Celebrating Oregon schools reaching high standards

Open Meadow Alternative School

Down under the Standard Insurance Center in downtown Portland, the data operations center hums with the workings of millions of dollars of computer equipment. Crystal Wealand and Zinette Pratcher, both 18, navigate the vital nerve center, hub of the data that keeps the corporation running: claims reports, actuarial data and client communications.

Crystal and Zinette point out the rows of computer monitors, thousands of data cartridges, and their colleagues in the data center - all of them at least twice their age. They are young, energetic, and well-trained full-time employees of Standard Insurance Company.

Just a few years ago, it was a far different story: each of them had all but officially dropped out of high school. Crystal's family moved into Portland from Sandy, and she didn't bother re-enrolling. Zinette says she just stopped going to Benson High School - summer was coming, and she was "slacking."

How did their lives take such a dramatic shift - from not attending high school, to graduating from Open Meadow and becoming full-time computer operators?

It might never have happened but for an incredible relationship that began in the most unlikely place: over a bin of potatoes at the Oregon Food Bank.

As they culled and bagged potatoes for needy families, volunteers Mike Winslow and Carole Smith started chatting.

Carole, executive director at Open Meadow Alternative Schools, told Mike about her high school located in an old North Portland mansion built on a bluff. More than 140 students - kids for whom the traditional large public high school doesn't work - turn to Open Meadow for a different sort of education, where they get the attention and advocacy they need, and where they apply their learning in the community around them.

Mike, general counsel and corporate secretary for The Standard, said his company wanted to build a relationship with a local high school. Carole saw an opportunity and invited Mike and his colleagues to visit.

Thus an extraordinary partnership was born between the school and The Standard, the second-largest company headquartered in Oregon.

Open Meadow's reports list more than 50 corporations that have offered their support in the last year - whether with donations, work experience or other help. Among them all, The Standard's partnership stands out, for the strength of the company's commitment and the incredible variety of ways the relationship has blossomed.

"Cool things are coming out of it that are great for us, and satisfying to those on the other end," Carole said. "There's no formula. It's looking for things that emerge and making them happen."

Gregg Harrod, an assistant vice president at The Standard, now serves as the chair of Open Meadow's Board of Directors. Despite the two partners' vastly different sizes, they both share a culture of building personal relationships. He called the partnership "a golden opportunity to participate in education by supporting a school where the mission is to give kids a second chance. That aligns well with The Standard's tradition of lending a helping hand where it is really needed."

With strong support from their CEO, high-level officers at The Standard joined a partnership team, a group able to implement the ideas that just keep coming:

• Employees helped students practice job-readiness skills, putting them through mock interviews and advising them on resume writing.
• Open Meadow employees were invited to join The Standard's classes on Excel, Microsoft Office and other computer programs.
• A team of 13 IT specialist audited Open Meadow's technology needs, and when the company upgraded its own systems, it donated more than 130 desktop computers to the school.
• The company's strategic planner is helping the school update and create a more professional organizational strategic plan.
• Students joined company employees for the "Sand in the City" sculpture contest in Pioneer Courthouse Square, and for SOLV's Oregon beach clean-up.
• When The Standard sponsored PICA's Time Based Art Festival, they arranged to have Crutchmaster Bill Shannon perform at the high school.
• Employees have joined students' advocate groups - sort of an empowered homeroom - as mentors and friends, pitching in on the groups' service projects and celebrating birthdays.
• Open Meadow staff work with The Standard's PR experts on their publications and press releases.
• Company officers have helped with fundraising - with Mike Winslow even hosting a dinner and selling his own artwork to benefit the school.

And then there were the internships. Both Crystal and Zinette heard about Open Meadow from friends, applied and were accepted. Under Open Meadow's philosophy of an education integrated with real-world experience, all students participate in internships - working in all sorts of fields, with landscape architects, veterinary technicians, auto mechanics or website designers.

That's how Crystal and Zinette started at The Standard - as interns, just three days a week for two hours at a time. Their supervisor, John Carrington, was immediately impressed with the dynamic young women. They learned so quickly he had a hard time keeping two steps ahead with their training program, and John quickly came to count on their extra help. By the summer, he had hired them on, and now they are full-time, permanent employees looking to begin a career.

It's been a great experience on both sides. "We're a bunch of middle-aged computer operators," John said. "They gave us a whole new perspective."

Click here to read about student success at other Oregon schools.