by Rick Gordon

Compass School Senior Jake Saunders could have chosen something more “fun” for his Senior Project. His State Championship Ultimate Frisbee teammate Ryan Jacobs had focused his senior project on training to qualify for the National Team. Last year, his friends Anna Bowler and Gretchen Dengler traveled to Argentina to study dance and art. Zach Bickford stayed closer to home to write a rock opera. Jake decided to spend a couple weeks working with migrants along the US-Mexico Border, experiencing the determination and struggles and injustices surrounding this most sensitive of current issues.

Senior Project at Compass tests students’ readiness for life and learning beyond high school. For Senior Project, each student applies knowledge and skills developed in their high school years to a significant independent learning experience. Throughout the year, seniors plan this project, developing research questions and making contacts to pursue an interest beyond the typical confines of school. Then, for two weeks in April, when many other seniors around the country are plodding along to the end of high school, Compass students are out in the world seeing what they can do with their school learning out in the “real world.”

Along with all his classmates when in 11th grade, Jake studied border issues and traveled to Mexico for two weeks immersed in life along the US-Mexico Border. These issues captivated Jake since he first learned of their complexity in a simulated public hearing in Humanities class last year. Jake’s role cast him as the CEO of Tyson Foods, an odd position combining the meat producing company’s economic self interest with a real concern for providing jobs and livelihoods. As CEO, was he a good guy helping families earn a solid income and feeding America or was he exploiting immigrants for personal gain...or both?

In Mexico with his classmates, Jake met with the Border Patrol and leaders of the Minuteman citizen protection group, lived with Mexican families, and helped deported migrants in Nogales. Although this experience made the issues no less complex, Jake was moved by the personal stories—the sacrifices of risking death in crossing the desert to help a starving family, the courage to try again and again to reach a goal, the risks of having to trust border transit coyotes who often have little concern for the well being of their clients.

So, for his senior project, Jake reconnected with No Mas Muertes (No More Deaths), an NGO that provides food, water, clothing, basic medical care and information along the border for migrants. No Mas Muertes directed Jake to their colleagues at Frontera De Cristo at el Centro de Recursos para Migrantes (CRM, the Migrant Resource Center, working a bit further east in Arizona at the sister towns of Douglas and Agua Prieta). Unlike Nogales, with stark differences between the well-off American side and the downtrodden Mexican side, Douglas and Agua Prieta act as almost one town, with Spanish the first language everywhere, with kids and adults continually cross the border for shopping and school and social life. Jake saw a picture of how a more open and thriving border might work, and also saw the continuing struggles of migrants facing a too often bureaucratic and uncaring system of border control.

In his work with CRM, Jake witnessed deportees locked up for days without representation, or going almost all day without being given food or water (in violation of US policy). Jake listened to the moving stories of these migrants, served them food and water, and provided aid and comfort for fellow humans trying to do the best for themselves and their families. Once back in Vermont, Jake shared these stories at his Senior Project Presentation, helping to raise awareness of the very real issues of US immigration policy. Jake reflected, “I was surprised with how grateful the migrants were. Just knowing someone cared about them seemed to really matter.”

For many of Jake’s graduating classmates, Senior Project gives them a taste of the field they will study in college and maybe for a career. Devin Collins pursued his interest in graphic design by job shadowing at Dartmouth Printing, Amelia O’Keefe followed her desire to teach by researching the impact of school environment on learning, and Jacob Lepkoff previewed his college major by interning with an independent filmmaker in Maine.

Senior project gives graduating students a chance to take their learning to new levels. Perhaps most importantly, senior project helps students learn that they can shape their own direction. Between the planning and carrying out the project, senior advisor Julia Taylor observes, “students realize they can make things happen.”

Working on an organic farm in Hawaii, studying the impact of strip malls on downtowns along the southeast coast, and writing and producing short films are just a few of the extraordinary learning experiences for Compass School seniors as they prepare for graduation. While schools around the country suffer with an epidemic of “senioritis,” Compass seniors finish up their high school years with a flourish, finding their place in the world beyond the school walls.