OUR SCHOOLS | HAWAI'I NATIONAL GUARD YOUTH CHALLENGE ACADEMY
Dropouts drilled for success

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer

The Hawai'i National Guard Youth Challenge Academy at Kalaeloa is a little known institution making big changes.

Students in the Hawai'i National Guard Youth Challenge Academy undergo a 22-week program that, among other things, focuses on the values printed on their T-shirts. The program, often likened to a "boot camp," has helped many high school dropouts turn their lives around. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

The community-based concept started in 1993 as a way to deal with the 10 million young Americans who drop out of school each year and the effect that this has on society, especially regarding juvenile crime.

The Hawai'i program, working with the Department of Education and other state agencies, has awarded high school diplomas to 93 percent of the 1,611 students who have completed the 22-week program.

Proud as he is of that statistic, school director Wally Mitsui also says the program has a dropout rate of between 20 percent and 30 percent.

"We don't reach them all," he said. "It's not easy to meet all of the requirements and standards of Youth Challenge."

The academy graduates two classes a year. The 5 1/2-month course emphasizes eight core components: coping skills, educational excellence, responsible citizenship, health and hygiene, physical training, job skills, leadership/followership, and community involvement. Additionally, it focuses on members achieving a General Education Development Program, or GED, diploma.

The purpose of the quasi-military training is to give students structure. It's aim is to instill them with coping and social skills and to ground them in the concept of the consequences of their actions — both positive and negative.

• What are you the most proud of? "Every one of the corps members that completed the program since 1994," said Mitsui.

Mitsui means it sincerely. Much is riding on each student's success. Mitsui need look no further than Senerity Zoller to illustrate the point. Zoller, who graduated last year, works at the facility as a peer mentor.

Today Zoller jokes that the big difference between being a corps member and a staff member is that "now they can't make me do the pushups." But the fact that she can laugh about life at all is cause for celebration, according to Mitsui.

"In the situation I was in, if it hadn't been for this program, I'd have either ended up on the streets forever, or I'd have ended up dead," said Zoller, 17, whose youthful energy belies the hard life she faced daily two years ago. "I needed something to help me get away from drugs and stuff. This program motivated me."

• Everybody at our school knows: Academy commandant Wendell Lewis, who has been there since the beginning, and program coordinator Leeanne Santos, who personally interviews every student who comes through the door.

• Best kept secret: "The best kept secret is the success of the program," said Lewis, who added that folks who know anything at all about the academy tend to think of it as a "boot camp" for wayward kids.

"They don't know what we're capable of doing or what we have to offer," said Lewis, who's uncomfortable with the boot camp tag. "We have outreach programs and mentoring programs."

Mitsui said Hawai'i's program is the only one in the nation that offers classes in parenting skills, primarily because the family structure is such an important social component in the Islands.

• Our biggest challenge: Returning troubled dropouts to normal society as productive citizens, with lasting values and the appropriate social skills to keep them from falling back into old behavioral patterns.

"They're going to fail, once they leave," said Santos. "That's a given. So, after we've taught them consequences, the question is are they going to be able to bounce back and survive, or are they not. They have to be able to bounce back. That seems to be the key."

• What we need: "To get the word out about what we do," said Mitsui. "We have people who come to the program who say, 'I never heard of Youth Challenge before.' Mostly, people learn about the academy through word of mouth.

"Sure, we can always use more money to supplement our budget. But our funding is 60 percent federal and 40 percent state. We've had great support from the governor and the legislators. So, we don't have the problems some institutions have with funding."

• Projects: "We do a lot of community service projects," said Lewis. "In fact, one of the requirements is that each student must do 40 hours of community service during a five-month period. We just finished a preservation clean-up in back of the Waikiki Shell, for instance."

• Special Events: In addition to graduation ceremonies, and a Memorial Day event, the academy hosts a Family Day event. The next is Feb. 27.

"That's when the parents get to see the kids for the first time after seven weeks," said Mitsui.

He added that as many as 600 people attend the event. Generally, the response from parents is one of astonishment.

"We always have nothing but great results from that," said Lewis. "The families say, 'What a change!' It's really something."

For more information about Hawai'i Youth Challenge, call 673-7530, ext. 220, or visit www.dod.state.hi.us.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.