By Scott Brinton
The Merrick pediatrician had seen three of her patients drop out of high school because they just didn't fit into mainstream classes. "As soon as they hit that legal age, 17, out they went," she said. "They're very nice people. They were good kids. They weren't bad kids." But, for a variety of reasons, Banks said, they couldn't make it in school.
One of the three went back to get her diploma through a high-school equivalency program. Another joined the military. But the third continues to flounder, with no direction in life. Banks believes all three might have graduated if they had had an alternative-school program, which provides troubled teenagers with smaller classes and more intense counseling to ensure academic success.
The Central High School District recently formed a committee to develop plans for an alternative-school program, with the hope of including funding for it in the 2006-07 budget. Banks, who is a committee member and vice president of the Merrick Avenue Middle School PTA, said, "I just think [an alternative-school program] would be very, very positive."
The committee comprises school administrators, teachers and parents like Banks. David Seinfeld, the Calhoun High School principal, heads the committee. "We're hoping to put together a program that gives students who have not been successful in a traditional school setting a chance to succeed," Seinfeld said.
The program would be voluntary for participants. Administrators and guidance counselors would recommend students for it after a long process in which every avenue to help them academically had been exhausted. Students would begin the program in 10th grade. That would give school officials a chance to observe students' performance for a full year in ninth grade before recommending them for the program.
Seinfeld said that the program, which would be housed at the Brookside School, could attract as many as 40 to 50 students annually. Three teachers and a part-time psychologist/social worker would work with the students. Program staff would be hired from within the Central District, and teachers would volunteer for the assignment. Class size would likely be around 15, compared with mainstream classes of 24 to 26. Central officials are also speaking with representatives of Molloy College about arranging additional tutorials for program participants, which undergraduate and graduate students would provide.
Every student in the program would be a Bellmore-Merrick resident. Participants would have to complete the same core courses required for graduation as their peers in mainstream classes.
Each year, roughly 20 Central District students drop out. Arnold Goldstein, Bellmore-Merrick's assistant superintendent for instruction, said, "We have 6,000 students in the Central High School District. We have very successful schools. The idea that every one of those 6,000 students would fit into the traditional [school] model is simply unrealistic."
But, Goldstein noted, potential dropouts should be given the chance to succeed. "You have children with different needs," he said. "You give each of your children what they need, when they need it. These are kids who have slipped through the cracks, despite Herculean efforts" to help them academically.
School officials said they could not profile a typical alternative-school student, because every student would be so different. But they would not be violent, officials said. They might be special-education students, but not necessarily. They might have emotional problems, but would not be severely emotionally disturbed.
The common thread among program participants would be failure to succeed in school. District officials would look at students' freshman-year performance. In ninth grade, students must accrue seven credits toward graduation. If they fell severely short of that mark, they could be recommended for the alternative school. Officials would also look at students' attendance records. Truancy would be another program criterion.
Central officials first started discussing an alternative-school program in December, and visited eight other Nassau County school districts with such programs, including Levittown, Oceanside, Rockville Centre, Hewlett-Woodmere, Northport, Glen Cove, Herricks and North Shore.
Saul Lerner, the Central District athletic director, who is a member of the alternative-program committee, said the district is taking the best ideas from each of these programs to develop plans for its own alternative-school program. "We learned something from each of our visits," Lerner said.
Goldstein noted that with its own program, Bellmore-Merrick would send fewer students to alternative-learning schools outside the district. That, Lerner said, would benefit students, because they wouldn't have to take long bus rides to schools that are scattered across the county. Additionally, they would be able to take part in after-school clubs and athletics at their home schools. Currently, most of them cannot because, logistically, it's impossible to get them back to the Central District in time for after-school activities.
Seinfeld also said that once the program was fully operational, the Central District would save tens of thousands of dollars annually, because fewer students would be sent to outside schools. Such programs cost $30,000 to $40,000 per student per year, compared with the Central District's average annual per-pupil spending of around $14,000.
"This is a win-win program," Lerner said.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
