REACH program gives Minnesota students to explore personality, build relational skills

INTERVIEWER: Once a week, leading up to the new school year, we've been bringing you stories from inside the classroom. Today, we want to introduce you to a program that is supporting thousands of students in Minnesota, inside and outside school walls. It's called the REACH program. It started 17 years ago at Hutchinson Public Schools. And now, it's expanded to 43 schools across Minnesota and South Dakota. Joining us now is Chad Harlander, the program director of REACH, and Tanya Franks, executive director of academics and accountability at Albert Lea Area Schools. Hello, good afternoon to you both.

CHAD HARLANDER: Good afternoon. Thanks for having us on.

TANYA FRANKS: Afternoon.

INTERVIEWER: Thanks for being here. So first of all, Chad, REACH is an acronym. What does it stand for?

CHAD HARLANDER: Yup, Relationships, Education, Accountability, Character, and Hard Work.

INTERVIEWER: OK. And this is, it's like a class almost. It happens during school. Explain what support students will receive when they step into the classroom.

CHAD HARLANDER: Yeah, REACH within our school districts is an elective. So students can choose to be in REACH all four years of their high school career. We also offer it at the middle school as well. And when they come into REACH, they're coming to a place where it's safe for them. We come in, we understand that each student that walks in all has a story. They're going to be supported emotionally, socially, and academically.

INTERVIEWER: Tanya, I understand it's the first week of school in Albert Lea, right?

TANYA FRANKS: First day.

INTERVIEWER: First day, wow, congratulations.

TANYA FRANKS: Thanks. We're excited to be here and ready to roll off the '23/'24 school year.

INTERVIEWER: Right back into it. So this is the second year of the program that you have. Why did the district decide to implement REACH?

TANYA FRANKS: We really started a soft start with the REACH program last year when we recognized there was a need for us to create a safe place for students to land, and really that idea behind building relationships with our students and understanding that although I may have failed, I'm not a failure, and how do we build that safe place for students. So we soft started it last year. And then thanks to Chad and some connections this summer, we're ready to launch our second year of the program with a little bit of beefed up opportunity for our students.

INTERVIEWER: OK. I'd love to get a little bit of background, Chad. The program started 17 years ago in Hutchinson. How has it grown and evolved over the years?

CHAD HARLANDER: To look back and to think 17 years ago, what was a hope and a dream, my background before I got into the educational world was doing some in-home family counseling, working with Central Minnesota Social Services and Probation. And so I was working with a lot of those, that population of kids and their families. And at that time, there wasn't that connection that was being made with the student, what was going on within the home, and what was going on at school, and some of the behaviors that we're seeing.

And so when we started this dream in Hutchinson, and just so thankful for a school district that was willing to think outside the box, and to start with 15 kids initially, and by the end of the school year, have 75. And now, every year, we're servicing probably close to 200 kids. And to see it grow to 43 schools is, it's one of those things like, is it happening? And you embrace it. But yet, with the mindset is we still have a lot of work to do.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, well I know mental health has really come into the forefront of the conversation surrounding our youth, especially since the pandemic. It's no secret that teens are struggling. Tanya, I understand the Albert Lea High School added a new component this year to address that.

TANYA FRANKS: Yeah, we really recognized that importance of addressing our students' social-emotional learning needs. And so we wanted to be really purposeful of how we were building that into their daily and weekly experience at Albert Lea High School. Part of that effort is we adopted a curriculum this year called Character Strong. And so Character Strong is really a social-emotional learning curriculum that's going to help students focus on building relationships, emotion management, and really just that idea of how can I gain skills to help me be successful, both during my school day, maybe outside in the community, maybe in my work environment, but really helping to equip our students to be successful in a variety of situations.

And then students will be doing some goal setting along with that for each of those individual scenarios to, again, really recognize that each of us, as Chad said, we each have an individual story. And when you come into the REACH program, we want to make sure that that's recognized and that we're working with you based on your individual needs.

INTERVIEWER: Could you give me an example of what kinds of goals a student might set in REACH?

TANYA FRANKS: So in thinking about maybe an academic goal, it might be things like task management. It might be completing assignments on time. Maybe it is an attendance school that I want to attend, to be on time for classes five out of seven periods of the day, or maybe attend school, no more than two absences a month, or really thinking about setting manageable goals that are attainable for students too. You start small and think big. So how can we get students where they need to be?

And then students might have community goals as well. You mentioned the mental health aspect of students. So depending on where they're at in that mental health journey, they might be setting goals about emotion management. Maybe it's a student that is working through dependency issues. So what goals might they work through in terms of dependency? And so where do we come into play to help our students be successful with those?

INTERVIEWER: Are there struggles that are coming up more frequently among students that maybe you hadn't seen as much in the past?

CHAD HARLANDER: Yeah, I'll jump in there real quick. I think the reality is the world that we're living in today is our kids are growing up behind screens. And I think the lack of coping skills, self-image is out there, especially with social media challenges are out there. So for us here, I know those are two areas that are addressed often.

INTERVIEWER: Chad, why do you think more and more districts are looking for this type of programming?

CHAD HARLANDER: So initially for me, it was all about saving lives. And I know in Hutch, what we had going on is that we had a large amount of failures going on. And so I think kids or school districts were looking at how can we connect with this population of kids that are either failing classes, or they're falling through the cracks, or they're falling short of graduation. And we've been very blessed that our population of kids, this community has embraced this. And so getting back to the failure rate, our kids improved their failure rate from 25% of passing their classes, now to roughly 94% and 95%.

INTERVIEWER: That's amazing.

CHAD HARLANDER: When you put those two things together, providing that safe place, honoring a kid's story, give them that support unconditionally, and then also meeting them where they're at academically, schools are recognizing that and seeing the results.

INTERVIEWER: And what kind of feedback have you gotten from parents, and families, and students about the impact it's had on their lives beyond those numbers of passing classes?

CHAD HARLANDER: Well, it's ironic you just asked that because we just got done with our in-service. And after I get done with the in-service, I had a former REACH student who's 25 and a mother of two. And she came over and made a point to let me know that one. And she wasn't able to graduate on time, but that she got her diploma. And she's now working the school district. And she's going back to become a REACH teacher. And she goes, I want to give back. So the best feedback is that feedback. Our kids that we have been blessed to work with, whether it's that diploma in their hand, but more importantly, just overcoming some of the challenges they had in their life and becoming good people.

INTERVIEWER: That's fantastic. Tanya, last question for you. You're a year into the program. I know you mentioned it was kind of a soft start last year. But what successes are you seeing?

TANYA FRANKS: We definitely saw an increase in student attendance and decrease in student truancy, which for us was a huge benefit in getting students in school. That's our first step, let's get them here. Once they're here, we can work with them. We also saw a real benefit to the human connection that happens once students are in school and the ability to build relationships with students. We saw a decrease in disciplinary referrals, which, of course, is a benefit as well. And as Chad mentioned, that increase in credit earning and getting students closer to being on track with earning their high school diploma, those were a few of the benefits that we've seen. And we're excited as the program continues to grow, to see that impacting even more students.

INTERVIEWER: Well, thank you for talking with me about this program. And I wish you the best of luck as you're heading into a new school year.

CHAD HARLANDER: Yeah, thank you so much for having us on.

TANYA FRANKS: Thank you, Emily.

INTERVIEWER: Chad Harlander is the program director of REACH. And Tanya Franks is with Albert Lea Schools.