TEAM Schooler masters work, heading for Marines

By Pete Kendall/reporter@trcle.com

— Steven Masters made a series of bad decisions his senior year at Cleburne High School.

He began skipping school, fell behind in his course work and eventually dropped out.

He made a series of good decisions this year.

He enrolled at TEAM School, Cleburne ISD’s alternative choice campus. He caught up on his coursework and credits. And he impressed others to the extent that he’s about to become one of the few, the proud, the United States Marines.

Masters has already completed his TEAM course work. He’s preparing to undergo 11th grade TAKS testing. Presuming he passes, he’ll sign on the dotted line with the Marines and depart for basic training.

“I’m in the process of getting the paperwork together,” he said. “I’m pretty excited. Boot camp will be tough, but I’ll get through it. I’d like to make a career out of the Marines. I want to get my education while I’m in the service. I hope to go to college after the first four years so I can become a Marine officer.”

Masters is, in a word, driven.

This is perhaps not the word he would have selected to describe himself a few short years ago.

“My junior year at Cleburne High, I was an average student,” he said. “My senior year came around, and I started skipping. I wasn’t going to get all my credits. I was going to have to go to school an extra year to graduate, so I decided to drop out. My co-op teacher and English teacher and counselor talked to me a lot, but I had my mind made up.”

He said he intended to work toward his GED diploma.

“I figured that if I got the GED, I could start college faster than if I went back to high school,” he said. “But I kept putting it off and putting it off, and then I found out the Marines weren’t going to take me if I had a GED.”

The Marine Corps considers a student with a GED a Level 2 recruit.

“There are only so many slots open for recruits at Level 2,” Masters said.

TEAM School had been reclassified Level 1 by the Marines in 2007.

“So I decided to come to TEAM School to get my diploma,” Masters said.

He’s glad.

“These people are really nice,” Masters said. “It’s like a big family.”

TEAM Principal Georgann Storm is glad, too.

“We get to know the students well because it’s a smaller setting [than high school],” Storm said. “It’s hard for me to see Steven skipping school at the high school, because he’s been focused here ... very driven, polite, really the model student. I’d like to clone him for his work ethic. He’s an above average student, A’s and B’s.”

“I’m more eager here,” Masters said. “I can get the work done quicker and move on to other things in life.”

Part of the reason for Masters’ success was the carrot that TEAM School was able to dangle in front of him.

If he wanted to be a Marine, he had to graduate on a recommended plan, which includes two years of foreign language, chemistry, fine arts, an assortment of math. TEAM offered that option.

“That’s how that happened,” Storm said.

Storm is among the reasons the Marines designated TEAM School Level 1 three years ago.

“A graduate of a regular high school like Cleburne High is considered Level 1,” she said. “There are more slots [for recruits] at Level 1 than Level 2. Those are students who go to alternative schools for computer-based instruction, not teacher-based instruction.

“When I was teaching at TEAM, there were students who really wanted to be Marines. I wrote a letter to Congressman [Chet] Edwards telling him about our great students who wanted the opportunity to serve in the military. He wrote back and explained the different levels and how it would be up to the Marines to check us out and change the designation on our school, which made sense. I called the Marine recruiter, who called someone over his head. Three years ago, they came down from Fort Worth to look us over. They interviewed some of our students. They saw we were instruction-based with a set schedule and all-day program. We got notification back that the Marines were designating us Level 1, even though the state classifies us as an alternative choice school.”

The Navy followed suit several weeks ago, also designating TEAM School Level 1.

“We were Level 2 with the Navy, and we had a student who was interested in joining the Navy,” Storm said. “The Navy sent a lady down from Oklahoma. She looked us over and interviewed our students. She told the Navy recruiter to make us Level 1. That was very recently.”

The Army has been recruiting TEAM grads for a number of years.

“The Army has had great luck with our students,” Storm said. “They don’t wash out. They go in and stay in.”

Army and Navy are fine. To Masters, the Marine Corps is top drawer.

“I’ve always been interested in the Marines because of the higher prestige and the respect that goes along with the training they go through and being ‘first-in, last-out.’”

Storm would like to experience the Marines without having to experience the rigors of Marine boot camp.

“They do a four-day training program for educators,” she said. “They take you through their facilities and show you what a recruit can expect so we can go back and tell students exactly what they’re going to be getting into. I’d like to go through that program.”

She’d like something else more easily obtainable.

“We need some Marine and Navy posters,” Storm said. “They’d look good in the halls.”