On a hot day in August, a team of educators got out a list and started dialing.

Carla Barker recognized a name on the list before she placed her first call.  Barker taught English at Parkview High School before she became the coordinator of site interventions at Pipkin and Westport middle schools. As a CSI, she is part of a new SPS dropout engagement initiative that was launched this summer. The innovative, districtwide approach features a calling campaign to re-engage students who recently dropped out, informing them of options to complete their credit requirements and graduate from high school.

 

Olivia Bailey, is one of those students. She attended Central, Parkview, Study Alternative Center and OTC Middle College before leaving school last year. She was 17, lacked transportation to school and worked a full-time job. Traditional high school just didn't work for her, she says.

 

"Life got in the way, and I kept putting off and putting off getting my GED," she says. "But I work at Steak N Shake, and two of my regular customers are substitute teachers at SPS. And they kept asking me, 'when are you going back to school?' So when my mom got a call from a lady at SPS that there was a way for me to go back to school, I did it."

 

Find out here how SPS educators are helping students like Olivia re-enroll and earn their credits through seated and online course, with encouragement and support from mentors.  

Fun-loving sailors Gabey, Chip and Ozzie have 24 hours of shore leave in New York City, and they want to make every second count. While Chip hooks up with loudmouth cab driver Brunhilde and Ozzie swoons for prim anthropologist Claire, Gabey falls in love with an actress he sees in an advertisement, Ivy Smith.

 

 

A musical comedy that centers on a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley Middle School. Quirky adolescents compete in the Bee, run by equally quirky grown-ups.

 

 

Christmas time is here. Happiness and cheer. And for Peanuts fans everywhere, it just wouldn't be Christmas without this classic holiday delight. Christmas lights may be twinkling red and green, but Charlie Brown has the Yuletide blues. 

 

One of the world's most iconic and longest-running musicals, Les Misérables tells the story of Jean Valjean, a former convict who spends a lifetime seeking redemption. Set against the backdrop of 19th-century France and the aftermath of the French Revolution, this timeless story of intertwined destinies reveals the power of compassion and the quiet evil of indifference to human suffering. As Valjean's quest for a new life carries him into Paris and to the barricades of the Student Revolution, he is hunted by Inspector Javert and the ghosts of his past. Amidst a battle for the soul of Paris, he discovers the true meaning of love and salvation. 

Pippin is the story of a young prince, heir to the throne, who is searching for his own "corner of the sky." Pippi n returns from university certain that he will find a fulfilling purpose in life. Pippin dabbles in bloody battle and savvy political maneuvers, only to discover that true happiness is more complicated than he thought.