Missouri has made investments in an educational concept that's been developing across the country for nine years, and the state is beginning to see dividends with enrollments greater than projected and a strategy to potentially expand the program to more cities.
The superintendent of Missouri's Goodwill Excel Centers said opening four schools dedicated to enabling adults to earn a high school education has been challenging, but the outcomes for the first sets of graduates look promising.
The MERS Goodwill adult high school in Columbia - the most local to Mid-Missouri and the last of the four schools in the state to launch - is set to open next month.
"Starting three (schools) at one time is nothing I would ever recommend to anybody," and while it was not the initial plan, with three excited communities, "nobody was too excited to wait," Mark Arens said of opening the other three schools - Poplar Bluff, Springfield and St. Louis.
Arens is executive vice president of MERS Goodwill, and he is the superintendent of the four Goodwill Excel Centers in Missouri.
The first Excel Center opened in 2010 in Indiana, and the program has since expanded to 14 sites in Indiana, with more sites located in Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C., according to MERS Goodwill's website.
The adult high schools enable people age 21 and older to receive high school degrees - with an actual diploma - free of charge.
Budget
In 2017, then-Gov. Eric Greitens signed legislation to establish four adult high schools in Missouri to be operated by a Missouri-based nonprofit organization.
The schools are operated by MERS Goodwill, funded by the combination of appropriations through the Missouri Department of Social Services and MERS Goodwill's own contributions, and licensed and contracted by the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Between the state's appropriations and Goodwill's share of the funding, Arens said, it's accurate to say the total annual budget for the four schools will be between $9.5 million and $10 million - though the schools don't each cost the same, as they have different numbers of students.
In terms of the state's appropriations, Gov. Mike Parson in 2018 authorized $3 million in funding from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families federal fund to support low-income individuals' attendance at adult high schools.
For the current 2019-20 fiscal year, Parson approved $4.3 million from the same TANF fund to support low-income individuals' attendance, in addition to $1.5 million from the general revenue fund for the same purpose.
Parson also approved $2.5 million from the Department of Social Services federal fund to support the attendance at adult high schools of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, recipients.
Arens said the money appropriated by the state is used to cover expenses including the costs of operation, teachers and life coaches' salaries, and the child care that's offered to students at no cost.
In terms of Goodwill's own money, Arens said: "Last year we put about $10 million into this project, which - I don't have the numbers behind it to say this - but I think that's got to be, in the history of MERS Goodwill - which is now about 102 years old - probably the biggest single investment we've made in a program like this."
He said the building for one school was already owned by MERS Goodwill, another building was purchased, and two more - including Columbia's - are leased.
He said MERS Goodwill will pay a total of around $2 million this year for the four schools - $750,000 to $1 million to finish transforming the old Columbia Daily Tribune building into Columbia's Excel Center, plus maybe $1 million for the operation of the schools.
He said the following day, though, that the estimate on the cost of renovating the building for Columbia's Excel Center had been upped to likely about $1.1 million.
Arens said once all four adult high schools in Missouri are up and running, they are expected to cost MERS Goodwill between $1 million to $2 million a year of its own money - spent on "helping with transportation, food, diapers; we pay in many cases for the students to get (industry-recognized) credentials" through the elective course credits required for a high school degree, as opposed to options such as Spanish or astronomy.
He said students on average take three classes at the adult high schools.
Challenges, rewards
Arens said one of the biggest challenges in getting the schools up and running was having to do so within 21 months, as stipulated by legislation.
"We were taking a little bit of a leap of faith in starting the schools before having the budget truly signed and agreed to, so I think that was one big challenge," Arens said.
He said opening as many schools as they have in the time available was also "a heavy lift" logistically - including doing more than 300 interviews to hire 31 teachers.
"When you think of Goodwill, you don't immediately think of high school education - I should probably stress the word 'yet' on that" - and to not be able to introduce former students or talk about their success in Missouri has been its own challenge, he said.
"We can point to the success of this model in 21 other Excel Centers around the country, but those are different Goodwills (that are) different 501(c)(3)s. So we can say the model works, but we didn't have graduates of our own or even enrollments of students that were currently attending at that point to be able to point to," Arens said.
That has not stopped a greater-than-expected number of people from applying. Arens said enrollment projections for all three currently open Excel Centers have been considerably surpassed.
"We thought St. Louis would be 285 students, and it's been consistently over 400. Poplar Bluff, we thought 125 (students); it's been up as high as 180. Springfield, we expected somewhere around 175 or so; and we've been up around 200 or 225," he said.
As of last Monday afternoon, Columbia's school had 55 people signed up, Arens said. By Tuesday afternoon, "we were already at 150, and by the end of the day Tuesday, we were up over 200," he added.
Signups don't necessarily translate into actually being enrolled, he cautioned - not everyone who signs up may actually show up for class. "It's just the nature of working with adults that have adult lives and adult responsibilities and lots of things going on," he said.
"People do have things come up, and I think some part of that is, I almost can't think of something more brave to do as an adult than this, and that this is a major undertaking and a very anxiety-provoking pursuit. These are folks that have spent much of their lives, or many years anyway, maybe looking back at leaving high school as one of the biggest mistakes they either made or had to make, whether that was their decision or something that was kind of thrust upon them. To go back and try it over again is a big decision. Sometimes people walk away from that for a term, and we hope they come back," Arens said.
The future
Arens said the first graduates from Missouri's adult high schools were this summer - 21 graduates in May, and another 20 in July.
That's too soon to be able to provide metrics on students' outcomes six months post-graduation. But Arens said the full report on those metrics will be given to the Legislature in December, by which time he anticipated there will have been about 100 graduates, including 30-40 anticipated in October and probably 50 in December.
He did say, though, among the graduates so far, "we already see that the vast majority are working or attending college, so we know we're headed in the right direction."
The legislation that created the schools requires 75 percent of the adult high schools' students graduate each year or continue working toward a diploma or industry certification; at least half of the graduates attain an industry certification or enroll in college or other advanced skills training within six months; 85 percent of graduates who do not enroll in college or more advanced skills training be employed within six months; and graduates who enter the workforce earn, on average, 20 percent more than the average Missouri wage for people who don't have high school diplomas.
"There's half a million Missourians that need that help, and as great as I feel about what we're doing, and have been able to see the success of what we're doing, it's really in some respects a drop in the bucket compared to the need of the state," Arens said.
"We have already certainly thought about what would a fifth, a sixth or a seventh (adult high school) look like," he said of the possibility of further expansion of the program in the future.
"We have had that question asked of us from legislators, especially legislators north of Interstate 70. We have looked at those communities that have a greater number of high school drop-outs, where unemployment may be a little bit higher. Certainly we have a list of eight or 10 locations that would be good fits," he added.