At of the end of this school year, the Wenatchee School District’s seven-year GEAR UP program’s grant will come to an end. The GEAR UP staff at Wenatchee High School will transition to working with the middle schools for a new program focused more intensely on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

GEAR UP is a program that helps students who are on track to becoming the first person in their family (first generation) to go to college. The program is focused toward low- income students but will assist anyone who needs it.

The new program is based out of all three local middle schools: Pioneer, Foothills, and Orchard. The current staff will be dispersed throughout those schools with the exception of nine-year WHS staffer, Gaby Fernandez, who has joined the United Way of Chelan-Douglas County to work with early childhood development and education.

SOAR 3, the new middle school GEAR UP program, stands for Success and Opportunity through Affordability, Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships. SOAR 3 is a new grant between Central Washington University, Northwest Learning and Achievement Group, and GEAR UP. The staff members will be assigned a middle school cohort and will follow that cohort throughout their education. So, for example, if Angela Prater, GEAR UP staff member, was to be assigned seventh-grade cohort at Pioneer, she would follow that class up to the high school where she will remain until they graduate from their freshman year of college.

Part of the agreement between the school district and staff members was that they were introduced to the middle schools slowly. “I’ll be here one day a week until Spring Break, when I will be full-time at Pioneer,” Prater said.

“We’re grateful for everything they’ve done for our students,” Assistant Principal Ricardo Iniguez said. “They will be missed and we hope to have them back soon.”

Juniors Alexis Rodriguez and Melissa Jacobo feel the removal will prove difficult for students. “It’s a really big disadvantage for students because the staff helped them out so much,” Rodriguez said.

“…They just helped so many people,” Jacobo added.

“It’s a difficult transition … and we’ll miss it here,” Prater said. The program had an extension year from grant money that was left over, but since WSD’s grant has been used, SOAR 3 will fill the void being created from the removal of GEAR UP.