Natl. Guard Youth Challenge ready for full class; COVID-19 adds recruiting challenges

(Update: Adding video, comments from program cadets, counselor)

Oregon Youth Challenge struggling to fill next class for at-risk youth

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The Oregon National Guard Youth Challenge program, a residential school east of Bend guided by military principles, has been cleared to house 240 students for its next session.

The targeted students are considered academically at risk, meaning they are failing, not attending, or have dropped out.

Before joining the program, Benjamin Kort was working 35 hours a week, barely having time to keep up with his school work.

"I needed a break, kind of like a detox, from all the distractions that were keeping me from school," the Youth Challenge cadet said Thursday.

However, the school is having difficulties recruiting for that next class, due to COVID-19's continuing impacts.

Youth Challenge officials visit schools statewide to spread word of the program, looking to target students who are considered academically at risk.

But the pandemic placed unprecedented challenges on schools and students. Most schools are still doing a hybrid learning experience, half in person and half online.

"Since the schools were closed, that's another stakeholder that wasn't able to be engaged as much to help us find kids," admissions counselor Frank Strupith said.

"We get about 40 percent of kids from high school counselors, so when they're not working or not sitting with kids, then it's harder to find them," he said.

That has had a significant impact on students who are at risk of dropping out or getting into trouble, as well as the programs designed to help them avoid that.

However, Youth Challenge staff say the teens start the program as one student -- and leave a different one.

Rubi Serrato is an example, realizing the change in her own life.

"It can be really challenging, sometimes," she said. "But it really initiated my own self-discipline, and my own ideas of where I want to be five years from now."

Kort plans on going to community college to study airliner mechanics and electronics. Serrato hopes to major in psychology at Portland State University.