Opening Doors

Try to imagine the following: You’re a teenage girl, homeless and sleeping in a car; You’re a young boy who’s been held at gunpoint by a drug dealer looking for your father; Your everyday focus is held hostage by the need to simply survive a tumultuous lifestyle.

Those are the sad, but real stories of hundreds of Fort Wayne teenagers. For many of them, going to high school and graduating is nearly impossible. They have no positive role models to show them the power of a diploma. An alternative school in Fort Wayne, called The Crossing, is often their last hope.

“The mission of The Crossing is to empower struggling students to become contributing members of their community through academics, job training programs and faith-based character education,” says Caleb Tedder, regional coordinator of The Crossing.

The Crossing is an accredited, alternative school unique to Indiana with 29 campuses throughout the state, including one in downtown Fort Wayne and a second located at Master Spas off Hadley Road on the city’s west side.

“These are students who need a different educational environment compared to other high school students because they formulate ideas differently,” says Tedder. “Besides academic training, we offer them the moral support they need and seek through a program called ‘family time.’ That’s when the students and their teachers sit down as a group and can really process things with a responsible adult who can help them make the right choices.”

The Crossing was started 13 years ago in Goshen, Indiana, by high school principal Rob Staley, who could relate to these students because of his own experience of struggling with various issues as a teenager. The downtown Fort Wayne campus opened eight years ago, and the Master Spas campus opened last year.

“I was very moved by a presentation Rob Staley gave at a local business forum about three years ago,” says Terry Valmassoi, president of Master Spas. “I came back from that meeting determined to do something to help these kids. I contacted our vice president of manufacturing, Mike Rees, and we worked together to come up with a plan.”

In addition to classroom instruction, The Crossing also strives to offer job training programs giving the students hands-on experience they can apply to a real world job after graduating.

“Fortunately, we had a number of situations going on that made it a perfect time to do something like this,” says Rees. “We were needing some additional help in one of our fiberglass areas. So, the kids came in and worked as a team with their Crossing job coach and picked up on it in a heartbeat. These kids are smart. If you give them an opportunity to do something like this, they excel. They very quickly learned how to do other skilled jobs as well. I was amazed.”

The students used to receive classroom instruction at the downtown campus for the first half of the day and then were shuttled by their teachers to Master Spas for job training the second half of the day. Eventually, a classroom was built on the Master Spas property to allow the kids to stay in one location all day. The students helped to build the classroom with all of the materials donated by suppliers of Master Spas.  

“The students run two businesses out of the classroom: a pallet-making business and a candle-making operation,” says Valmassoi. “It’s impressive. The kids do everything—order the lumber, make the pallets, keep the books—and then Master Spas buys the pallets from them. They even came up with a less expensive, better way to design the pallets.”

“If our students weren’t in The Crossing, some of them would end up in jail or dead or they would be on the street causing trouble for our community,” says Tedder. “Instead of living off welfare or causing crime, we want our students to be making an income, able to support themselves and their families and be able to lead productive lives and give back to the community. We do service projects with them. We want them to learn that you don’t just take from the community, you give back to it as well.”  

The Crossing has a 91 percent retention rate with 89 percent of the students going on to pursue careers or higher education after graduating.  

Tedder says no student will ever be turned away because of financial concerns for tuition. Donations are always needed and he asks anyone interested in volunteering or donating to visit the school’s website at crossingeducation.com.

“If you give these kids an opportunity to shine, they will shine,” says Rees. 

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