The “Students Taking Action and Reaching Success” or STARS program aims at breaking the school-to-prison pipeline.
The program in Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools is helping sixth to eighth grade students stay focused on the good rather than the bad.
“They’ll meet during the day once a month then have a coaching model where there will be adult coaches that will work with some of the students to help them academically, behaviorally and socially. Then the after school programs runs for two hours,” said Flat Rock Middle School principal Becky Hodges.
In 2013, African-American and Latino youths were referred to Forsyth County Juvenile Court counselors five and three times more than the rate of their white counterparts.
Tymarrah Dubose is one of 65 students this year in the program, but has been involved the last two years.
“Teaches you about business and if you’re going for an interview it teaches you how to dress, and yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir, no sir,” said 8th grader Tymarrah Dubose, a student of Flat Rock Middle School. “It teaches you how to be a young adult at a young age and it gets you a real good experience.”
Educators want to target that age group in even more schools.
“We did a comparison of Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Durham city and county. Winston-Salem had the highest poverty rate at the lowest percentage of adults who had a high school degrees,” said Executive Director of the Center for Community Safety at Winston-Salem State University, Alvin Atkinson.
Officials said it takes a community to raise children, so partners of the STARS program are asking people to get involved because educators here at Flat Rock Middle School said, it pays off.
“We have seen success both behaviorally with students having less suspensions, less disciplinary codes and also academic gains growth in the tutoring as well as I think coming from the character education and character development piece,” said Hodges.