Middle-school students are urged to plan for future nowBy Natalie Dicou
The Salt Lake Tribune
Published Oct 10, 2010 04:20PM
Updated Oct 13, 2010 02:51PM
Sandy • Angie Peffer remembers what it was like to be a young immigrant student hearing about something called the ACT. The Mount Jordan Middle School parent thought at the time it sounded like a foreign language.
Peffer moved to the United States from Samoa when she was 12. Her parents knew little about the U.S. school system or how to prepare their daughter for college.
“I was kind of just put in school. I was on my own,” Peffer said. “My parents were very supportive. They encouraged school very much, but there was nobody out there saying, ‘This is what an ACT is.’ I just took it without really knowing what it was.”
Peffer wants parents at her children’s school — where one out of four students is a minority — to avoid the confusion. She hopes moms and dads will gain a firm grasp on the ACT, the widely accepted college-admittance test, and everything else they need to know to guide their kids toward post-high school education and successful careers.
Last year, she organized a special night for parents and students to learn the ins and outs of applying to and paying for college, “Student Success Night.” The Sandy school’s Parent Teacher Student Association has made the night a tradition, holding a second event last week.
About 100 parents and middle-schoolers filed into the school after hours, choosing from five 20-minute classes with such titles as: “Steps to College,” “Paying for College” and “Basic Study Skills.”
“We have a lot of first-generation college-goers,” said Assistant Principal Matt Watts. “A lot of the kids want to go to college, but they don’t know where to begin.”
That’s where folks like Pepper Poulsen come in. The Jordan High counselor spent the evening teaching “Steps to College” to a packed classroom of moms, dads and future grads.
"This is our feeder school,” she said, “so, anything we can do to prepare kids, we’ll commit to doing it. We just appreciate them asking us to come.”
Poulsen said if she could make a single point, it’s that every year counts, noting kids often don’t realize their ninth-grade transcript counts toward their high school grade point average.
Jean Juengel, 19, who has temporary custody of her younger brother, James, a ninth-grader, attended “Student Success Night” to get a head start on planning for her brother’s future.
“I just graduated two years ago, and went straight to college,” Juengel said. “Then I found out there were hundreds of scholarships that I could’ve applied for my senior year and gotten, which would’ve helped me pay for college, but I didn’t know about them. So, I think it’s really great that they started doing this.”
Assistant Principal Doug Hallenbeck said students should begin thinking about college while they’re still in middle school.
“The sooner they can make choices, the better they can make high school work for them,” Hallenbeck said. “Middle school is about exploration, and we want to make sure they have opportunities to explore all the different career choices that are out there.”
This doesn’t mean every student must set his or her sights on a four-year college degree, Hallenbeck said. Some might choose a two-year school, trade school or military service. But he emphasized the job market requires some sort of post-high school training.
Peffer wished more families would have attended. She hopes the event — another is scheduled for the spring — will continue to gain momentum.
“We’re hoping as we do it every year that more and more parents will be aware and know that there’s help here,” Peffer said.
ndicou@sltrib.com
