Ben entered WBCHS in September 2006, the school’s inaugural year, at the age of 19 with 14 credits, no Regents and reading at a 5th grade reading level. Having to pass 5 Regents was the biggest struggle for Ben. He attended after-school tutoring and Regents prep classes. He was coached by his advocate counselor and staff to keep pushing himself until he reached his goals. He passed 2 Regents during his first year with us and 3 his last year, accumulated 34 credits at WBCHS, and was one of our proud 2008 graduates with a plan to attend college the following fall.

Ben is just one of over a thousand young people who completed their secondary education in 2008 through a school operated by Good Shepherd in partnership with the NYC Department of Education’s Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation. Building on over thirty years of experience working in New York City schools, Good Shepherd now has eighteen Multiple Pathways programs and has become a major voice in the national dialogue about the high school dropout problem at a time when it is estimated that as many as half of the students in large US cities do not graduate. “The traditional high school structure simply does not work for many young people,” says Executive Director Sr. Paulette LoMonaco, “and the human consequences are staggering.”

We replicated our transfer school model again in 2007 with the opening of Bronx Community High School, and have also begun to assist other community-based organizations with opening schools based on our model. Good Shepherd also operates ten Young Adult Borough Centers (YABCs), evening high school programs for youth 17 years and older that allow students with work or family obligations to receive diplomas from their original high schools. Our Multiple Pathways programming is rounded out by two full-time and four part-time GED programs specifically designed for the older adolescent age group. Most of these programs also include a Learning-to-Work component, which provides students with job readiness workshops and subsidized internships. Working in collaboration with the Department of Education, Good Shepherd provides counseling and other supportive services that help young people overcome the issues that threatened their ability to graduate, while DOE staff concentrate on academics. “The problems our students face can’t be solved by the schools alone, because the problems aren’t just in the schools,” explains Sr. Paulette, “But when a community-based organization and a school system work together to comprehensively address the needs of vulnerable youth, a real difference can be made.”