HOULTON, Maine — Three Carleton Project high school students have a new opportunity to go to high school and graduate after a Georgia man donated scholarships to pay their tuition at the private not for profit alternative school.
“It’s a new door that’s opened up. It’s amazing to actually go to a high school and actually get a diploma,” said Jacob Carmichael, 17, who dropped out of Houlton High School last year.
Littleton native James McBride, who now lives in Savannah, Georgia, decided earlier this fall to donate $30,000 for three full tuition, one-year scholarships to the school located in Houlton’s historic downtown. Unlike traditional four-year public schools, students work at their own pace, it might take some a month or two to graduate, and others several years.
McBride grew up on a Littleton potato farm and first went to school at the Littleton Consolidated School, a one room schoolhouse on his family’s property followed by the Richer Classical Institute in Houlton and then the University of Maine at Orono.
Over the years McBride ran several large charitable foundations as part of his investment business but he was looking for something that was more grassroots, he said.
“We come back to Nickerson Lake every summer and I noticed the deterioration in the town of Houlton from my high school days,” McBride said. “I saw an opportunity to hopefully contribute to some of these young people and help them to become part of the future of Houlton.”
The Carleton Project helps students who have struggled in traditional public school settings with its individualized approach to learning. And sometimes, when students first come to the school the academics are secondary to first meeting survival needs like housing, a job and getting a driver’s license. Once those things are in place, the academics fall right in, said Carol Westerdahl, who has been a therapist at the school for 14 years. She is McBride’s sister.
“You cannot expect a kid to be educated when they are walking in the door not knowing where they are going to go when they leave. When they haven’t had breakfast, when they’ve got no money to get lunch, when they don’t know where they are going to eat supper,” she said.
The school intentionally keeps enrollment low, rarely surpassing 15, to make certain students get personalized support in achieving their academic goals. Historically, they have drawn students from County high schools and the Department of Justice. There is currently a waiting list of about 60 student hopefuls, according to Executive Director Lilly Haggerty.
Carmichael was one of the students who tried for over a year to get into the school after dropping out of Houlton High School because it was just not a good fit, he said.
“He kept coming and checking and coming and checking, saying ‘I want to come, I want to come.’ But we didn’t have scholarship money,” said Westerdahl.
Carmichael’s brothers graduated from Carleton and he said he thought it would be perfect for him as well because he heard so much good about the school.
“Their approach to work is way better and way more one on one,” he said, adding that after graduation he plans to continue his education. “Coming here was a personal change in my mentality. I felt like a whole new person.”
McBride started the Bulrush Foundation, a Rochester, New York-based private foundation that recently funded conservation and artistic projects. And over the years most of his other contributions were to larger initiatives, but there were no close connections. On Tuesday, he talked to Carmichael and Landon Hipsley, 17, another scholarship recipient over Zoom. The third scholarship recipient Jarret Russell, 15, was not available for the call.
“This is different. This is much more personal for me,” McBride said.
Hipsley also attended Houlton High School and also Summit Academy, an alternative learning school that is part of the Houlton School District.
“I really wasn’t feeling that and then my friends who went here kept recommending it,” he said.
Getting selected for the scholarship is awesome, said Hipsley.
“It’s awesome there were only three and there’s a huge wait list to get in here. Then I got picked, this is awesome.” he said.
Westerdahl added that at Carleton they are a small community and they all hang together, something that is difficult to do with several hundred students.
Hipsley said the scholarship means he has another chance of actually getting his diploma and in the future he wants to go into the Marines and he needs a diploma for the Marines.
“These two are very special kids,” Westerdahl on Tuesday.
