come about through opportunities to engage with the school outside of the usual 12 Plus programming. Hill-Freedman World Academy was founded on the principles of diversity and inclusion, and one of the unique characteristics of our school is the large population of students with complex support needs (CSN). Within this population, there are many students who are on the autism spectrum. Although CSN students and general education students go to school in the same building, there are not often opportunities for meaningful interactions between the two groups. Lunches in the PLUS Center have served as a time and space for these communities to come together. But lunches are only half an hour long, and only portions of the student body can be in the PLUS Center at any given time.

Prompted by a discussion about how they are treated at school, five CSN students decided to tackle this culture of exclusion. They decided to use Black History Month as the platform to advocate for disability rights.  At the Black History Month assembly later this month, they will be addressing the entire student body, advocating for their own rights to be respected by the rest of the school community. For the last month and a half, I have had the privilege of helping these students write their speeches and practice performing them.  As a person who has struggled with learning disabilities myself, I can – to a much lesser degree – appreciate the silent struggle that students with learning differences must go through during school. Public speaking can be an incredibly scary experience, especially when you fear your peers’ scrutiny about how you speak, read, and look. Having the opportunity to witness their bravery and strength, as well as their growth, has been remarkable.

But the opportunity that I am most grateful for this year has been the opportunity to serve as the Assistant Coach for the Varsity Boys Basketball Team. My involvement with the team began rather innocently, I just watched while the boys had open gyms before the season began. A few sessions in I started to play in the open gyms with them. Players began to pop their heads into the PLUS Center every day, and when I’d see them in the hallways they would go out of their way to dap me up.

This season was a difficult one in many respects. For many kids on the team, it was their first time playing organized basketball, and it was the first time playing at the varsity level for everybody. For the first month of the season, we battled through losses, beginning the season 0-7. As time went on and the students continued to put in hard work together, they grew closer as a team. The devotion was most noticeable over winter break, when almost every kid on the team – even those on the practice squad – came into school for our optional workouts. This hard work and dedication from the members of the team finally paid off on January 12th against Benjamin Rush. After winning this first game, two more wins quickly followed. The highlight of my season was when the Head Coach and I got to tell our team that we had made it to the playoffs. It is a testament to a team that battled through adversity; a team that grew closer together over the course of a season instead of falling apart after early failure. I can say from experience that overcoming the losing culture on a team is not easy, but it is a valuable experience that can never be taken away from these 17 young men.

I think that there is a misconception that 12 Plus is only in schools to help enhance the academic parts of students’ high school experiences, and this is simply untrue. Sure, the majority of our work revolves around tutoring, mentoring, and advising students to prepare them for success in the classroom, but to change a school’s culture you must go beyond just this. A student is more than just their score on a test or their grade in a class, and to acknowledge this is vitally important in the work we do. If we only focus on academics then we miss much of who our students are, and we miss an opportunity to relate to our students outside the classroom. 

12 Plus is here to help our students find successful post-secondary paths out of high school. For some this means school, for some this means work, and for some this means enlisting in military service. The ultimate goal is far away and scary to think about when you are a kid, and this is why it is important to emphasize the journey and not the end result. If you work hard and prepare accordingly, then you are increasing your odds of success no matter what it is that you want to do. I have never told a student that their path will be an easy one, but it is a moving moment when a child learns that if they work hard for the things they want, good things will happen. As Joel Embiid has been showing to all of Philadelphia this year, I have seen it as my job to teach kids to trust the process; to believe that the hard work that they put in today will benefit them in the long run.

Over the course of the school year, I have seen the PLUS Center at Kensington Health Sciences Academy (KHSA) take on different meanings for different students, and different purposes at different times of the year. 

For most of the fall semester, the PLUS Center was a lively space, mainly filled with seniors hard at work on college applications, Senior Projects, and financial aid applications. As winter break neared, seniors began to reach the end of their college applications. As many seniors breathed sighs of relief, the PLUS Center itself had a calmer energy as well. After winter break, students returned to school not only with new haircuts but with new energy to bring to the center. This new energy was largely brought into the PLUS Center by freshman students, who are allowed to visit the PLUS Center after the first half of the school year at KHSA. These new faces rejuvenated my own energy for the work that I do with 12 Plus, and reminded me just how special, fun, and diverse a space the PLUS Center can be.

The PLUS Center is a place for freshmen to play board games and teach each other how to play chess; a place where sophomores and juniors can share their poetry or the latest science-fiction short story that they’ve been working on with us. It is a library from which students can take home an armful of books to read over the weekend. At times it is simply a quiet space for students to escape the bustle of the cafeteria to work on an English paper or their anatomy homework. It is a place for seniors to celebrate college acceptances and scholarship awards. It is also a place for seniors to digest those times when a letter from a college doesn’t bring good news, but then reflect on this news and set sights on the next possible steps in their postsecondary path.

