Don’t call it Pine Academy, alternative education, or that place where they allegedly strip searched the students.
The city’s alternative high school education program has a new name, and — administrators hope — a new outlook.
The Board of Education this month agreed to change the name of the program to PACE (Positive and Creative Education).
The name is one of several new aspects of the program this year.
“This is not a dumping ground,” Ansonia High School assistant principal Joe Dobbins told the Board of Education. “We’re in the process of changing that image, and I think we’re taking a step in the right direction.”
The alternative education program, which used to be called “Pine Academy” had a rough patch last year.
The principal and two teachers resigned after four students claimed they were strip searched during school. The students have sued the city and the Board of Education. (Read articles about it here, here, and here, in the New Haven Register.)
“After that, it was a touchy climate,” Dobbins said.
Now, administrators are looking for a fresh start, Dobbins said.
But they also want to turn the program around into a place where students who don’t learn well in a traditional setting can earn a diploma.
“A Model”
In September, the alternative high school program was brought under the oversight of Ansonia High School. It used to be a separate program with a separate principal and staff.
Now, Dobbins and Ansonia High School Principal Sue McKernan run the program, and hope to make major changes.
The most obvious change is the location. The program used to be housed at the Shelton Boys and Girls Club, and at St. Joseph Church in Ansonia before that.
In September, it was moved to temporary buildings behind the high school. (The building is shown in the photo above. The district declined to allow photographs taken of the students in the program.)
McKernan said she hopes the move will mean PACE students can take some elective courses as the high school in the afternoon. The PACE program also gets to use the gymnasium, and cafeteria.
“The kids are absolutely crazy over the new hot lunches,” Dobbins said. “They feel so important.”
With the change came new textbooks and rooms the students can call their own.
“There are no throwaway textbooks,” McKernan said. “These are not throwaway kids.”
The program was also split into two sessions: a morning session for about 25 students and an afternoon session for no more than eight students.
That allows teachers to give more personalized attention to students who really need it, Dobbins said.
The new program uses the same curriculum as the high school now, and will make use of online courses to help students catch up on credits.
“We do want to challenge these students, just like we want to challenge all of our kids,” McKernan said. “We want (the program) to be a model.”
“We’re not degenerates.”
That’s what sophomore Angus Noble always considered the alternative education students: Degenerates.
After spending two months in the program, Noble has changed his mind.
“We’re just pretty much like a family,” Noble said. “There’s a smaller work environment, less students and less distractions.”
Noble’s goal now is to get his high school diploma through the PACE program, where he said he is able to concentrate and is accepted by his teachers.
“I’m a bright student,” Noble said, saying he passed all his CAPT tests on the first try and was only one point away from the advanced level in math.
But, Noble says, he got in trouble in the traditional classes at Ansonia High School.
“I’m disruptive in class,” Noble said. “I’m not exactly the quietest person.”
Student Dylan Goff, 17, said students seem more focused this year.
“There’s a huge difference,” Goff said. “The building we were in before wasn’t a school environment. Here’s a lot better because kids know what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Parental Involvement
Dobbins and social worker Jill Keklik said that constant contact with parents has made a huge difference in behavior this year.
“Any issue, good or bad, we send a note to the parents,” Keklik said. “We focus on the positive.”
Dobbins said he had meetings with each of the students’ parents or guardians to get to know them, and calls them back if there are any problems with the students’ behaviors.
“The initial parent/guardian meeting did a lot,” Dobbings said. “It let them know what the expectations were, showed them I’m not about getting your child in trouble.”
No Suspensions
The numbers so far back up that statement.
So far, no PACE students have been suspended or expelled this school year.
That’s an impressive statistic for a program that has seen almost all of its students get suspended in past years.
In 2008-09, for example, two students were expelled, and 21 students were given out of school suspensions 34 times. Last year 16 students were also given 31 in-school suspensions.
In 2007-08, the numbers were higher. Three students were expelled, and 25 students were suspended, out of school, 90 times. Another 80 in-school suspensions were handed out to 25 students.
“I’m not fond of suspensions or arrests,” Dobbins said. “Can these things happen? Yes. But to me, those things shouldn’t happen until you exhaust all other avenues.”
