The fact that Francie is not a morning person had led to this meeting with administrators of the Alternative Education Program at Sandburg High School in Orland Park. The 16-year-old senior tapped her foot nervously against the heavy table and tightly gripped a pen in her right hand as she talked about her inability to get out of bed before noon.
Francie’s personal circadian rhythms had caused her to miss so many days of school that graduation at the end of this year was in doubt.
But Paul Schreck, coordinator of the District 230 Alternative Education Program, thought Francie, who asked that her last name not be used, was a good candidate for the program and that, through concerted effort and even a couple of correspondence courses, she might still graduate with her class.
The program, more informally known as “night school,” serves students from District 230’s Sandburg, Stagg and Andrew High Schools who do not fit into the traditional day school structure. Founded in 1982, the District 230 program is one of the oldest and largest alternative education programs in the southwest suburban area.
“It’s not easier; it’s different,” said Schreck, 49, of Bourbonnais, of the preventative program for potential dropouts. Night school meets from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and students study the same curriculum as their daytime counterparts. Classes are held in alternating blocks: English, U.S. history and general business on Monday and Wednesday, government and business law on Tuesday and Thursday.
It is a preventative program for potential dropouts, and the aim of night school is to return students to regular classes, said Schreck.
Students in the district need 18 academic credits to graduate, plus seven semesters of physical education. Night school offers an opportunity to earn up to four credits per year–compared with five in traditional day school–and students can gain two extra credits overall via correspondence courses. The physical education requirement is fulfilled through classes at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills.
“It’s like a college schedule,” Schreck said. “But our main concern is to try to meet the requirements for graduation.”
Out-of-sync sleep patterns are not enough to gain entry into the program. Other factors are taken into consideration, and students are usually referred by counselors, deans or social workers at their high schools. Francie admitted that she experienced problems when she did make it to day school and felt especially uncomfortable with the number of people and the pace of instruction in her classes.
On the same day Francie signed up for night school, Schreck and counselor Bob Lundin met with a young man who had failed all his freshman classes after his parents pulled him out of school for nearly three months because of a family problem.
“We currently have a senior with only 9 1/2 credits,” said Lundin, 51, of Orland Park. “With 55 kids in the program, you have 55 different reasons for being here.”
In addition to difficulties functioning in a larger school environment and problems at home, some of the reasons students have been referred to the program are truancy and disruptive behavior. Other students face more adult problems. Lundin said there are night-school students who must help support their families; he cited the example of one young man, a fifth-year senior, who is married with a child. Several young women joined the program after having babies because the schedule makes it easier to hold down a job or arrange for child care. The program also accepts students who have been expelled from the district’s high schools.
“We are a lot of students’ last chance,” Lundin said.
Night school is a concept both newfangled and old-fashioned. It is not the vocational school of the past, but it is old-fashioned in its emphasis on student responsibility. In current fashion, the staff talks a lot about self-esteem and confidence and tends to describe their roles in terms of nurturing and caring; in addition to classes, students meet in small groups to discuss personal and academic issues.
Enrollees do miss out on some of the traditional aspects of high school, because the hours make it impossible to participate in sports or academic clubs that meet after school, and electives such as music or art are unavailable to night-school students.
“I really miss choir,” Francie said later that week. “But right now I just want to concentrate on getting that diploma.”
That’s an attitude Schreck and Lundin attempt to foster in the program’s participants. To do so, they assume a number of roles. They can be bullies, best friends or father figures. They are spiritual guides, academic mentors and vocational counselors.
The two men coordinate the program out of a cramped and dusty faculty lounge just down the stairs from the main gym at Sandburg, 133rd Street and LaGrange Road. Although the program serves all three district schools, it has been headquartered at Sandburg for the last 10 years. Schreck, in addition to coordinating the alternative education program, is a special education supervisor at Lincoln-Way High School in New Lenox. Lundin’s day job is as a special-needs counselor at Stagg High School in Palos Hills.
