Kids and central office administrators, together under one roof
Today marks the opening of Success Academy, an alternative school for city students on long-term suspension and expulsion. Its address: 200 E. North Ave.
Located on the ground floor of system headquarters, the school will serve 100 middle and high school students, but not all at once. After the students gather for breakfast together at 7:45 a.m., those in high school will board a bus to the Druid Hill YMCA, where -- according to a system press release -- they'll attend morning classes in leadership development, service learning, college and career preparation, and health and wellness. In the afternoon, the high school students will return to North Avenue, and the middle school students will head over to the Y. The school day concludes at 3 p.m., when the students will be bused "to major transportation hubs and job and service opportunities on the city’s east and west sides," the press release says.
In providing bus service for students after school, rather than simply letting them walk to an MTA stop as kids at most middle and high schools do, the system is clearly responding to concerns from neighbors who didn't want them potentially causing trouble. But the closest neighbors -- the administrators sharing the building -- wouldn't dare complain. The school is one symbol, and the ongoing attempt to get dropouts back is another, that the Alonso administration wants all students welcome everywhere, no matter how difficult they might be.
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Comments
Are these students going to still be taught the basic english, science, math, history etc. that they will need to be a part of society? What about the MS students.
Also, it was led to believe that the students would actually be at BCPSS but really they will not be.
To give them college and career prep when some of these children left the system because they were unable to learn the basics is still going to hinder what they know when they go out into society as working individuals.
Also stop calling them "dropouts", you continue with that label and some will go back to being just that.
Posted by: Calamity | September 29, 2008 1:22 PM
Calamity, you're talking about the wrong batch of students. The school at the Puzzle Palace is the alternative setting, for students on long-term suspension or expulsion. By law, suspended/expelled students still have to attend school so they're expelled only from their home school, but they still need a setting, so this is the location. The students going to this program are NOT the ones who are returning from dropping out.
The extra prep for school/career is especially important for this high-risk crowd, because we want to ensure that they don't become the next round of dropouts.
Posted by: Claude | September 29, 2008 6:05 PM