Success Stories > Holmes County, FL

HOLMES COUNTY, FL. – AMIkids is a national non-profit organization dedicated to providing a promising future to troubled youth who have been adjudicated or have failed in conventional school settings.

AMIkids West Florida is a residential facility offering a wilderness camp experience. Forty students reside on the campus for six to nine months and work through a ranking and point system in order to be released. Students are given the opportunity to receive lifeguard certification, ServSafe® food safety training, and CPR certification. These experiences prepare students for employment after leaving the facility. Counselors also work with students to develop parenting and life skills to help them plan for their future.

Through the Holmes County school district, AMIkids students began using EdOptions™ Stars Suite®, but were limited to working on only one class at a time. “The students liked the system but were frustrated and had no motivation because they knew recovering one credit at a time wasn’t enough,” says Lesley Perdue, Education Coordinator at AMIkids.

Fortunately, AMIkids was able to purchase their own Stars Suite® licenses with Title I funding and allow students to work on multiple courses in order to catch up with their cohorts. “Now that they have the opportunity to work on multiple courses online, the excitement has spread like wildfire. They are eager and grateful to be using EdOptions Stars Suite®,” says Perdue. Of the 40 or so students in the program, those lacking six to seven credits are given priority to use one of the five licenses at the facility. “Students are waiting in line to get in! Some even have children of their own and are motivated to succeed.”

“To help kids obtain their academic goals, we are continuously searching for new and innovative programming. EdOptions provides a variety of creative approaches to education that fit well within our scope of services. Many times, a renewed interest in learning comes with a first success,” says Sherri Ulleg, Director of Communications at AMIkids.

Once in the program, students can choose to recover credits, in order to return to a mainstream school after their release, or study for the GED® Exam. Students recovering credits work with the Novel™ component of Stars Suite®, which consists of core and elective curricula for grades six through 12. Students seeking a GED® diploma work with GED Duo™, a preparation and remediation tool that is also included in Stars Suite®. The students at AMIkids have been very successful in achieving their academic goals. “It looks like we will have 20 students receive their GED® diploma for the [2009-2010] school year,” says Perdue, a record for the school.

AMIkids West Florida
Holmes County, FL
Enrollment: 40

Contact:
Kim Blain,
Education Coordinator
850 548 5524

EdOptions
1 866 243 7460

The success of AMIkids even warranted a visit by the Florida DJJ Director of Education, Terri Eggers. After visiting the AMIkids campus, Ms. Eggers wrote a letter saying, “Congratulations on the astounding program operating in Holmes County, Florida! All youth were incredibly polite, made excellent eye contact, greeted people 'in their home,' and displayed the best of manners throughout the classroom visits and discussions of various aspects of the program.” EdOptions is proud to partner with such an outstanding organization.