Diploma wall inspires hope in Simon Youth Foundation students

Seith Bedard remembers his parents tacking his A+ papers to the refrigerator when he was a kid.

Now an adult and working as the director of Simon Youth Peabody Learning Academy at Northshore Mall, which serves high school students at risk of dropping out, Bedard remembers how seeing his school work prominently hung at home pushed him to work hard in the classroom.

"This is the same idea behind our academy's diploma wall," Bedard says. "The wall is a daily reminder for the students of what they are working for and what they have achieved."

Not too long ago, Bedard came upon his old high school diploma from Peabody Veterans Memorial High School - the high school and Peabody Public Schools system are partners that support the academy in partnership with Simon Youth Foundation. Bedard thought he could use the image of his diploma as motivation for his 30 students, so he ran off 30 photo copies of it with the name section left blank.


"I added a different student’s name to each diploma copy, and I've had them laminated and added magnets so that they could be attached to one of our classroom white boards, which we now call the diploma wall," Bedard says.

Underneath each student’s diploma is a column of other laminated cards bearing symbols that represent each of the required courses students must complete to graduate. As students complete a required course, Bedard pulls that card down off the wall.

"This is a visual way to show students how far they've come and what they have left to accomplish," Bedard says.

He adds that since establishing the diploma wall, strong attendance has gotten even better with students going as far as calling into the academy if they are running just a few minutes behind.

"Seeing their names on a diploma, even if it’s not yet the real thing, gives them a lot of pride," Bedard says. "And we've set up the diploma wall right at the entrance to the school so it is the first thing the students see when they come to class and the last thing they see when they leave for the day."

"It really helps me stay on track and motivates me to get what I need done," says Michael Nolan, an academy student who dropped out of his traditional high school at the start of the 2010-11 academic year but will still graduate in May because of the work he's completed in recent months at the academy. "When I get the chance to take down a class from the diploma wall, it give me a sense of accomplishment."

When a student's column on the diploma wall is clear and all classes required for graduation are passed, as was already the case for two of the academy's 30 students on April 22, 2011, Bedard pulls their diploma magnet from the diploma wall. The students can then take it home to proudly display until they receive their real diploma at a large ceremony with students from the Peabody system's traditional high school, which is planned for May, 2011.