Stereotypes Concerning Alternative Schools

In the world today there are many stereotypes concerning alternative schools. Many people believe the work done at alternative schools is not the same curriculum and is all around easier for the students. However, research shows this is not the case. In the U.S., 7,000 students drop out each day. Every year that adds up to 1.2 million students without degrees (Alliance 10). In some cases, the students who “drop out” from public schools are acutally transfering to alternative schools. The reason kids leave public schools is because of the structure and the environment which is backed on page 49 of the book titled Preserving the ‘Public’ in Public Schools written by Phil Boyle and Del Burns which states, “Adolescents drop our of the school for

a variety of reasons related to their experiences at home and their educational experiences at home.” It becomes overwhelming for them and in these instances the alternative school is the best decision. Alternative schools are an outlet for children who struggle with the work load and pressures of public schools, as well as combating issues at home. In most cases, alternative schools provide the alternative schooling program to kids ages 17-20 that have dropped out and/or fallen behind on their schoolwork (Rowley).
One thing that must be realized by all teachers, students, and parents is the truth. The reality is that some families may not value a high school education and parents may have low expectations when it comes to their childs education. Paired with no motivation to achieve a high school diploma, some homes may have a history of drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancy, and gang issues. There may also be an influence that going to school is not cool (Boyle and Burns 50). It’s hard to imagine that one may not think school is important but in these instances the logic of life takes over. To think some kids are taking on parenting roles whether it be their own child or their own siblings. Kids need to be kids. The emotions take over and it is human nature to help; however, some teachers do not value their students home life and if they are learning the curriculum. In the public schools students may be getting bored and with class sizes increasing there is less and less one-on-one attention.
With that being said, some students feel like they don’t matter and that no one cares whether they suceed or not. One of the ways to prevent the student from feeling like they don’t matter is to build a relationship, and build it early. By doing so the work ethic of the student at school should increase which in return will reduce the drop-out rates (Boyle and Burns 49 -51). When Kimberley Kitterman, a teacher at the alternative high school in Boone, Iowa, was asked what teachers could do to ensure the students comfortabitlity at the school she said, “Main thing is build replationships with your students. I have said that for years and years and years. Stay involved with ‘em because these kids can read through us so easy that they know if I’m just goin through the motions to be a teacher or else if I really care.”
The teachers or assistants at alternative schools aim to highlight the importance of completing high school and persuing a career (Rowley). They have the patience and determination to keep going back to help these kids. One way they advise students to keep the motivation is to chart and know their academic and emotional growth (Sparks). Although a lot of the students future depends on the student quite a bit also depends on the teacher. In one of the chapters of the book titled Our School by Joanne Jacobs it talks about patience. The chapter highlights how the teachers must have patience in order to deal with the behavioral and unattentive kids (Jacobs 131). The teachers and students must meet half way. For example, from the same book, Our School, a teacher describes an experience with a student. The whole chapter talks about kids finally engaging in the lessons and inserting themselves in discussions. In this case, the student had brought a pen to class all year. Finally one day late winter early spring the student brought a pencil. The teacher was extatic (Jacobs 175). In an article written by Sarah Sparks it says that teachers are underestimating the efforts and abilities of their students. Some teachers underestimate the efforts and ablities of their students.
Just like alternative schools, public schools are supposed to teach and treat every student with equality. However, there are many different forms of that word. For example: Equal: quality of condition of being exactly the same as something else., and Equity: state, action, or principle of treating people in accordance with differing needs (Boyle and Burns 57). When Kitterman was asked how the relationships are at the alternative school she replied, “...we’re a tight knit community. They all have their own battles. They all have baggage and also they know not to judge eachother. They do respect eachother, and I tell them they don’t have to love eachother but they do have to respect eachother and I’ve never had a kid disrespect me. I mean if they get pissed off and say something I don’t take it personally ‘cause I know their going through something. They later come back and apologize and then clean slate.” This teaches kids to recognize their mistake and own up to it.
