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Much can be said about Fairhill Community High School.
How it came to be.
When it was created.
Its purpose and mission.

The real story, however, lies within the students and the faculty that make the facility come alive, each and every day. Fairhill’s story is one that tries to combat the past – offering hope where there was none, extending help when no one has ever asked before, setting expectations for those who were never thought of as being able to handle them, and taking the time to notice everything about a student who has gone overlooked for too long.

Fairhill offers an on-site daycare (limited enrollment) to those students who are parents. It is one of the many programs put into place to help students get to school. Along with the daycare is a stellar emotional support team, willing to help the students at any given moment throughout the day with outside agency paperwork, credit tracking, emotional/social issues, appointments and counseling sessions. The social worker even makes home visits to those students who have not attended school for a few days to make sure everything is all right.

In addition to these services, Fairhill offers as many academic opportunities as possible. Students earning As, Bs and at maximum one C are invited to participate in a quarterly ceremony of the Honors Society. Students earn pins and certificates and afterwards they, their parents, friends and family are treated to lunch.

Spelling bees, poetry slams, art shows, senior seminars, guest speakers, career days, college fairs, PSSA prep courses, SAT assistance and after-school tutoring are all offered to make the students’ academic lives that much richer and fuller. Of course, no high school would be complete without their graduation ceremony. Easily the most special day of the students’ academic lives, the graduation ceremony is geared toward personalizing the experience for every single student and their family. By the end of the evening, there’s not a dry eye in the house.

Students are also given many extra-curricular opportunities. Fairhill has long been home to a chess club, and an art club has also arisen within the past year. Students can join the Student Activities Committee (SAC) and serve their school, or they can show off their beautiful voices in the school’s chorus. There are parenting groups offered to our student-parents, and there have been talks for a while about a newspaper or journal written by the students. There are also opportunities to go on field trips out of state. In past years, students have been to Washington, D.C. for numerous occasions. Some students were taken there to speak with Congress, while others were taken to tour the sites and explore the museums.

More than anything else, Fairhill offers young adults a true second chance – a chance to succeed, to make friends, to set goals and see them come to life…to be the person they always wanted to be but never thought was possible. Fairhill’s mascot is the Phoenix, the mythological bird that rises from the ashes brand new. That is what Fairhill stands for. A chance to begin again and burn more brightly than anyone thought they could.

According to mythology, the phoenix was a sacred bird reborn from its ashes. It’s fitting, then, that the phoenix is the mascot for Fairhill Community High School, a school in Kensington that gives another chance to former dropouts such as 17-year-old Samuel Estevez.

“I was way off track at Kensington High,” Estevez acknowledged as he polished a persuasive essay in computer lab. But after leaving Kensington, he stayed home for just a month before realizing that he “wasn’t going to make it anywhere in life” without a diploma.

He heard about Fairhill from his girlfriend, a recent graduate, and he found it a far more congenial place. “Here I attend school every day,” he said. “The teachers don’t play. They’re really about teaching. At Kensington, you could walk out of class … and no one would say anything.”

Founded in 2004, Fairhill is one of six “accelerated schools” designed to reclaim over-age students with few high school credits and put them on a path to a diploma. It is bringing new hope to roughly 225 students and has a waiting list of 300.

The nonprofit that runs Fairhill, IECI/One Bright Ray, Inc., has an agreement to open a “North Philadelphia Community High School” nearby this spring for 100 students, some of them coming out of the juvenile justice system. Because of the high demand, the District is planning to open yet another accelerated school this summer.

An evaluation of the accelerated schools is underway, but there is not yet any hard data on how effective these small, privately managed schools are in shepherding students to graduation and further education or jobs. Principal Marcus Delgado said that in less than four years Fairhill has awarded diplomas to 87 students.

It is clear that at Fairhill many students benefit. Estevez is on track to graduate in September with plans to enroll in barber school and open his own shop. Sasha Bernard, 17, found Fairhill on the recommendation of a math teacher at Edison who saw that she was floundering.

“Here the teachers … make sure you get your work done,” she said as she compiled a “Hamlet Dictionary” using PowerPoint. “At Edison, they didn’t care what you did, as long as you didn’t make trouble.” She is on track to graduate in March 2009 and wants to enter the medical field.

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According to Project U-Turn, students who re-enter high school from juvenile placement have a 90 percent dropout rate, one of the highest of any student population in Philadelphia.

Among students who’ve received the District’s RETI-WRAP (Re-Entry Transition Initiative) services, that rate is closer to the “low 60s,” said Benjamin Wright, regional superintendent for the Alternative Education Region.

RETI-WRAP is a 10-day assessment program for students returning from placement. It is often the only way the District can connect with these former offenders. Wright credits the lower dropout rate to more appropriate school matches and support as students transition back to a regular school environment.

In each regional office, there is a “transition liaison” who prepares students for re-entry by meeting with counselors and the principal at the sending and receiving school before enrollment is completed. The liaisons consider a student’s status, academic and behavioral issues, and design a learning plan, then review the student’s progress every 30 days for the first few months.

“Now there’s some continuity in his or her education,” Wright said.

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