A soda machine hums in a corner of the lounge. Next to it, a cabinet is crammed with files, books and supplies. Photos of two smiling babies–children of students–are taped to the inside of the door. A large library table surrounded by heavy chairs takes up most of the room. Schreck commandeers a corner of the table, which he litters with papers. Lundin carries his files in neat stacks. The phone, set precariously near the edge of the table, rings often. A student, arriving with class attendance slips, steps gingerly over the cord stretched between the table and a wall socket and gives the daily count to Schreck.
“Attendance is a big deal here,” Lundin said. Three truancies and a student is dropped from the program.
Students take the policy seriously. Schreck said attendance in October was at 98 percent. On average, student attendance runs in the low 90th percentile.
“We can’t meet the needs of everybody. Not everybody wants to be in school,” Lundin said.
The students who do stick it out say the teachers seem to care more about them here. “The teachers treat you like a grownup,” said Kristin Kouba, 17, of Orland Park, who is graduating from the program this June. “And you get to know everyone so well. It’s sort of like a family.”
Francie said the teachers are more respectful of students than are teachers in traditional school. “They treat you better,” she said. “They give you a chance. They don’t judge you.”
Not, of course, that the teachers in day school don’t try to do and be all those things, Schreck said. “But it’s a perception the students have.”
Part of that may be due to the small class sizes–ranging from 9 to 17 students–and individual instructional approaches to suit the varying levels of accomplishments among the students. A math class may include students studying consumer math, algebra and geometry.
Fourteen students in Linda Krakowski’s English class are held rapt by a true-life tale of crime and passion torn from the pages of a local newspaper. A spirited discussion of motive, guilt and conscience follows, with students making connections to various fictional pieces they had read in class.
“I want them to see literature as relating to their lives,” said Krakowski, 47, of Chicago.
An English teacher at Stagg in Palos Hills during the day, Krakowski teaches two nights a week in the program. Students work on literature and writing skills, following a curriculum almost identical to that of her regular students. Each 1 1/2-hour class covers two to three days’ worth of material in addition to a heavy focus on composition.
“We really get a chance to work one-on-one,” said Krakowski, adding that she enjoys working with at-risk students. “Students have to be highly successful if they plan to go on to college.”
Students must work hard, but they do it in a supportive atmosphere. Teachers and staff are big believers in positive reinforcement, and students who maintain a “B” average or better are treated each semester to ice cream or pizza.
“The (extra) money’s nice,” Lundin joked, “but we keep doing this because we feel connected to our students and because there are so many success stories.
“We, as adults, want them to do well. But the kids have to see it for themselves,” Lundin added. “This is not an easy way out.”
“We want them to face the situation,” Schreck said. “Why are you here?”
Toward that end, students are assigned to small support groups to talk about “life situations and problems at school,” Lundin said.
“I really like `group,’ ” Kouba said. “We get to know each other and become friends. Some people were really shy, but now we’re all close. I mean, these are people who have tried, have had hard lives, and want to graduate and get back on track.
“I’ve become more responsible,” she added. “My problem is that I thought I was dumb, but I’ve done much better here than I ever have.”
Kouba has college plans. She spent nearly her entire high school life in the alternative education program. She will enroll in Moraine Valley Community College this fall but has set her sights on a graduate degree in psychology at Purdue University.
“It worked for me. I’m graduating on time,” she said. “And I think the program even prepared me more for college.”
Students receive a diploma from their regular district high school and are eligible to participate in graduation ceremonies. Night school also holds a dinner in honor of the graduates at a local restaurant each year. The night-school program cost the district $90,000 for the 1995-96 school year.
The program hasn’t changed much since its inception. “The kids’ problems have changed, but the structure seems to work,” Schreck said.
“We believe in the program,” he added. “We’ve seen the positive effects it has on the students.”
Marisa Oakley, 19, of Orland Park was one of 23 students who graduated from the program in June.
“It was just a total second chance,” she said. As a fifth-year senior, she worked during the day while completing her studies at night. Oakley will enroll in Robert Morris College in February to study photography.
“I plan to go for my bachelor’s degree, and I’m totally psyched about it. (The teachers there) showed me that people do care and are sincere.
“I’d come to class after work like a lot of people,” Oakley added. “We’re dressed up. More mature. And I think we respected each other for that.”
