Wallowa ESD drop-in center catches students with web of mentors

Published: August 14, 2024

Wallowa County students ages 13-15 plan with Wallowa Resources guides a six-day backpacking trip into the Eagle Cap Wilderness in July that includes setting personal growth goals. The Wallowa County Education Service District through its Teen Drop-In Center and Summer Learning Grant is working with community partners to keep students engaged. (Photo by Jake Arnold, OSBA)

The Wallowa County Education Service District calls it the Teen Drop-In Center, but really it is a teen pull-in center.

The ESD opened the Enterprise center in March in collaboration with a half-dozen community organizations. An Oregon Summer Learning Grant expanded its academic and experiential reach.

On a typical late July morning, the center's collaborators led a running club, prepared a youth backpacking trip, offered one-on-one tutoring and set-up an ice cream social. The teens had fun and socialized while learning lessons, building resiliency and forming adult relationships to carry them through the school year.

"We're trying to use the drop-in center to pull kids in and make sure they have the resources they need," said Landon Braden, the ESD superintendent.

The ESD drop-in center aims to address a particular need in rural and small communities to provide young people with someplace wholesome to go, particularly when the weather gets bad. The movie theater, the bowling alley and free recreation clubs in this remote northeast corner of Oregon have all closed. The ESD is working with partners to make the most of limited resources and staffing to engage young people while also creating important learning and mentorship connections.

The Summer Learning Grants, which OSBA and other education advocates fought for vigorously, provided $30 million for additional educational and engaging summer activities. Only about 60 school districts, education service districts and charters schools received grants out of more than 200 such entities. The Oregon Department of Education awarded grants based on a priority ranking and enrollment until the money ran out. OREdNews has looked at several of these grant recipients to see how additional funding makes a difference as the state prepares for the school funding discussion going into the 2025 legislative session.

Chris Cronin, OSBA Board president-elect and a Grant ESD Board member, said the summer learning funding was greatly appreciated and put to effective uses but more was needed.

"Every district needs funding, and every student deserves for their school to have summer programing," Cronin said.

Rural communities in particular lack summer educational opportunities and programs, she said.

"The Wallowa program provides an excellent example of what ESD and schools can accomplish when given resources for the kinds of student supports that are not regularly funded now," Cronin said.

The Wallowa County ESD received the only grant in Wallowa County. With the grant, the ESD was able to increase the academic and experiential programming offered through the drop-in center, reaching more students who have historically been underserved, according to Braden.

The ESD opened its drop-in center in its recently expanded district offices in downtown Enterprise, the county's largest town and a central point for the ESD's four districts. The room is furnished with a pingpong table, a foosball table and comfy couches around a big-screen TV stocked with streaming and video game subscriptions. It also has a small kitchen for classes or serving treats.

Most importantly, the center is staffed with a rotating presence of adults from the collaborating agencies who can offer help, guidance or a future relationship a teen can lean on.

The center started with after-school hours and a plan for some summer activities. The ESD's $20,000 Summer Learning Grant expanded activities' education possibilities and made one-on-one tutoring possible, according to Braden. Most of the money passed through to Building Healthy Families and Wallowa Resources, two local nonprofits that provide youth opportunities and are partners in the drop-in center.

Teens and adults spend time together at the Wallowa County Education Service District's Teen Drop-In Center in Enterprise during a July ice cream social. (Photo by Jake Arnold, OSBA)

Garland Whetsler, an Enterprise High School junior, will be able to make up a half credit and stay with his classmates because of the one-on-one tutoring he is receiving this summer through Building Healthy Families and the center. Whetsler said he really enjoys math but he did poorly this year because he struggled to learn in a busy classroom.

Working with his tutor Ron Pickens, Whetsler says, the math is making sense now. He has also built a relationship with Pickens, a Building Healthy Families coordinator, that Whetsler says he can fall back on if he struggles in the coming school year.

"I feel like I have another friend," Whetsler said.

Marilyn Dalton, the Building Healthy Families finance officer, said that kind of mentoring relationship is key to the nonprofit's family support mission.

Dalton, an ESD board member for more than 20 years, said that in rural areas like theirs, agencies and schools have to work together to stretch resources. She said the drop-in center provides a long-needed safe and structured space for students where they can make important adult connections.

Malakai Powers, an Enterprise sophomore, visited the center often last school year.

"It's a good place to chill after school, especially if your parents work," he said.

With the Summer Learning Grant money, Wallowa Resources was able to offer two summer backpacking trips, with one just for girls. Wallowa Resources provides whatever the students need, free of charge.

The trips are more than just a "fun experience," said Lindsay Miller, Wallowa Resources youth education manager. Students lead the expeditions, with adults along to provide support and guidance for lessons such as journaling and identifying plants.

Miller said they want students to develop leadership and self-confidence while expanding on the things they learned in school.

She said it's also part of Wallowa Resources' aim to combat school absenteeism, providing continuous points of contact for students through the summer so they don't drop off.

Emrys Hobbs, an Enterprise sophomore, has done the trip before and values the adults he met.

"They've been mentors," he said. "They feel like a resource."

At the recent ice cream social thrown by the ESD, the center's running club, the backpacking group and siblings, friends and parents mixed, bringing together students from different ages and schools. Trusted adults served ice cream, played foosball and just hung around and chatted.

Braden, the ESD superintendent, said he wants the drop-in center to expand student connections and learning opportunities in the coming year with programs such as "Homework with a cop" and nutrition classes.

Braden said the center aims to create as many connection points as possible to keep children in school.

"The data show if there is one meaningful relationship that a kid has at school, one meaningful adult relationship, they are more likely to go to school on a regular basis, stay out of trouble and be successful in school," he said.

- Jake Arnold, OSBA
[email protected]

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.