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Features: Turning Ideas into Reality
Using education as a tool for empowerment, Deb Vierling (MA ‘03) has been dubbed everything from an advocate to an angel. The name of her school sums up her life’s mission perfectly. Crusade High School, the alternative school Vierling founded in 1996 and has served as principal of since 2003, epitomizes her commitment to create a home for the quarter of her students who don’t have one. Vierling recently bought a house in the southeast Iowa town of Morning Sun, hoping to offer homeless kids the stability and structure that will help them succeed in academics and life. “My philosophy is based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” Vierling explains. “Once students have food in their stomachs, they can see, and their teeth aren’t aching, they can concentrate on algebra and biology and community service.” Her commitment to these students is so strong because Vierling has walked in their shoes. Growing up in Burlington, Iowa, Vierling was touched by alcoholism, poverty, and abuse at an early age. Education became her ticket out. Now the 53-year-old mother of five and grandmother, who went back to school at age 45 for a master’s degree in educational administration, is on a mission to help students who encounter the hardships she experienced. But it’s not easy. Vierling’s students are predominantly poor. Some are raising children of their own, others have served prison time, and many have been abused emotionally and physically. Of 40 students currently enrolled—most from the towns of Morning Sun, Wapello, Winfield-Mt. Union, and Mediapolis—10 are homeless. In 2002, Vierling launched a one-woman crusade to provide a home for these students, complete with house parents and comforts others take for granted. With donations from the community, she founded Crusade House Foundation, Inc., and purchased a two-story house. She’d like her students to help fix it up, earning “service-learning” credits in the process. “I lost several homeless students last year because they had to move out of the district and had no way to get to school,” Vierling says. “If they could have lived at Crusade House while finishing their education, they would have had a much better chance of making a decent living.” Crusade High School is a model of alternative education and has been recognized nationally. It is the first alternative high school in the United States to have written its own Comprehensive School Improvement Plan. Although a lot of alternative programs have the same curriculum, rules, and building goals as the traditional school, Vierling says since Crusade High School serves four school districts with four different curricula and plans, the Department of Education suggested Crusade develop their own plan. “The four superintendents were adamant that it would be way too much work for us to do our own,” Vierling said. “But I said if the Department of Education thinks it’s a good idea, then we were going to try our best to do it. By working together with my staff on the plan, they too gained ownership of Crusade, making it all the better.” The plan includes sections on administration, students, parents and guardians, staff, curriculum and instruction, vocational, technical and career, assessment, community and social services, personal, social and life skills, facilities, and homelessness. The four superintendents accepted the plan. Vierling and her staff have presented at numerous state, national, and international conferences to teach staff at other alternative schools how to develop their own plans. “We put ours on rewritable CDs and handed them out at the conferences,” Vierling said. “People are complimentary and grateful for the resource so they don’t need to reinvent the wheel.” Based in a one-room schoolhouse, Crusade High School provides flexible schedules and emphasizes community service. Students work on different subjects independently, receiving 10-minute breaks every hour. Since the school’s inception, more than 200 students have graduated. They’ve gone on to become respiratory therapists, business managers, and even educators themselves. Some attend four-year institutions on full-ride scholarships. Others work part time while pursuing more education. Vierling’s influence goes beyond her students. She also inspires others to pursue careers in alternative education. Kelsey Ruzzi, who now teaches at Crusade High School, was named Alternative Educator of the Year in 2006. “We were both teaching parenting classes to young mothers,” Ruzzi recalls. “She brought me into alternative education and showed me that sometimes we are put on the right path by unlikely angels. Deb is an extraordinary woman who touches every life with joy, compassion, humor, and love.” Though donations to Crusade House have flowed in from churches, individuals, and businesses, the plan is on hold while Vierling battles the city over a zoning ordinance. She remains hopeful that people will see the good that could come from the house. “I just have this overpowering urge to help my students have better lives,” Vierling says. “Education is the key. I have gained credibility for myself and my school by being a graduate of The University of Iowa, and I’ve also learned that you’re never too old to reach for a dream. I just want to help my students reach their own dreams.”
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