Alternative Education

I am hearing lots of reports in my ISD about alternative high schools either scaling way back or closing completely, some at mid-year. The reasons given are almost always related to concerns about AYP (low MME scores and grad rates)or to the budget. Is this the case in your part of the state?

Kind of late to suggest this, but...

I will be at the conference in Mount Pleasant on October 4th, 5th and 6th. Is anyone interested in meeting there as a group (or individually) to discuss alternative education issues? If so, please email me and we can arrange to meet.

Ken Willison, Alternative Education Liaison to MASSP;
President of Michigan Alternative Education Organization (MAEO)

I just left a discussion amongst alternative high school principals in my area where we compared and discussed our “Michigan School Report Card” results. This leads me to ask the following questions. (Please note: My answers are in parantheses.)

How long has your alternative school been in operation? (We are in our 25th year.)

What was your grade? (We received a No Grade because we have so few Full Academic Year - FAY - students that even using the maximum 3 year average, we did not test 30 FAY students.)

Did you make AYP? (No.)

If not, what tripped you up this year? (While we barely hit the target in Math, our ELA score was too low.)

What phase are you in? (1)

Are their any alternative high schools that would be interested in splitting READ 180 stage C licenses? Our district is willing to purchase 15 licenses for our alternative ed. program, but the minimum purchase requirement is 30.

Please help MASSP's new alternative education liaison, Ken Willison, gain a clearer understanding of who among us has alternative education responsibilities or interests. If you have any duties in your district related to alternative education ... or if you just have a strong interest in alternative education issues ... please let Ken know who you are. If you prefer not to post to the internet, please feel free to send an email to him at ken.willison@staff.spartaschools.org

Also, if you haven't done so already … why not join the new Alternative Education group? While not much has been posted there yet, we hope to get the ball rolling soon and would love to have all interested parties participate.

Thanks.

Midland's school improvement team is looking for information from other Class A schools regarding school identification cards (or name tags) for students. We would like to know how many schools use them, in what capacity they are used, and consequences for not having them.