Kids don’t generally drop out of schools that are working for them. But the school a child is assigned to isn’t always going to be a good fit for a variety of possible reasons—too little academic support for students with learning challenges, not enough opportunities for gifted students, bullying, too many distractions. Whatever the cause, some students will become disengaged and eventually drop out. But when other educational options are available, those same students may find an environment that works better for them. And that can be life changing.
Oakmont Education, a network of 22 public charter schools across Ohio, Iowa, and Michigan, is one such option. It serves students ages 15–21 who have either dropped out or are on the brink of it. Oakmont’s mission is to help them re-engage, get a diploma, and get into a job they can actually build a life on.
“Our number one pillar is that they are placed in a job in a sustainable industry after graduation, making sure that they can walk into life with not just their high school diploma, but also with a career,” says Randy Smoot, who leads Oakmont’s dropout recovery program.
Unlike most dropout recovery programs, Oakmont treats career technical education as the centerpiece, and the available pathways depend on what the local economy needs. “If there’s an area that is more about culinary and fine dining, we’ll make sure there’s a culinary program in that school,” Randy explains. “If it’s a more industrial area, we’ll make sure that there’s construction and advanced manufacturing. So we really try to make sure those students who come to us, when they leave, they’re in a much better position.” There’s also a healthcare pathway that includes phlebotomy, patient care, and medical assisting. Other pathways include business, early childhood education, and nail care.
Oakmont also leans into flexibility to meet the needs of its diverse student population. There are two four-and-a-half-hour sessions—morning and afternoon—so students pick what works. “If you are a 15-year-old, 7:30 might be perfectly fine for you to go to school,” says Randy. “But if you are a 21-year-old who maybe has a kid or something like that, and there are things that are preventing you from being able to do a traditional schedule, we make sure that you have a schedule that’s going to meet your needs.”
The classrooms are built the same way. Every room across all 22 campuses has a quiet space for independent work, a section for group projects, and a spot for direct instruction. Students float between them based on where they are that day. The curriculum is online, but every subject has a licensed teacher running live lessons and working with kids one-on-one. On any given morning, a math teacher might have 15 students working at five different levels.
Oakmont also avoids grade labels. There’s no junior or senior—just credits earned and credits remaining, plotted on an individualized learning plan that students and parents can see at any time. “You can go from being a ‘freshman’ to a graduate over the course of the year,” Randy says.
Another important feature that sets Oakmont apart is the background of its teachers. “All of our career tech teachers came from the industry,” Randy explains. “So it’s not teachers that learn how to do construction—it’s construction workers who learn how to teach.”
Those teachers bring their networks with them, which feeds Oakmont’s workforce advisory committees—local employers who show up at each school once a quarter to evaluate the programs, flag outdated equipment, and tell the school what they’re looking for in a new hire. If an employer says a particular certification is the difference between a callback and a “no thanks,” Oakmont adds it. “We had an organization that basically told us, if you can get your kids certified on this particular thing, that kid walks into our organization. So what do we do? We put that thing into that school,” says Randy.
Every program ends in a nationally recognized credential. Phlebotomists walk out licensed. Construction students leave with NCCER and OSHA credentials. Last year Oakmont graduated about 1,100 students in Ohio, with an 87 percent placement rate into jobs related to their training.
The support doesn’t stop at graduation. Each student keeps a career navigator for a year afterward—someone who checks in by phone, email, and in-person site visits with both the graduate and the employer. “If a student goes off to college and they are struggling with mental health or they’re struggling with nutrition, there’s someone in that school that can help them,” Randy says. “Same way with the military. But for our students who go off to the jobs, the workforce—who’s helping those students?”
Oakmont launched in 2018 in Akron when John Stack and a small team broke off from a previous charter operator with a different goal: not just opening more schools, but changing what those schools did for kids. The network now serves more than 5,500 students. Some campuses are purpose-built. Others occupy old Aldi or Rite Aid buildings. The Liberty School in Dayton sits on the second floor of an industrial warehouse with no windows—and graduated 100 students last year.
“As much as I talk about it, as much as you know about it, it’s when you see it,” Randy says. “When you see it, then you go, I get it now.”