School Spotlight: Osseo Area Learning Center Focuses on Personal Discovery
Not all students learn the same way and with the same timing. The Osseo Area Learning Center (OALC) in Brooklyn Park understands that very well and helps students embrace their own timing and goals.
“It makes me put more effort into doing the work. It makes me actually want to go to school.”
Twelth-grader Antiana Walker is a new student at OALC. She is part of the Student Leadership Group, while also preparing for college. She says OALC has a welcoming and encouraging environment that inspires her to study and go after her dreams, while also discovering new things about herself.
“Before this year, I never thought about doing art classes and I actually enjoy painting and stuff,” said Walker.
OALC services students from across the district. It’s a place where students have a variety of different ways to expand on their gifts and honor their personal timing.
“It’s very different from my other school because it’s very self-paced,” Walker said.
Kristen Hauge, principal at OALC, says the school has been able to thrive despite the pandemic, because it has always been finding innovative and creative ways to engage students. She also says there are continued well-rounded support resources in place to help students navigate a wide variety of challenges.
“We try to take scholars where they’re at and help get them where they want to be. So we really look at that whole scholar and create those individualized personalized pathways and work with them on that next step and that goal.”
Goals look different for everyone at OALC. For Antiana Walker, she is looking forward to college and exploring more creative expression as a future talk show host and possibly psychologist so she can help others.
“We really talk about here that every scholar is all of our responsibility all of the time. I think that’s something that is really unique to us because we do have those relationships and that’s really where we see all of the results we do,” Hauge said.
