Waukegan District 60 is expanding its alternative school, grabbing not only more high school students at risk for not graduating but also now some middle school students with significant attendance issues, district officials said.
The expansion of the Alternative and Optional Education Center (AOEC) on Glen Rock Avenue will be accompanied by a shift in how much time students spend using self-directed computer programs and how much they spend working with other students and their teacher, said Kevin Turner, the center’s new principal.
Students spend four-and-a-half of the five hours they’re in school each day using the APEX Learning System, a computer program that teaches them the subject areas they need to graduate, Turner said.
Teachers assist students who need help, and the school also offers other programs aimed at providing job training and teaching child care, home care and financial literacy skills, he said.
With the changes being initiated this year, the goal is to up the amount of face-to-face instruction and add group-based projects so that students are learning soft skills, like how to present information and how to work in groups, Turner said.
Doris Wells-Papanek, who worked at the AOEC from 2009 to 2012 as a consultant for the district, said a holistic approach would be an improvement over the program she experienced.
At that time, the focus was just on getting the students through school so they could “have that piece of paper,” Wells-Papanek said.
Some of the students were very motivated, and a lot of them wanted to go to the College of Lake County, but the students were able to figure out the computer program, learning how to get through the program without perhaps really taking in the content, she said.
During her time in Waukegan, Wells-Papanek said they found getting students to build their own road map so they could see where they were in the process and how to get to the end helped students persist and increased engagement.
She said the successful alternative school programs she’s seen have engaged teachers who create a family-like setting where students feel like they’re cared about but are still held accountable.
Many of these changes will be piloted through the addition of a middle school program, Turner said. The program, which received enough funding for 30 students, will focus on eighth graders this year.
Professional development to help teachers make the shift is also in the works, Turner added.
In the meantime, the high school program — which is focused on getting students to graduation, while the middle school program is more geared to returning students to the traditional setting — will add 64 students total to its daytime and evening programs.
Over the course of the 2016-17 school year, 295 students attended the school, which offers both morning and afternoon sessions, district spokesman Nick Alajakis said.
The school’s capacity at any one time was around 180 students, according to district records, but Alajakis said the student population will likely be less fluid under the new system.
Most of the students that attend the school, which is located just south of Waukegan High School’s Washington Street Campus, have personal schedules that prevent them from pursuing an education in a traditional setting, Turner said.
Some have children, he said, pointing to one student he knew who is the parent of an autistic toddler. Others have to take care of younger siblings or elderly family members at home. And others are working full time.
Out of the 295 students that attended the school last year, 76 graduated and 64 have dropped out, according to Alajakis and Charmaine Harris, the district’s coordinator of student outreach services. Another 137 students, 41 of them seniors, will return for another year.
Among the changes this year, the AOEC staff is working to reach out to the 64 students who dropped to try and help them return to the program, Harris said.
The outreach seems to be working, because the alternative school is full this early in the school year before many freshmen would have been recommended for it, she said.
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