Home > News > Press Release
THE LifeSkills CENTER OF YOUNGSTOWN GRADUATES 40 STUDENTS
Community-based charter high school will grant state-certified High School Diplomas to 40 young men and women December 18, 2003
YOUNGSTOWN, OH - December 15, 2003 - White Hat Management (WHM) today announced that its LifeSkills Center of Youngstown will hold commencement ceremonies this month to present 40 area students with state-certified high school diplomas.
The LifeSkills Center of Youngstown will host its commencement at the Stambaugh Auditorium on Thursday, December 18 at 6:30 p.m. The evening will feature a keynote address by Reverend Lewis Macklin II. A special guest reception following the graduation will be held. The public is invited to attend.
"The faculty and staff of the LifeSkills Center of Youngstown would like to congratulate the December 2003 graduating class on their accomplishments," Administrator of the Life Skills Center of Youngstown Jeff Belanger said. "Your hard work and perseverance have paid off. We are all very proud of you."
The LifeSkills Center of Youngstown's winter graduates join students from LifeSkills Centers nationwide who will graduate with their high school diplomas this December. They will join the over 2,800 students who have graduated since the first LSC was founded in 1999. In addition to the Youngstown school, tuition-free Life Skills Centers are also located in Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Elyria, Middletown, Springfield, Toledo, and Warren, Ohio; and in Phoenix, Arizona and Denver, Colorado. They serve more than 7,500 students.
WHM's LifeSkills Centers are proving to be one of the nation's most successful programs for helping high school dropouts or at-risk students earn a high school degree...not a GED. The program features a proprietary curriculum that combines academics, life skills preparation and workplace training. Much of the instruction is computer-based, with state-certified teachers acting as facilitators to help students learn at their own pace. LifeSkills Centers do not assign grade levels to students. Upon enrollment, each student receives an Individualized Academic and Career Plan, which guides him or her through the curriculum and toward the diploma. The schools provide a safe, secure, positive learning environment.
Akron-based White Hat Management, LLC, is Ohio's largest operator of charter schools and ranks among the premier full-service Educational Management Organizations (EMOs) in the United States dedicated to educating K-12 students. The company, which was founded in 1998 by Akron, Ohio industrialist and education activist David Brennan, operates three types of schools: LifeSkills Centers; HOPE Academies, which are community-based charter public schools for kindergarten through eighth grade; and OHDELA Academy, which provides distance learning resources for home schooling. White Hat Management, on behalf of the non-profit boards it serves, currently operates 32 schools, which employ over 1,300 people, educating and supporting nearly 15,000 students.
For more information, visit www.whitehatmgmt.com