The data doesn't always reflect the impact

MEDICAL LAKE — Principals at a recent Medical Lake School District board meeting shared student learning data and optimistic plans for improving their individual schools.

Lyra McGirk, a 12-year teaching veteran of alternative schools, and director of Medical Lake’s alternative school, Endeavors, was more pragmatic in her assessment.

“We have students that come to us with trauma,” she said, noting that the number was “significant.”

As a result, the school’s goals are often different than mainstream high schools; the data doesn’t always reflect results.

McGirk shared a story with the board about Dantay McConnell, a former Endeavor student and California import living with family members in Medical Lake who were helping find him a more positive learning and social environment away from the gangs and other instabilities he’d left behind.

McGirk suggested to the board that had they met Dantay, they might have formed a bias or made assumptions based in his appearance — plenty of tattoos, and his dress and speech mannerisms.

“But one thing that stood out about him was he was always respectful,” McGirk said.

Described as quiet and kind with a helpful attitude, but carrying “a lot of stuff,” Dantay, who was severally behind academically, confided to his Endeavors teachers that if he returned to California he would end up in prison.

And in the end, that’s exactly what happened.

In an undated letter to Endeavors staff that McGirk read to the board — written from prison while he was working to obtain his General Education Diploma, or GED — Dantay praised them for their teaching efforts.

“It really helps,” he wrote. “Keep being awesome people.”

Flash forward to October 2018, when Endeavors welcomed 18-year-old Shaianne McConnell — Dantay’s sister.

Like her older brother, Shaianne came here, according to her cousin, Phyllis Andersen of Medical Lake with whom she now lives, for more opportunities — like a real bed.

According to her uncle, Phillip Tennison, who boarded Dantay during his stay, and now houses his younger brother, Shaianne was sleeping on a pallet at another cousin’s apartment in Yuba City, Calif., on the sly against terms of the lease.

Homeless in California for two years after her mother’s boyfriend left them, and with an unanchored, chaotic and stressful life, Shaianne, tall with reserved but confident demeanor, arrived at Endeavors with only 5 1/2 credits to show for over three years of school.

Today, although not yet caught up, after a year she’s doubled the credits she arrived with, according to McGirk.

Shaianne got right to work after things stabilized, determined to do something with her life. Not only has she advanced academically, she landed a job at Fairchild Air Force Base, where she works flexible hours on weekends and during school breaks as a housekeeper.

“She’s really blossoming and flourishing,” Andersen said, noting that Shaianne was depressed when she first arrived. “Now she feels confident.”

With a job, Shaianne said she has even been able to “save-up actual money.”

“My cousins don’t charge me much of anything,” she said. “But they’re trying to teach me responsibility.”

While she said her life was better across the board, asked to name the biggest obstacle she must overcome each week, she replied, “resting,” because she helps out her cousin at home, along with school and work.

“I want to get things done,” Shaianne said. “I’m the type of person that’ll keep working until I get it done. I don’t want to keep on waiting until it’s too late.”

She’s looking forward to graduating and moving on to college — with help from Endeavors staff, she said.

Dantay’s letter, McGirk said, was an important tool to demonstrate the work they do at Endeavors that is often not reflected in school data.

She called Dantay’s situation “an extreme example” of what the school and its teachers try to prevent.

“We’re trying to provide them with positive pathways and opportunities and prevent them from making choices that might be influenced by having limited opportunities,” McGirk said.

Shaianne agreed.

“The reason why I really like this school is mainly because the teachers and the staff always have been supportive,” she said.

The most prevalent trauma to which the 25 – 40 kids who enroll at Endeavors each year are exposed includes verbal abuse, loss of a parent due to divorce or abandonment and exposure to substance abuse, according to Endeavors data.

The benefit of the program is helping the most at-risk learners in the district be successful, and ultimately contribute to society, McGirk said.

She noted that graduation leads to jobs and a self-sufficient life versus falling into the so-called pipeline-to-prison, where school disciplinary practices push kids out of schools and eventually into contact with law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

Dantay has since been released from prison with his GED, according to Tennison. The family is currently searching for housing and job opportunities for him here in the area.

“He’s a good worker,” Tennison said. “He just needs a chance.”

Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].