When Kitterman was asked what the most rewarding thing was about teaching at Futures she said, “The main thing is giving these kids, or not giving it to them, but them believing in themselves and that they can succeed. Giving them a safe place to be themselves and get their education and also deal with their personal issues at the same time. We care about the whole kid.” In saying this, Kitterman exhibits that the school not only educates the student but counsels them. In reply to asking Kitterman why kids transfer she said, “Kids just have way to many issues in their home life and school is not a priority. Their just trying to survive and education is last on their list. They can’t get to school on time or they don’t come to school ‘cause they have to babysit a younger child because that’s what their parents are telling them.” In an article titled Alternative School Reduces Truancy Kendra Hall, a student attending an alternative school describes the environment, “They really help students with special needs. They give us extra homework and help recover [academic] credist lost from dropping our of our previous high schools.”
Due to children not being able to come to school or being late, Futures, the alternative high school in Boone, has created Flex scheduling. Flex scheduling means there are eight periods in a day and the minimum a student can take to be considered a full-time student is four periods. Kitterman describes the day like this: The first period starts at 8:30 becuase some kids will have to drop off their siblings before going to school and the last period ends at 2:50 so that kids can go pick up their siblings. Throughout the day the students are granted two 10 minute breaks if they are there all day. Most people call it a smoke break but most of these kids don’t even smoke. They’ll go outside and shoot hoops for 10 minutes. Especially the ones that have ADHD, they’ll be out there doing anything, of course I don’t promote smoking, but if that’s what they need to stay in school. What they do in that 10 minutes is their time for themselves. We have Flex schedules so that it works out for the kids, plus we know these kids so well, I know why their not here, and they respect us enough to call in. I’ve had kids come here at 6:30 am and start their day because you know their parents woke ‘em up fighting and some kids stay here until I lock up at 3:30 pm. They can stay here all day long. At some High Schools if a student is late to class or does not show up a detention or a more serious consequence could be in order. However, the difference is at an alternative school, the teacher is aware of home issues.
For instance, Kitterman said several of my kids work full-time and even though their 16 years old their parents could care less. They have to get their own food, their own clothes, everything. Parens could give a crap and it’s sad. Then you’ve got the brother here too. So, my 18 year old is supportin’ his 16 year old brother. Another reason why students transfer to the alternative school is because of the environment at the public or high school. At the public schools they may feel labled like, goth, dirtball, druggie, all that and they don’t want that lable. They feel like an outcast and I know what they do, they even tell me and I tell them as long as it’s not on my time it’s your business, and I do care.
Most of the problems kids deal with have to do with their homelife. For example, Kitterman tells us about a girl who is attending her school right now. She tells us that the girl just recently had transferred from Colorado because her parents had been killed and she had moved here and lives with her brother. She tells us that the girl is only 16 years old and that she had come from an alternative school in Colorado. However, when she moved to Boone she was put into the Public Schools which usually doesn’t happen. In another instance, Kitterman tells of a time when a girl came into the school and sat down. Kitterman had been in a meeting with the Principal at the time and when she looked up the girls eyes were black and blue and swollen shut. She says, “I got up and pulled her out and I asked her what had happened, and her mom had just beaten her up, and she came to school ‘cause she didn;t know where else to go, and she knew that something would happen if she came to school.” Kitterman then goes on to explain that the children are comfortable coming to school becasue the kids know the teachers will take care of them and take care of problems if they must.
Even though most of the problems have been sourced to develop at home, the problems are magnified when there are issues at school. These problems could entitle fights with friends, bullying, misundertanding teachers, and also failing grades. In regards to grades, Kevin Hidalgo, an 11th grader that now attends an alternative school says, “ I always used to think those who were good at math were just good at math, and here I’ve seen you aren’t just born with it, you have to work” (Sparks). Sometimes people wonder if the students are getting taught by the right people and when Kitterman was asked if there were ever any questions she couldn’t answer she replied, “Yep, because I didn’t major in every class, and its really neat here because kids enjoy helping eachother too… We don’t just give them the answer.” She then explains that there are some students that will jump up and say “Hey, I know this!”, and will continue to help the other students by showing them certain pages in a book or give them another source. If no one is able to find the answer, Kitterman says that is when they take out the answer key and find where the answer was given.