I am excited to see the PLUS Center take on new meanings for more students as we move into the spring semester. Juniors will begin to increasingly shift their attention to postsecondary plans and explore college options through campus visits and college info sessions. Seniors will be making big decisions about which postsecondary path they will be pursuing after high school. Sophomores and freshmen will continue to explore their interests and build their strengths as high school students.  

Despite uncertainty about what the educational landscape will look like as we enter this new year, my work with 12 Plus and KHSA makes me optimistic. What has inspired me most while working as a Fellow is the resilience of the students and staff at Kensington Health Sciences Academy. A few weeks ago, a Fellow who is working at a different school asked how we would describe the students at KHSA. The first word that came to mind was “gritty.” Despite issues that might be affecting them at home, in their school, or in their community at large, our students continue to set ambitious goals for themselves, and many of them continue to visit the Plus Center every day to work towards these goals. I feel so proud that 12 Plus Fellows can provide guidance and a space for these students to work along the way, but it is the students who give the PLUS Center its diverse meanings and fill it with energy.  

Sarah is a Fellow at Hill Freedman World Academy. Originally from Doylestown, PA, Sarah is a 2016 graduate of West Chester University, with a BSEd in both Elementary and Special Education and a minor in Youth Empowerment Studies. This year, she was the assistant coach for the HFWA girls' volleyball team. Outside of school, she coaches swimming, plays guitar, and is our resident crafting expert!

Sitting at my desk as the first bell after break rings, I take a moment. I take in the surroundings of the almost empty PLUS Center. It’s hard to place what exactly it is, but our room appears worn. I mean this, of course, in the very best way. There is light, color, and evidence of the students and teachers who spend their days there. The PLUS Center at Hill Freedman World Academy is reminiscent of a room in your parents’ house: comfortable and lived in. And for our students, staff, and me, it has taken the shape of home within school. Today, students, teachers, and building staff alike filter in and out, refreshed and bubbly after break; already reclaiming their spots and sprawling over the cozy environment 12 Plus has brought to Hill Freedman.

The walls of our Center see a variety of students who utilize us as a resource. We’re there for academic support, help navigating the college process, and of course just as a comfortable place to work with people who care. Hill Freedman has a large population of students who fall into the category of “Complex Support Needs,” which is how the population of students receiving special education services is referred to in our building. I have spent a large portion of my life working with the special needs population. I began teaching swim lessons to special needs swimmers at 15 and quickly realized that part of my passion for education fell in supporting students who qualified for special education services. That passion continued to blossom throughout college, and I received my degree in both elementary and special education last year. In my time as a Fellow with 12 Plus, I’ve had the ability to bring my experience in the education (and specifically special education) field to our Center and our students.

In our first few weeks of school, I familiarized myself with students and staff on the high school floor. I made sure to make all teachers aware of our Center’s location as well as when we were available to students.  It wasn’t until there was an explicit invitation, though, that a few of our AS, or Autistic Support, classes made their way down to our Center for lunch. An important thing to note is that students on the autism spectrum share a difficulty in participating and initiating social behaviors. For these students to make the effort to get a pass from us in the morning and make their way to an often crowded and noisy Center was HUGE. As the weeks passed, I made some really firm connections with these students. I learned their likes, their dislikes, goals, what subjects in school they liked best, and which ones they struggled with.  

Shortly thereafter, our special education coordinator invited me to be present at IEP meetings for this group of students who had become regulars in our Center. We were finding that more and more of the Complex Support Needs students who were juniors and seniors were taking an interest in post-secondary plans. I was so excited to see that these students were taking a real interest in their futures, and being in our Center definitely had an influence in that. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to keep working and exploring options with this group of students. Transition services for complex support need students plays a huge role in my personal passion. I firmly believe that there are opportunities for each student, and it is imperative to foster the goals of individual students to find the best fit for them. As I continue to work with students and teachers alike, I am so excited to explore and find resources and programs that will not just fit our students, but help them thrive.  

The “Plus” in 12 Plus is representative of what happens after a student’s final year of high school. For some, that will be traditional two or four-year college or university. For others, it might be internships and apprenticeships, leading to a full-time job. For Complex Support Need students, that “Plus” is often a little less clear. I am so excited to continue my work as a Fellow, growing and learning with these students in finding paths that suit and support their needs. It can be a little scary at first, but I want to show all of our students just how many opportunities lie over here on the plus side of things.