Late bloomer found her path at alternative school

Published 9:41 pm Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Students who attend alternative high schools seek a different way to make it through the 12th grade.

Michelle Dietz-Date said she went to Scriber Lake High School in Lynnwood because of chronic truancy.

“In the 10th grade I was about a year and a half behind in credits,” she said. “I also liked to party occasionally, smoke cigarettes and watch daytime TV, which interfered with going to school.”

She probably ended up on the streets, right?

Nope.

Dietz-Date is the resource development manager for Village Community Services in Arlington.

What a marvelous turnaround.

The advocate for people with disabilities is chairwoman of the Leadership Skagit Alumni Committee and a committee chairwoman with Zonta Club of Everett.

At VCS, she works with executive staff members Teri Lyons and Elizabeth Gordon, the board of directors, parents and volunteers to develop services for those with developmental disabilities. Dietz-Date has secured several grants for job development and promotes the agency band called Voices of the Village.

“I love being an advocate for people with disabilities,” she said. “It is a hard area to get funding for, with only 4 percent of giving going to agencies that help people with disabilities.”

Her uncle has a mild developmental disability and inspired her work in the field, she said. Her parents owned a geological drilling company and moved around so Dietz-Date attended schools in Wyoming and Canada.

They settled in Edmonds where she lived with her parents, grandparents, aunt, three uncles and a dog named Buster.

She liked her home life so much, school didn’t have much of a draw.

Cheryl Hansen at Edmonds High School took charge of the wayward student and sent her off to do community service, attend regular and weekend classes and make it in every day.

“I completed the deal, volunteering at Madison Aldercrest Convalescent Home in the activities department. It was helping the elderly that changed my attitude and led to my career in nonprofit human services,” Dietz-Date said.

When Hansen became the principal at Scriber Lake, Dietz-Date transferred there. She said she loved the alternative school because most of her friends went there, she set the pace of her work and they had a smoking area.

The late sleeper also was allowed to start classes later in the morning.

She bloomed.

Students at Scriber were trying to find a different path through high school, said Roger Aase.

“Our program was individualized,” the teacher said “A lot of them needed someone to listen to them and give them a chance.”

He said many of the students wouldn’t be considered “most likely to succeed,” but many thrived.

Scriber teachers and students met for a reunion in this fall. Aase said one student is getting a master’s degree at a school in Hawaii and another leads a state chiropractic association.

Dietz-Date received a Kiwanis scholarship to Edmonds Community College, a degree in psychology from Western Washington University’s Fairhaven College, a Certificate of Mastery in Family Services from WWU and completed a Master of Public Administration program from Seattle University’s Institute of Public Service.

While working at Youthnet in Mount Vernon, Dietz-Date said she secured grant money for Emerson High School, an alternative program. She wrote grants for an Independent Living Skills program for teens leaving the foster care system.

“I hope to replicate this success at Village Community Services, but it is a bit of a challenge due to people with disabilities not being a top priority in the philanthropic community,” she said.

From her list of credits, it’s apparent that all those long nights with Scriber friends, studying and drinking coffee, eventually paid off.

“We really supported each other in getting through school and all the adolescent growing up that goes with it,” Dietz-Date said. “At Scriber, I got my motivation and self-esteem back.”

Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.