Peoria's District 150 currently has five alternative schools: The Developmental Center; Greeley Regional Safe School; Robert A. Jamieson School; Knoxville Center for Student Success and the Adult Education Center. The average student who enrolls in an alternative school faces steep odds to graduating. Low skills, tough lives and scarce resources at schools are big barriers.
Second chance for dropouts
by Sarah Karp, October, 2009
On day two of her second try at high school, Brianna Gibson is full of resolve. In a windowless classroom with a world map on the wall and history books on the shelves, the young woman slides into a desk, offers up a smile and says she thinks that the small alternative school she chose is going to be a good experience.
The teachers seem nice, she says. They would take time to explain assignments, something the teachers at her former high school didn’t seem to want to do. Brianna adds that she doesn’t know many of the other students, but in her mind, that’s a plus. Being anonymous should keep her from getting into fights and into trouble.
“I won’t get caught up,” Brianna explains. She was suspended from Clemente High in Humboldt Park last year for fighting, and never returned.
But for all her confidence, Brianna’s expectations signal trouble ahead. At 17, she’s antsy to move on from high school and plans to enroll in evening, Saturday, online and summer courses in an attempt to graduate within a year.
“One year,” she insists. “I guess I would do two if I absolutely had to. But I can’t be here for three. No way.”
Yet Brianna arrived in September at CCA Academy, one of 22 alternative schools operated by Youth Connections Charter, with only one credit. She needs to earn at least 21 to get a diploma—an unrealistic goal, given that most high school students earn about six credits a year. (CCA was formerly called Community Christian Alternative, but has no religious affiliation.)
Read the entire article here and come here and share your thoughts.
5 comments:
Emerge, I have to confess that my first reason for advocating an alternative school is to remove students who do not allow others to have a safe learning environment. Hopefully, the alternative school will offer these students an acceptable way to succeed. At some point, there has to be accountability--and high school students should be able to be held accountable. At Pekin High, I believe, non-conforming students have to finish high school by taking online courses. Actually, 150 is doing that, in part, with PLATO (and some newer program). I'm not sold on the computer idea, but if it gets the problem kids out, it will have to do. I know Martha Ross doesn't want the school to be a punitive measure--but at some point it just has to happen if schools are to survive. The current 150 alternative schools are not the answer. The alternative school over which Fischer was the principal was only for a very select group of students--they had to make all sorts of promises (no drugs, etc., to get in).
I teach at a Safe School in our area. The article you linked to hits the nail on the head. We serve students who have been expelled from their 'regular' school; the vast majority of those students were doing poorly academically before enrolling on our program so we have had to tailor our curriculum to suit them. We only offer the bare bones...English, math, social studies and science. And even within those subjects, only the basic classes are offered.
Our students come to us so broken and beaten down that we spend a large part of our time with them building relationships. Often they have no responsible, reliable adult in their lives.
Each of our students takes the required standardized tests for whatever grade they are in and their scores are included with the scores of the rest of their district. I'm certain most of our students perform better taking the test in our program than they would back in their home school because most of them feel that their 'regular' school has completely given up on them. But I'm sure that their performance is often below expectation.
My fear is that as districts look to make changes, they will look at the scores of our students without taking into account many of the obstacles mentioned in the linked article.
Additionally, our funding is soooo limited. Whereas 'regular' schools complain they have no copy paper? We don't have a copy machine. Outdated textbooks? We're short books, period. Dinosaur computer lab? We don't have computers in each classroom...and the ones we have? No internet access. We don't have a lunch program. What little PE equipment we have isn't enough. We have a couple teachers who have well over 10 years in the program but who make below $30K per year.
What we do have are students who respond very well to our interventions. They are eager to connect with someone, anyone who actually gives a damn. We have students who cry at the end of their term with us because they don't want to go back to a school that doesn't care about them or understand where they are coming from. Our students are accepted by their peers and our staff works hard to help them move forward from where they are to the next step. My personal motto in the classroom (taken from the recovery movement) is "Progress not Perfection".
Sure, my classroom may only have 8 kids in it at a time, but these 8 kids are the most challenging children...ask a regular teacher to pick the orneriest student out of each hour they teach...put them all in one classroom...THOSE are the kids we teach at my school.
And, honestly? I prefer my program to the other 'regular' programs I've worked in because there's no joy greater than the joy I experience when a student leaves our program knowing that he or she can accomplish whatever goals are out there.
So, in answer to your question, yes, alternative schools work. But I don't understand why we are building more and more alternative schools. The answer is to look at why there is a NEED for more alternative schools. Why aren't these students getting the interventions they need sooner? Why aren't the programs that are already in existence getting proper funding? Why are districts reinventing the wheel instead of looking at the programs out there that are working and then adopting and funding those types of movements?
Yours sounds like the kind of alternative school (with better funding) that I would have in mind. I hear this story over and over--about a viable alternative school--that students do not want to go back to their "regular" school--tht is why it is a true alternative. That you have only eight students in one class and that they are all probably behind their majority peers in the regular school is undoubtedly one of the main reasons for success at your school. In a "normal" class these are often the students who do not do well--and, therefore, they act out. These kids are "set up" by the system because they are put in classes where they cannot succeed--and the teachers are also "set-up." I believe there are teachers who prefer and would do well in such a setting as yours. I believe that in my youth I would have chosen an alternative school setting. Personally, I have always had an afinity toward the students who don't fit in a typical classroom setting. What you might not understand is that in my classroom just before I retired, I often had 8 students like the ones you describe in a classroom of 25--and situations like that (all too plentiful today) aren't good for anybody. I agree totaly with you about the scores--in fact, the same is true of regular schools. I believe that--before NCLB--many students who didn't do well on tests did have success and that Manual was able to prepare them for their future. Now there is a stigma placed on all schools because of the NCLB scores, which aren't the end and beall in judging the worth of a school or a student. There are those who want special schools and special programs for the top-performing students; I want the same for these other young people who are just not going to make it in the regular classroom--and they will keep other students from learning. Right now all that 150 does to compensate is to lower the standards (behavior and acasemic) for all students--but too often the material is still out of reach of the young people with whom you are having success.
Wow. Not only are people leaving the district in droves, heading to private schools or districts across the river or south or west of town, and dropping out, now I discover that we are separating the "sheep from the goats" 5 different ways and STILL can't meet AYP goals. This is an indication that things are much worse than I originally suspected. Home school your kids!!!!! DEMAND SCHOOL VOUCHERS!!!!
I do not necessarily advocate alternative schools, but I do advocate alternative ways of learning. There is a great book titled, "Lives of Passion, School of Hope" Rick Posner that describes how a School in Colorado uses a great teaching method. The school has been teaching this method for around 30 years and the stories from the alumni are outstanding. Nearly all of the students have grown up to be hard working, responsible adults. I believe that both alternative, private, and public schools could have great success rates by using this type of teaching method.
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