At Pinckney Academy, students have found more than a second chance at an education — they’re discovering their inner leaders in the school’s student ambassador program.

Each Wednesday morning, students wearing purple Pinckney Academy polo shirts and khakis board a school bus and travel a mile down the road to Carthage Elementary School to help first-graders become better readers.

Pinckney Academy is an alternative school for at-risk middle and high school students in the county school system.

Teachers Paul Collins and Paul Rizzo began the program as part of a broader schoolwide initiative to implement more accountability measures that promote personal growth and responsibility.

To get into the program, students must keep their grades up, have a clean behavior record for the week and have good attendance. If students in the program do not uphold the criteria, they must complete probation before resuming participation.

Collins said the program gives Pinckney students a chance to redefine the meaning of the word “alternative.”

“We’re an alternative school, and sometimes, there’s a stigma attached to that,” he said. “[Students] feel like it’s a punishment to be here. So to be welcomed onto a regular school campus and to be in a leadership and teaching role to younger kids, I think that’s really something that inspires them.

“It’s the highlight of my week to see them being in that role. It is a big deal to them. Some of our model ambassadors really thrive on this. I’ve just noticed that their self esteem is boosted because they’re in this role.”

With the Carthage Elementary students he works with, Pinckney ambassador Elijah Harris has a simple approach.

“I let them look at the picture to figure out the word,” he said. “And the words they stumble on, I break it up. I just cheer them on so. If you cheer a student on, they’ll get more confident in themselves to read, and that’s what I try to do.”

Harris can relate to struggling readers because reading used to be tough for him. During his time at Pinckney, he has improved his reading by almost four grade levels.

“It feels really good because I can share my reading skills with other kids, and they can share their reading skills with me,” he said.

Harris has also realized that he wants to help others in his community. He aspires to be a lawyer, a preacher or a teacher, but he can’t decide on one profession.

“As a lawyer, I want to fight for people,” he said. “As a preacher, I want to teach other people what’s right, and in teaching, I want to help other people to succeed in life and go on to college, not drop out of school.”

Harris’ classmate Darrion McCormick adds that the role of a Pinckney ambassador doesn’t stop at Carthage Elementary.

“Instead of doing it in one classroom, we carry it all through the day — at school, at home, on the bus,” he said. “We show other students that they should want to succeed in life rather than dropping out.”

For Harris and McCormick, going to an “alternative” school doesn’t connote failure. It means a fresh start.

“Other students and teachers from different schools look down on Pinckney because it’s an alternative school,” Harris said. “They think every person who’s gotten in trouble for something stupid, they go here. At Pinckney, you get a second chance. It’s where kids want to learn, and they’re better doing work in a small setting.”

Enthusiasm Builds

McCormick said that it’s easy for students to slip through the cracks at other schools in much larger classes.

“In a regular school, some teachers try to break you down and make you feel like you’re not going to succeed in life,” he said. “Teachers here will give you the work and show you how to do it. They’ll go over it with you. It’s better because if you’re in a crowded class with a lot of people, you’re not going to get one-on-one time with the teacher.”

Carthage Elementary first-grade teacher Fran Daley sees the ambassadors give her students the chance to interact with someone they can emulate.

“They look forward to reading to others, other than adults,” she said. “In this room, a lot of kids get exposure to reading to others. A lot of them can read, but they lack the confidence to read loud enough for the listener. This is helping build their confidence, their familiarity with words and just a love for reading books.”

Daley added that the enthusiasm for the project has continued to build since October, when the partnership began, and the ambassadors give her students the attention they sometimes can’t get in a large class.

“We try as much as we can to give individual attention, but this really helps everybody,” she said. “It’s not just certain kids. Everybody gets to read with a different person.”

Model for Other Schools

Pinckney Principal Robin Liles said the program is part of a bigger movement at the school to address the issues that ultimately push students to make poor decisions.

“It’s not always the school that fails the student,” she said. “Sometimes it’s personal issues that they have to endure each day.”

She added that most of the time, students just need someone to listen to them.

“Each child wants to feel important,” Liles said. “They really look at the school to help build that. If they don’t get that, I believe that brings on those kinds of problems.”

Besides the ambassador program, all students participate in a drop-out prevention program that places accountability on students’ choices. The program is based on the educational leadership principles of the Schlechty Center, a nonprofit education organization that promotes student engagement, with the idea that students retain more information if they are able to take ownership of their work.

Liles sees the most significant growth as students try to mediate situations and settle differences instead of letting emotions get the best of them.

“Most of these students do not understand what endurance and perseverance is,” she said. “We’re continually coaching them to be better than yesterday. I’ve seen attitudes change. I’ve seen students more responsible for their actions.”

The program’s success has prompted other schools in the system to look into creating their own ambassador programs.

Harris and McCormick have reaped its benefits. While they hope to return to their respective schools, they intend to take Pinckney with them.

“If we go to a regular school, we want to bring Pinckney Academy in our hearts to that school and do the same things that we did at Pinckney Academy — show how we act, like our attitude changed, how our grades are changing,” Harris said.

McCormick said he will take away the most important lesson from his time at Pinckney: “Don’t let other people get in the way of your education.”

Contact Hannah Sharpe at hannah@thepilot.com.