Response, Ideas, and Reflections

My first reaction to the survey was a bit disappointing but as it sunk in I was able to understand that most of our staff have very little background as to the operation and process that has been implemented. I will try to respond to comments in this post that will help guide the program next year. The lack of any format to share what was happening with the Alternative Education Program has been my biggest frustration. Hopefully, this blog and my website will help with getting the word out to people that have an interest in the progress made.


First of all, working alone is difficult. I really don't like being isolated and trying to fit in with a program that no one really understands. Fortunately for me I am surrounded by a majority of people that believe in me and what I can do. I do know that there are several folks that have different priorities and that was what I had hoped the survey would convey and it did. I have gone through a tremendous series of emotions dealing with the comments you hopefully have read from the survey. It becomes very apparent from some of the comments that the most people never even knew that an outside consultant had been hired to evaluate and make recommendations that were used to structure this program. I purposely worded the survey to bring out differences in beliefs so that there was concrete evidence of varied diverse opinions.

A few facts for you to hold while I continue to reflect on my perceptions regarding this year. First of all is my admission to the fact that I really do "love kids and teaching". This year has allowed me the time to really care about each one of these kids and my inner self has been continually revived by each of them. There were maybe four of the kids that were so far gone that I had no chance of helping them and theye were destroying the progress of the others. I hated to loose the kids but they were unwilling to try at all and had been placed in the program, not applied. After every intervention and option was granted to them, they exited themselves from the program and school. Once this happened the others were able to begin a transformation and develop appropriate behavior patterns that have slowly changed their performance. By second semester every student had signed a program contract and these were used throughout the year for the few that violated their contract, to either reduce schedules or remove them from the program. A few of the students did reapply after two weeks and successfully completed the school year. Behavior did change dramatically as their overall discipline slips reduced by 66%. Three of the students did receive suspensions for drug possession or being under the influence, and two students for staging a fight with each other. None of the Alternative Education were involved in the more serious offences that occurred during the school year. These students constituted 16% of the suspensions/expulsions, and none were enrolled as an Alternative Ed. student when expelled, (one student that had been removed for contract violations (drug use), was finally removed from the school. Roughly 40% of the suspension/expulsions came from SE and the rest from the General Ed. population. However, the perception of some remains that the Alt. Ed. kids are responsible for these problems.

Alternative Education has a lot of transitions. I lost several kids over the year, either due to moving because of their home lives, or because of their need to be in a specific treatment program. Without this program they would have been simply expelled and cast off with no supports at all. This all hits back to the philosophical issue surrounding this program. "Do we cast off these kids with emotional needs or develop a means for them to stay connected?" Obviously my response is to find any way possible to keep these kids connected to school and learning. One of our favorite students Kia, was forced to move when her father could no longer support her. She had lived since last August in an apartment with no water, heat, or electricity. She often related how she had to hide in her room and cry while her father and brother were using drugs. However, she did come to school every day and did the best she could under the circumstances. She moved to Bremerton to live with a family that offered to take her in.


While at times people may view these kids as taking advantage they in fact have learned to "trust", and through that trust have been able to accept new expectations - accountability. In the next few blogs and this one, I will share some of the success stories, and the failures. These are all important for you the reader to understand the importance of this program. By the second semester we were moving into adding "APEX" classes that allowed them to move at their own pace. These network based programs have allowed the students to work on credits that they could not earn at the Junior High. The students that had no attendance problems did very well, while those that are not have very little to show. The biggest problem with running the APEX classes is the lack of ability to show their grades on Skyward, ( our online grading program ). Since the students were enrolled in a variety of classes in one period their progress was impossible to show since the only way to show grades is from their "Options" class. The students understood this but apparently some staff felt that these students shouldn't have a high grade that showed up on Skyward. Credits for online classes and "Matching" classes are turned in separately to be entered into their transcript. None of these grades show up on their progress reports, so the students have been given a new transcript whenever they have completed a course.


Joe Brazier, my IA has been an ideal person to share this adventure with. He's finishing his Master's in Special Education and will not be here next year. He'll be off to spread his own wings and do very well what ever he does. The kids love Joe (Mr. B ), and for good reason. He's young enough to still relate better to their music and love for video games than the "Old Man" in the room. He has brought laughter and humor into the room while still able to keep the kids on task. I know that to an outside observer these times appear like nothing is getting done. What is getting done is simply a release that each of these kids need. Always, after these periods of release the students get back to work, ask for help and when needed talk privately about personal issues they have. Next year he will be an intern with our districts Special Education Program.



Kristina, our star; has been able to break through the disappointment of having to repeat the 9th grade and was moved up to the HS half time for second semester. She is bright, inquisitive, and capable. Her confidence is still fragile but she has overcome so much this year that it is hard not to be proud of her. She will enter the HS next year with enough credits to be classified as a Junior!

Second semester, we also began a joint WASL Math Preparation course with the High School where both the students in Mrs. Shipley's class and my returning 9th graders were working on the same curriculum. We had three students go to the High School for the class there while we were working on the same lessons at the Junior High. We tried to use some of the online video to make the lessons "live" but were unable to make it work due to the bandwidth draw on the network. We are working to be able to use "live broadcasting" for next year as a pilot for the district. These students received a "P" for the class if they fully participated in the lessons and assignments.

Many staff members at the Junior High have gone to incredible lengths to work with me on offering interventions, incentives, program changes that have been invaluable for the students. In some cases simply moving a student to a smaller more intimate class has been the only change necessary to improve their performance. Parents have been consulted on each and everyone of these changes and they have occurred quickly so that the student(s) can benefit directly from the options provided. In every case the students have stated that they know that the expectations put in place for them were to help them become successful. It is mindful to remember that students need to learn how to become successful internally and not through external forces. External controls have taught these students to rebel, and work against the system. Through countless private meetings that have allowed them to react and then learn appropriate means for finding solutions they have been able to control themselves when dealing with acusations and discipline, generally working witht the Dean of Students.

Academically, the students were shown the option of using "Scaffolding" for writing papers. This process uses a table in Microsoft Word so that they can paste relevant text from the internet when doing research. In the next column to the right they rewrite the text in their own words, (this eliminates plagurism and promotes metacognition). In the final column they paste the URL. Thus when they write their drafts and final copy their papers are fully developed on their own. One student that is a drop in for Math, had been sited for plagurism and was shown this process to correct her work. She willingly reworked her paper and resubmitted it after the changes were made. She was very proud of the work she had done and simply wondered why she had not been shown this process in the beginning. Several of the English teachers have now adopted "electronic notecards" as their means of research.

On another ocassion involving a student that was failing his CPM Geometry course, met with me only four times before he was able to think globally and apply these skills to solving proofs. On his first test after the intervention he received and A and no longer felt the need to receive further help. Similar situations also occurred throughout the year where more severe failure had occurred. For these students the progress was slower but by the end of the year they were all working seriously and more successfully with their programs. This all shows that for these students that have shown repeated failure, they need to learn to read math, rather than memorize steps. Without fail, the students that are not being successful have tried to memorize rather than learn math.