Scholars get shot at success

As a senior at West Valley High School, Charise DeBerry was already living on her own.

When her high school peers were participating in after-school functions or attending football games, DeBerry was working to put a roof over her head and food on the table.

In addition to taking classes at the high school, she would take a bus to Spokane Community College to take courses through the Running Start Program.

Then she would take a bus to her part-time job before returning home for a long night of studying.

“I believe that you shouldn’t let adversity keep you down,” DeBerry said. “I just felt like I couldn’t allow myself to be a failure.”

A failure DeBerry is not.

The 20-year-old is now a junior, on the dean’s list at Eastern Washington University, and plans to earn a doctorate. She dreams of one day starting her own nonprofit agency to help individuals struggling with poverty.

Without the help of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and DeBerry’s hard work, her dream would not be a possibility.

DeBerry is the recipient of a Washington State Achievers Scholarship, a scholarship and mentorship program funded by the Gates Foundation and available to low-income, high-potential students from 16 Washington high schools.

The schools were selected for the program four years ago, based on the percentage of students who receive free and reduced lunches. Each school that applied had to commit to a redesign of its teaching structure to facilitate high academic achievement and increased college enrollment among low-income students.

West Valley High was the only Spokane-area school selected.

Since 2001, 183 students at West Valley have been given the college funds. This year, 53 applied.

The foundation has given out more than 2,500 scholarships statewide, and has committed to giving $125 million and 5,000 scholarships over a 13-year period.

“I felt that everything kind of depended on whether or not I got this scholarship,” DeBerry said. “I knew, or I felt like, I wasn’t going to get financial help from anywhere else.”

Each scholarship ranges from $4,000 to $9,000 annually, and is given after federal and state assistance has been awarded, such as Pell grants or work study.

The scholarship also comes with a unique mentoring program that contributes to student success. Each Achievers scholar must have a mentor during his or her senior year in high school, and another as a college freshman. Mentors at the high school level are called “hometown” mentors.

After high school graduation, students must select a Washington college that participates in the mentorship program, and must attend a summer camp before their freshman year in college to learn about college life, budgeting and how to fill out financial aid forms. After two years at a Washington college, they can transfer to an out-of-state school.

“The money is great, but the mentors are a really important part. They are the component that makes it all work,” said Tina Ferguson, 21.

Ferguson, a West Valley graduate, was the first Achievers scholar statewide to graduate from college, in December 2003. Like DeBerry, she participated in the Running Start program, which allows high school juniors and seniors to take college level classes for college and high school credit.

After graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in linguistics, Ferguson took an internship with the Achievers program and was hired full-time as a high school relations assistant this year.

“Many of the students who get the scholarships are first-generation college students, and they don’t have the advice of their parents to fall back on,” Ferguson said. “That wasn’t the case for me, I always knew I was going to college. But as one of eight kids, it was just a matter of how I was going to pay for it.”

From the first group of 500 students statewide to receive the money in 2001, nine, including Ferguson, have graduated with four-year degrees through the program, Thorndill said. Those students had some college credit when they graduated from high school.

Based on the number of students still receiving money through the foundation, Thorndill said he expects the graduation rate for the first group of students, who are expected to graduate this year, to be about 60 to 65 percent.

According to the foundation, of those students whose family income falls in the lowest 35 percentile – the same group the Achievers program targets – only about 25 percent typically earn a four-year degree once they start college.

“It’s really a huge success for that group of students,” Thorndill said. “We believe that with the huge support system we provide to our students, we will eventually start to see as high as 75 percent of our students graduating from four-year colleges.”

For most Achievers students, college once seemed unattainable.

DeBerry was on the verge of being homeless, and was estranged from her parents when she was awarded the scholarship and met Nancy Nelson Fletcher, the director of African American Studies at EWU.

Fletcher was DeBerry’s high-school mentor, and helped DeBerry find a job and an apartment. Fletcher continued to be DeBerry’s college mentor her freshman year at EWU, and though their mentorship ended, the pair still talk regularly.

“She’s kind of like my mom,” DeBerry said. “She likes to keep on top of what I’m doing. She’s a great resource for me. If I didn’t have her, I probably wouldn’t have done as well as I have.”

Fletcher encouraged DeBerry to live in a dorm her freshman year, even though DeBerry had already been living in an apartment.

“I wanted her to able to have fun, to be a kid,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher is also helping DeBerry apply for a Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Grant, named after the late astronaut who died when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. He was the second African American to fly in space. The grants are designed to prepare students from disadvantaged backgrounds for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other activities.

“Most kids you can’t even get out of bed in the morning to go to school,” Fletcher said. “She’s is just amazing. You just have to support someone who is this willing, and this capable, of succeeding in life.”