How do we help At - Risk students....

Recently the chapter that we read talks about at risk students and programs that there is for them to succeed. The problem I find is that some of these kids want to take the help but the home environment might not support them. Unfortunetly children that do not finish their schooling have a higher rate of living in poverty for the rest of their lives. The sad thing is with out education they will never know that they don't have to stay in that class-status. That's the good thing about America, if you have a dream follow it. It's amazing what a human brain can do if it's put to the test.... According to the U. S Census Bureau the following conditions may contribute to different levels of At- Risk.

• Has at least one disabiltiy
  
• Retained in a grade at least once
• Speaks English less than "very well"
• Does not live with both parents
• Either parents emigrated in the past five years
• has a family income below $ 10,000
• Neither parent or guardian employed

At- Risk students can have all or none of these factors they just serve as a guideline for educators. There are also children that have one or two of these conditions and be the exeption to the rule and succeed above and beyond. I feel that as educators we need to really look and interact with these children before we start to label them. There are federal funded programs that have been created to help these children such as

1. Upward Bound
   
2. Pull out programs
   
3. Compensatory education program

There are also mentoring programs for children that don't have the right adult to look up to. Programs like Big brother or big sisters that give one -on-one attention to these children that need the help. Another way for these kids to succeed in school would be parents getting involved but that doesn't always happen, Programs for parents to get involved are as follow

1. PTA
2. PTO
3. Parent teacher conference
   
4. Open house
   

I understand that there are more At-Risk students then there are educators. There has to be a way for us to help our youth......