Ortonville- CHOICES student Amanda Quintero likes to smoke, as do many of her classmates.
But she won’t be doing it at lunchtime during the school day anymore, and neither will her classmates following several changes in the Brandon School District’s alternative education program this year.
‘No more off campus lunches are killing us,? says Quintero, who left campus daily before this school year to go out to lunch and smoke. ‘We need our cigarettes.?
Students can no longer leave campus for lunch, a difficult change for Quintero and others and not the only one that has been difficult, either. A new attendance policy requires that students not miss more than 10 days in a semester. If they do, they must make up the time or be expelled from the program. There is now a lower tolerance for insubordination, swearing and other inappropriate behavior and curriculum has been aligned to match that of Brandon High School.
‘If you set the bar higher, students will come up to meet the bar,? said Pam Schoemer, Brandon special education director and CHOICES administrator. ‘If you lower the standards and reduce expectations, you are not preparing students for the workforce. Our philosophy is to raise expectations.?
Schoemer is new to the Brandon School District this school year and replaces former CHOICES director June Wuopio, whose contract the Brandon School Board voted not to renew last year.
She implemented the changes under the direction of Superintendent Tom Miller and students enrolled in the program received a letter last summer informing them of the changes, although Schoemer says not all students were aware of the altered policies.
The results are mixed from the changes. The switch to a closed campus has improved afternoon attendance and Schoemer says students are doing better because they aren’t tempted to leave.
However, the total number of students in the program is down. In the fall of 2005, 58 students were enrolled in CHOICES. For the start of this school year, that number was down 20 students, to 38. Schoemer calls that decrease ‘significant.? But that number would fall even more, as 14 students were lost by mid-October because of insubordination and failing to meet the attendance policy, bringing the current number of students to 24 in a program that has a capacity for 60.
‘We lost a lot of kids in the fall because students returning couldn’t cope with the change,? said lead CHOICES teacher Micki Higdon. ‘Kids here don’t do well with change. To have three new teachers and new policies, it’s been a hard year.?
Still, she says, the changes are good and the kids are adjusting in what she calls a very worthwhile program that helps the kids that need it the most and who would otherwise fall through the cracks.
Students in CHOICES are in the program for a variety of reasons, said Schoemer, including the smaller class sizes, the smaller environment and an opportunity to recoup credits and get more one-on-one attention from teachers.
‘Many of the students are at risk,? Schoemer said. ‘They weren’t successful elsewhere… CHOICES is an intervention program to support students and help them graduate and overcome difficult circumstances.?
Quintero was an at-risk student. By her own account, during her sophomore year at Brandon High School, she was skipping, ‘screwing up,? and didn’t care about graduating. She was dropped before the end of the year. But she began her junior year at CHOICES and says she ‘started shaping up? and doing better.
‘I care about school again,? says the 17-year-old, who also works part-time at McDonald’s and lives with her single mother, who lost her job right before Christmas, and a 21-year-old brother, 19-year-old sister, 13-year-old sister, and 4-year-old brother. ‘Before, I’d go to school and leave after an hour. I was screwing up my life. It built my confidence when I got good grades (in CHOICES). I thought, ‘why screw this up???
Schoemer is hoping that when the new semester starts this week, the program will get back some of the students lost last semester and they adjust to the changes. Enrollment for the second semester is expect to be 40-45 students.
‘The changes are extremely positive, but there will be growing pains,? she said. ‘You never want a student to leave, you want them to graduate and be productive and live happy, successful lives… It isn’t by lack of effort by the staff that these students wee dropped. They weren’t invested in their own learning. We really want the community to know that students who attend CHOICES will graduate with the same expectations as other high school students. We’re hoping to have them prepared for the next step in their lives.
For Quintero, that means college. She hopes to pursue nursing.
‘I can’t believe I’m graduating,? she said. ‘I actually made it.?