A safe place to grow
Artemis school for at-risk girls goes beyond academics
BY KATHERINE DEDYNA, TIMES COLONISTJULY 17, 2009
Sarah Robertson, 19, and Ruthie Taylor, 18, sit with executive director Lisa Ellis at Artemis Place in Victoria.
Photograph by: Bruce Stotesbury, Times Colonist, Times Colonist
At 14, Ruthie Taylor was a borderline school dropout, rarely making it to class and relying on her own gumption to keep her life together.
Four years later, the forward-looking teen is the first girl to earn a B.C. Grade 12 graduation certificate at Artemis Place, a little-known alternative school busy changing at-risk lives in a Douglas Street office building.
Taylor is about to head to Toronto to take on the world -- travelling first and then college with a view to getting into youth work.
"It means so much more to graduate from a program like this," she says, sitting in the sunny life-skills room. Taylor, 18, credits Artemis with providing everything from a friendly kitchen to conflict resolution. It's a place, according to her yearbook entry, "to learn and grow into the best woman I can be!"
Other schools weren't a good fit -- too big, too "cold" or lacking rapport with teachers used to kids with more conventional lives.
"I was a smart student [but] I needed more individual help," she says.
At Artemis? "I've had pretty much perfect attendance."
Taylor's distance-education E-Bus Academy degree, taught online by certified teachers through School District 91 in Netchako Lakes, was bolstered by four years of friendship, support, guidance and guts from the staff and students here.
Even its name, Artemis, comes from the ancient Greek goddess and protectoress of young women and wild things.
"Ruthie's graduation is the symbol -- this works," says executive director Lisa Ellis, 44.
Artemis concentrates on the whole person -- academics in the context of social and emotional factors, says Ellis, a former special ed teacher who went into counselling convinced the two go together for at-risk students. The 20 teenage girls who attend Artemis struggle with everything from learning disabilities to the juvenile justice system, past trauma and foster care.
The Victoria school district offers some alternative programs, but Ellis says "they don't provide the kind of intensive counselling support we know is needed when kids are dealing with the big life issues our girls face. We know you can't give youth the tools to change their lives when you only deal with the academic side of their learning."
She was once a student at GAP -- the Girls Alternative Program -- then funded by School District 61. Without it, she doubts she would have graduated.
This is the first year all 20 Artemis spaces have been filled. There's a growing wait list of 24 girls whose enrolment must be financed by fundraising. Ellis is working "a lot harder to find funding, but bringing in less."
She's thankful that Telus, Victoria and Greenshield foundations and VanCity and Victoria Harbourside Rotary have given more than a third of the $327,000 program revenue for 2008-09. The province contributes about $100,000 and Netchako school district about $90,000.
"It's a life-changing opportunity coming to this school," says student Sarah Robertson, 19. "It replaces all the negative things I left regular high school [over] with a really positive image for my future."
The well-equipped kitchen is a focal point -- some of the girls come here hungry -- and it's a space for learning how to cook.
Kitchen supplies are stored in what was once a credit union vault, complete with heavy grates. "It's not a prison," Robertson laughs.
While she's referring to the pantry, her words symbolize how liberating this school has been. Robertson has now earned enough credits for acceptance at Camosun College and is excited about studying to be a health care assistant, earning some money and eventually practising law.
Issues get dealt with as they arise and each girl must meet weekly with a counsellor. Outdoor trips -- kayaking to theatre -- are part of the curriculum because "fun is important" Ellis says. So is conflict resolution -- most girls didn't get here by having conflict-free lives.
Many people have negative impressions about the kids who go to alternative schools: Out of control, into drugs, maybe not the brightest stars in the sky. But Taylor and the rest of the students at Artemis show the reality.
In Robertson's case, being a lower-income student in a higher-income school led to her compromising schoolwork to earn money to keep up with the "popular" crowd. She also found 1,200 students on one campus too crowded for her emotional health.
She's over-the-top enthusiastic about Artemis. "I love this school," Robertson says. "It's all girls and you are all sisters in a sense. You come here, it doesn't matter if you have money."
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