Willamette chosen for scholarships.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

Willamette High School in west Eugene has been selected for a scholarship program that could change the lives of as many as 50 current and future students.

Through a partnership between the state Department of Education and the Educational Credit Management Corp. Foundation, Willamette and six other Oregon high schools will share up to $2.1 million over the next five years to help 10 students per year prepare and pay for college.

Teams of counselors, administrators and teachers at each school will set their own criteria and identify the students, but the program targets economically or otherwise disadvantaged teens whose past academic performance may not predict their true potential.

"One of the things I think that we're going to likely include would be students of families where postsecondary education just hasn't happened," said Dean Nussbaum, an assistant principal at Willamette who will be on the team.

The team will select the first year's 10 students from the current sophomore class. Each will be eligible for up to $6,000 to help pay for postsecondary education, provided they meet performance expectations set by the mentoring team.

The teams, also, will be eligible for stipends to help them support the students. Gene Evans, a spokesman for the Department of Education, said each school can tap into approximately $2,500, which could be used for release time, extra duty pay, or activities such as visits to colleges.

Willamette, with about 1,520 students, was the largest school selected. The others, ranging in size from 100 to 1,380, were Centennial Learning Center and Madison High School in Portland, Illinois Valley High School in Cave Junction, Milwaukie High School, Pendleton High School and Woodburn High School.

While they vary in size, the schools share common characteristics - namely, comparatively high numbers of low-income students and comparatively low numbers of students seeking postsecondary education. At Willamette, at least 40 percent of students qualify for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program (Nussbaum believes it would be higher if all eligible students actually signed up for the program), and about 40 percent go on to a four- or two-year college. Another 20 percent seek trade or technical training, including the military, Nussbaum said.

Several other Lane County schools applied for the program, Evans said - North Eugene High School, Lowell High School, the Network Charter School in Eugene and Northwest Youth Corps OutDoor School, a publicly funded, private alternative school in Eugene.

`(Willamette) just put together a great application,' Evans said. "They've got some good ideas for a group that would be a couple of counselors, an administrator and a teacher working with these kids kind of as a cohort."

In their junior year, Willamette students will be expected to sign up for one of eight Certificate of Advanced Mastery strands, which demonstrate that students have attained specific, career-related skills. They'll also have to research career and college options, take the PSAT and SAT tests, visit colleges and participate with their parents in a college information session.

Senior-year expectations include finishing the CAM program; completing applications for college, financial aid and scholarships; and doing a "job shadow" in a professional workplace.

Students will also have to pass all the state-mandated assessment tests, maintain a 3.0 grade-point average or better, perform community service and demonstrate good behavior, citizenship and attendance.

"What we are proposing for this group of kids is very much in line with what we'd like to do with all kids, but sometimes time doesn't allow us and sometimes kids' motivation isn't there," Nussbaum said.

The scholarship, which Nussbaum described as "seed money" that will need to be augmented with other scholarships and financial aid, will be divided between the first and second years of postsecondary education.

Evans said funding is guaranteed only for the first year, but that the Educational Credit Management Corp. Foundation anticipates continuing the program for five years.

ECMC guarantees certain kinds of loans for students, parents, schools and lenders, and acts as the designated guarantor for Oregon and Virginia, where its foundation launched a similar scholarship program in 2003.