Sweet Home Junior High School’s alternative education program makes a priority of creating good citizens of its students through adventures each week.
Alternative education teacher Tim O’Donnell said it’s a “reward system for them becoming good citizens basically. It’s more about social skills than grades.”
Each week, about seven alternative education students accrue points, one to five points each day, based on their behavior. Those earning an average of three points per day may take what O’Donnell calls an “adventure” on Friday.
Those adventures can include anything from eating at a nice restaurant to hikes or trips to the Sweet Home Fire Department. It gives the students opportunities to see some things they wouldn’t otherwise.
O’Donnell said he took the class to the Point Restaurant. One of the students told him he had never been in a sit-down restaurant before. Another said he had driven by the restaurant but never been in it.
The simplest things are often new to many of these students, O’Donnell said. “A lot of them have not experienced a lot things that most kids experience.”
Some of the students are in foster care, he said. Others are from dysfunctional families. Many of them have attention deficit disorder, and they’ve not had much success in school.
“Typically, the attention these kids require, it’s like a 30-kid classroom,” O’Donnell said.
His approach to alternative education is to give “them a motive” and “give them something to look forward to,” O’Donnell said. “The mission of the district to get these kids back into regular ed.”
Their social skills and self-esteem are low, O’Donnell said.. They are disruptive and can pull other students down in regular classes.
By building their self-esteem and social skills, the students slowly move back to the mainstream, either part-time or full-time.
The class has had some success with one student completely moving back into the mainstream this year. Three others are spending some of their time in mainstream classes. Four spend all day in the alternative education program.
“We’ve had some success,” O’Donnell said. “There’s also been some failures.”
Some have blown out of the junior high and gone to other learning situations outside the school district.
“I count that as failure,” O’Donnell said. “We weren’t able to, quote, make a different in here.”
As he teaches social skills and works on building self-esteem, O’Donnell also teaches basic living skills, how to survive outside of their caregiver. Among those skills are cooking and doing laundry. Some are familiar with those skills, and some are not.
The class also does job searches and finds places to live in newspapers. They are required to develop monthly budgets and shop for groceries. They calculate income based on taking a job from a newspaper. The exercise brings the future to life for these students.
“Most of these kids not going to go on to college,” O’Donnell said. “They’re four years away.”
Those in foster care, are likely on their own as soon as they turn 18, he said.
The class teaches limits, respect, feedback, support and that attitude is everything.
As students see the points they earn or fail to earn for their behavior, they begin to understand how their actions affect whether they participate in Friday’s adventures.
“They start to see the consequences of their actions,” O’Donnell said. “Historically, they didn’t care because they weren’t worried about a grade.”
Receiving good grades does not appeal to everyone, O’Donnell said. ‘They teachable moment doesn’t always happen in the classroom.”
Those moments can happen anywhere, from a sidewalk to the gym. They are often more interested in listening and learning at the fire department than they are in the classroom, for example, motivating them in school at the same time. As the students become more motivated, the school can put more academics in front of them.