Job Front: At-risk teens create garden, grow job skills
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By Darrell Smith
Published: Monday, Aug. 10, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 7B
Shamar Armstrong dug the shovel into the hard-packed earth behind Elinor Hickey School, then jumped, the full weight of his fullback-size frame stomping the shovel into the ground, carving out an irrigation line one blade-width at a time.
"It's tiring," he said, a T-shirt wrapped around his head to soak up the sweat. "But it's kind of surprising. I didn't think this was going to be as cool as it is."
For the past five weeks, the 16-year-old Armstrong and 32 of his classmates have been hard at work building a community garden at the Ethan Way campus. They will unveil the garden on Friday.
It's the most visible sign of a Sacramento County Office of Education jobs program steering at-risk teens away from trouble and toward the world of work.
Called LINKS, the publicly and privately funded program received a $750,000 boost in federal stimulus funds earlier this summer. (The acronym refers to the program's core values and watchwords – Leadership, Integrity, Navigating choices, Keeping promises, Sufficient preparation.)
"The emphasis is on jobs," said county Deputy Superintendent Martin Cavanaugh, who piloted the program three years ago. "These kids want a job, but they have no idea how to keep one."
That's where the LINKS program (www.scoe.net/links) comes in, teaching job skills through classroom instruction and what Cavanaugh calls "service learning" – using community projects such as the garden to provide the tools these young people will need to succeed in the workplace.
"We want to expose kids to opportunity, but we're also focused on what employers want," Cavanaugh said.
Show up. Be dependable. Take direction. Get along with other workers.
"Without these qualities," Cavanaugh added, "these kids aren't effective as employees."
The academy-style program accepts high school-age kids who've hoed a tough road. As many as 600 at-risk students participate at six sites across Sacramento County, including Hickey.
Many have been expelled or have behavioral problems; some have learning difficulties or have had brushes with the law and end up in community schools like Hickey, Leo Palmiter and Gerber, which serve students in the seventh- through 12th grades.
At Hickey, as at other LINKS sites, respect and achievement replace hard knocks. Second chances replace suspensions.
"This keeps us out of trouble and the program will help us get a job after this is over," said Sierra Lillard, a 16-year-old sophomore at Hickey, who said her previous school experience was "not good. There was nothing to look forward to."
That changed at LINKS, she said. Lillard said she has earned extra units toward her junior year and has her sights set on a career in criminal justice, working with children.
"Now, I have an incentive to do better. I didn't care much about school, but this will help get us through life," she said.
Across the school's parking lot, Elijah Guadalupe pushed a wheelbarrow topped with sacks of cement toward the bare plot where fruit trees and row crops – peaches, limes, potatoes, cucumbers and corn – would soon be planted.
At 16, it's Guadalupe's first job, and the Gerber High student jumped headlong into the assignment.
"I love this job. You get dirty. I'm meeting new people, and I have a lot of new friends now," he said. And he's "talking more like an adult" now.
School wasn't always as rewarding, reflected in his grades and attendance at Sacramento's Valley High. "I was struggling before," he said.
It's a crucial time for these teens, said Paul Valencia, an education specialist at the county education office and one of the project's leaders.
Valencia knows that all too well. A high school dropout and a father while still in his teens, he went on to earn a GED and later graduate from the University of California, Davis. Today, he's working toward a master's degree at California State University, Sacramento.
"If we can catch them in time, when they exit school, they'll have something to look forward to," he said. "They've got to have skills to succeed."
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