News · Programs
Meet the 2025–26 teen leadership cohort
Eighteen paid apprentices, six schools, one very serious timesheet. The third cohort of STENCH teen leadership.
Eighteen 8th and 9th graders started as paid teen leaders this month. They earn $17.50 an hour for eight hours a week, they have a named supervisor, and they will each run a project of their own by spring.
Where they come from
Eleven are program alumni. Four came through the Saturday labs and applied without ever being enrolled. Two are siblings of current kids, and one is the first applicant we have had who found us through the salon — his grandmother gets a haircut every month and told him to apply.
| School | Teen leaders |
|---|---|
| Foster Park Middle School | 6 |
| Ridgeline Elementary (8th grade) | 1 |
| Camas Academy | 3 |
| Willamette Crossing School | 4 |
| Alder Creek Elementary | 1 |
| North Lombard Middle School | 3 |
What they will do
- Assistant-teach one program block a week, with a staff member in the room.
- Staff the repair bench or the salon desk during open studio.
- Design and teach one Saturday lab in the spring, with a $150 materials budget.
- Run the pit lane at Robot Rumble and the sound board at the Summer Showcase.
- Write a page for the 2026 almanac about what they learned.
The first time a kid tells you to stop and you stop, and nothing bad happens, your whole idea of what an adult is changes.
There is a chair with your kid's name on it.
Free after-school for grades 4–8, six sites, no tuition, no test.