Warrenton High School student Michael Pelts sat through a lengthy school board meeting earlier this month before he was invited to address the group with a simple but detailed proposal to help more students throughout the community get a leg up on going on to college or trade school.

“The question among students shouldn’t be ‘Are you going to college?’; it should be, ‘Where are you going to college?’ ” said Pelts, who is in the school’s gifted education program.

To address this issue, Pelts provided an overview of a new student organization and program called IMAGINE that he and other supporters believe will help tip the scale for students who want to further their education but need a little extra help, encouragement and motivation to successfully navigate the ACT college entrance exam and take the necessary steps to apply for and get into a school.

Pelts organized IMAGINE — an acronym for Inform, Motivate, Assist, Greatness, Inspire, Nourish and Excel — as a resource to support students and parents through the school application process and encourage students throughout the community, including those who are home-schooled, to start the process earlier rather than later.

The IMAGINE club is targeting both junior high and high school students and their parents, Pelts told the board.

“We want students throughout the community to start thinking about college when they’re in eighth grade and create a strategy to put themselves in the best position to reach their full potential,” he said. “The main goal is to help students who want to push themselves.”

The group plans to offer resource materials, practice ACT tests, funding help for entrance exams for those who need it along with other support.

Pelts asked the board to approve financial support, less than $1,000, to purchase books and other study resource materials for an IMAGINE resource center that will include information on colleges from across the United States. There will be financial aid information and books on college essays, and information on how to select a college. The resource center would be located at the high school.

Principal Jeremy Way told the board that the high school would find a way to carve out money from its budget for the program.

The registration fee for taking the ACT test is $32 for the basic test and $47 for the basic test and writing portion. 

Pelts and others who have studied the issue believe it is one more hurdle in the way of students who may not seriously consider going on to college because of perceptions that the obstacles are insurmountable.

He said the group will begin conducting its own fundraising to help sustain the program over time.

“The purpose of the group is to help eliminate some of the barriers, fears and confusion many students have about the college entrance process,” said Pelts, whose motivation comes in part from seeing what his older brother Sam went through to get into Cornell University.

“I saw that if you want to get into a good school and win scholarship money, you need a strategy,” he said.

Stephen Koehler, program sponsor and gifted education and special education teacher, notes that according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), less than a third (29 percent) of Warrenton High School graduates go on to a four-year college.

“We’d like to see that change and IMAGINE offers resources that we hope will help level the playing field for our students who want to get into college,” Koehler said.

By the same token, the group also will offer assistance to students who want to get into a trade school, said Koehler, who has been focusing on helping students apply for and achieve major scholarships from colleges from Lindenwood to Washington University, along with trade schools.

Marketing teacher Margaret Kernell co-sponsors the program with Koehler and will house the resource center next to her classroom.

“This program gives students who have something in common the opportunity to get together and share ideas and help each other learn from their own experiences,” Kernell said. “It also gives those who may be on the fence about attending college the initiative they need to take that big step in the right direction.”

The interest in the program is strong, Pelts told the school board, as evidenced by the 40 parents and students who recently showed up to attend a session with guest speaker Forrest Roberts of the Princeton Review, a company that specializes in tutoring students to gain high scores on their college entrance exams and coaches students to help them compete for entry into the nation’s top universities.