It's a program that's been around for 50 years. Rebound in Carbondale is an alternative education program for Southern Illinois students. On Friday, they opened their doors to the community for a open house to help people understand their mission, and the students they serve.
Matt Duckworth is a counselor at Rebound. He led one of the tours around the school showing the work being done by teachers and students. The school works in 3 main ways to help students complete their graduation requirements, "One is your traditional just come to class like everybody else does. The other is remote students that are on a Zoom meeting. We can project them on the screen and the ideas is for them to participate like they're in class. And number three is independent study. For independent study a student is completely on their own to do the work - on their own time and in their own location."
Sandra Snowden is the director of Rebound. She's been with the program for 24 years starting with the school's family literacy program.
The school works with students who have not been able to succeed in a traditional school setting. According to Snowden one of the reasons for today's tour is to break the stigma that their students are 'bad kids', "That's not the kids that we have here. They have to be self motivated because no one's watching them coming in and out. These are the students that need that second or third chance to get their education."
Students do attend class in person. The classes are smaller than traditional classes and allow teachers to meet students in a more personal way. We stopped in the math class of Penny Smith.
Working at Rebound has a deep personal meaning for Smith. She dropped out of high school at 16. She enrolled in Rebound at 17 and graduated from the program a year later, "I found Rebound when it was in the back of the high school on Giant City Road. I went there and I met some amazing people. I just kept going. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I just wanted to get out of the environment that I was in. And that was a different environment. The more I went, the more I felt good about it."
Smith's experience motivates how she works with the students, "They're strong enough to be here. And they've found that strength within themselves. No matter what happened, they can come through that door and filter that out. They can become somebody."
Efforts like Smith's are showing results. Last year Rebound graduated 71 students with their high school diploma and 7 students earned their GED.
Ty'Nya Myers is one of those students on track to earn her high school diploma this spring. For her school was not a good fit. She says she struggled with the schedule and she was in an environment that was unhealthy. She heard of rebound from her family.
She struggled at the beginning. It took her a while to learn how the classes worked and how much she could accomplish, "Once I got the hang of doing my self-paced classes, I found it was easier for me. If I can work at my own pace it really helps me."
As she talks about graduation, Ty'Nya sounds like many high school seniors. But, Rebound has given her a chance to believe in herself, "Honestly I'm excited but also nervous because I'm going to be a high school graduate. I'm excited for it because I know I'm going to do good because this school has helped me with a lot of opportunities."
According to Snowden, these outcomes are at the core of Rebound's mission - not just to help students graduate, but be able to have confidence to be independent when they're done, "Success for me is to see a student go out of here with confidence because many come in with low confidence. Just seeing them be able to be citizens in our society and be productive."
You can find out more about Rebound by visiting their website: https://sites.google.com/cchs165.com/rebound-cchs165/home