More common in older generations, the thought that is often “piggy backed” onto alternative schools is that the curriculum taught is not the same and does not require the same amount of effort as do public schools.

When Kitterman was interviewed she was asked about the process of entering the alternative school as well as what the curriculum entailed. To start, Kitterman explained that the kids must first have made the decision to transfer. When that happens they go to the school and fill out some paper work and they start them the next day so the kids don’t have to be out of school. Even though that is the basic order there are some stipulations, as Kitterman put it, “They must be 16 years old, approved by the high school principal, counselor, superentendant, or someone on the administration.” At that point she continues to tell us the school will communicate with her to see if the population is okay. In response to the population Kitterman says, “ I pretty much accept anybody becasue I don’t like kids to be out of school so I’ll make as many accomodations as I can.” One factor Kitterman briefly touched on was the effect of the environment the kids make and how that effects how many kids she allows. For instance if there are a lot of kids that need extra attention or desire more attention she may not be able to fully devoter her attention to very many kids. To date, in Boone there is a wating list. The length of time on the waiting list is determined by the students attending futures and when they

graduate.
The first thing Kitterman does is interpret the childs transcript, she highlights:
I know everything, what they need to get, what they have got, and then I assign ‘em to classes. They get a choice, they don’t have to take one english or one math, you know all the courses right away. Especailly brand new kids have low self-estem, I’m gonna put them in some other electives to get them feeling good about themselves first...they’ll turn in more assignments and they’re like ‘yeah! I can do this’, and we start building up into more difficult classes.
When the student has thought of dropping out they are usually already behind on credits and on top of that teachers are trying to teacher their students how to “fail” without failing (Sparks). In these instances students need more assistants and attention. Certain schools are having review classes in order to recieve better grades on their finals. However, the kids that are already struglling do no have the drive to actually participate in these classes because it has already been ingrained in their minds that they will fail (Jacobs 123).
When Kitterman was asked how the curriculum was ran she simply stated, “We use the same curriculum as the high school. People don’t realize that and we hace it in different ways. Some kids need it more as a visual and some are more hands on…” In stating what the curriculum consisted of she also added, “... we can learn their learning styles real quick, especially after doing this for so many years it’s easy to figure it out…Failure is not an option.” A student says, “ The second I stop listening to music ther eis no work being done. I have to have music to focus.”
Along with how the students learn, the teachers are also learning. Kitterman says she would be lost without her associates and says it is important to have a good relationship with the teahcers at the public high school. She says, “If I have a question on the curriculum or what they need to be doing I can run in [the highschool] and they’ll help me out. They also have to believe in what I’m doing in order for us to be on the same page.” Kitterman tells of two instances where kids have transferred back to the public school but she says, “...I promote it, but most the times kids think about it and fear getting behind. They move at their own pace here and they don’t have to listen to any lectures.”
When a student attending Futures was asked why he transferred he said, “I knew if stayed...I would have dropped out but I came here and now I’m ahead of credits and I’m probably gonna graduate at semester (January).” Another student, when asked if he enjoyed Futures environment replied, “ Yes, because theres a lot less teahcers so they care about their kids and it’s mostly just older people and not people that are gonna judge you, and no one is constantly over your shoulder telling you what to do unless your off task.” The students continued to talk about how nice it is to be able to come to school and not hear people saying, “Did you hear what happend last night?”, “Did you hear what so and so did?”. They said it makes the day so much easier and less stressful.
Of course with anything that is not “normal” there will be criticism. According to an article written by Betsy Winser and Christine Norton, because some kids attend an alternative school, they are being put down emotionally, socially, and academically. Along with that Kitterman says, “ We can’t get subs as much because you know it’s an alternative school and they think it’s to scary but these kids have your back.” Kitterman stresses that the kids who attend Futures are not bad kids, they just need help. She says she has never felt an ounce of fear since she started working 19 years ago.
In conclusion alternative schools are an outlet for children who struggle with the work load, pressures of public schools, as well as combating issues at home. These kids are not transferring to take the easy way out. Rather than dropping out, these kids have made a conscious effort to go to school. They attend in hope for a brighter future.