Providing Education And Readiness for Living Successfully (PEARLS)
PEARLS is a partnership with Planning District 16 local high schools’ alternative education programs. The PEARLS program teaches life skills building, work readiness and career/college exploration. Together they serve students who have been suspended or removed from regular high school classes.
Email info@openhand-fred.org to learn how to join the program.
Program details
- 10 weeks/Fall and Spring semesters
- 10 hours per week planning and instruction
- 2 days per week in-class instruction
- Curriculum: job readiness, financial literacy, work ethics, character development
- At least 2 field trips per semester
- Guest speakers
Program outcomes
- Students develop improved life skills
- Improved job readiness skills
- Improve financial literacy
- Students learn more about possible career options
- Reduced court involvement and social aggression within the community
- Students recognize the importance of faith, community, dignity and career
It wasn’t your typical graduation ceremony, but it was one of the most meaningful I’d ever attended.
-Kathleen Lewis, former Board Member
The Beauty of Perseverance
It wasn’t your typical graduation ceremony. It took place in a cafeteria with cinderblock walls, not an auditorium with a stage. There were no gowns or caps, no music or school colors, no band, or dignitaries except for a plastic blowup snowman with a top hat and carrot nose.
Students, less than 20, rose when their names were called. They were students who were placed in the alternative education program for various reasons. As she presented the certificates, Kathy Bourne Phillips, the Life Skills instructor who got to know the students through the weeks she taught them spoke about each one’s unique qualities, contributions, struggles and successes while parents, teachers and their peers clapped and cheered.