SEARCY, Ark. (AP) - The Riverview and Beebe school districts are considering creating a special school for expelled students which would allow the students to graduate.
Originally, the Beebe School District began discussing the idea, but dropped the idea,. Then, Riverview picked it up and told Beebe it might be interested in setting up a program, Riverview Superintendent Delena Gammill said.
“We’re attempting to give (expelled students) an environment where they can still graduate from high school instead of having to go another route,” Gammill told The Daily Citizen (https://bit.ly/1iTLBj9).
An intensive intervention school is based on academic intensity and emotional counseling, Gammill said, and is designed for problem students who have been expelled.
“It’s an alternative learning environment that’s similar to boot camp,” Gammill said. “It’s pretty much a zero-tolerance situation.”
The primary issue with starting the school is a lack of funds, Gammill said. Building another school is expensive, and the Beebe and Riverview districts cannot easily afford it, so the districts are considering how it might work financially, Gammill said.
“When kids are expelled, it’s really not doing anybody a favor,” Beebe School District Superintendent Belinda Shook said. “Some of the students who get suspended long term or expelled - that’s exactly what they want, so they can go along their merry way.”
Shook said she thinks the schools need to talk to the juvenile court system because the students who would attend the school are probably already being watched by the court system, so moving forward, she said the schools and the court system should be on the same page.
Furthermore, Shook said the school would have to be an Alternative Learning Environment (ALE), and might be best if it featured vocational-type learning.
Gammill said a partnership with several school districts might work, if they can pitch the idea successfully, or maybe if all of White County was involved and expelled students from anywhere in the county could attend.
Gammill said she is looking into a trip to visit a school in the northwest sector of the state to view a program similar to what Riverview and Beebe have in mind.
“We could glean some ideas from them,” Gammill said.
Gammill said she thinks there have been eight-10 expulsions this school year in the Riverview School District, with about half of the expulsions occurring at the Riverview School Board meeting Thursday night.
“After tonight,” Gammill said during the meeting, “it just becomes more obvious we need to move in that direction.”
Some of the expulsions were because of drug-related problems.
“We need some way to stop this,” Riverview School Board member Robyn Roach said.
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Information from: The Daily Citizen, https://www.thedailycitizen.com/
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