Agenda - 04-26-2004- 3 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Link, John Page 2 April 22, 2004 Elementary due to lack of sufficient space at the King Street location. At present the district has thirty central support staff located in seven of our schools across the district. As the need for additional classroom space increases we will have no place to house these support persons. It is also difficult not having people proximally located who must work together to support our schools. Update on the Orange County Schools' Alternative Schools Orange County Schools began their discussion about alternative programs in 1996. The early discussion resulted in the development of a task force whose charge was to "build" a school founded in best-practice to serve the needs of our at-risk students. Staff was directed to identify a site (existing or to be constructed), A location to house the program on site was identified and, in response to an ever growing need, the district expanded their evening alternative program called the Night Panthers Program. In .June of 2001, Orange County Schools' staff met with staff from Chapel Hill-Car-rboro to talk about the possible cooperative development of a more comprehensive program. The Orange County School system found the cost of the program design prohibitive, even with the combined resources of both districts. The district continued discussions related to the Alternative School during 2002 and 2003 and the committee was reconvened on April 3, 2003. The committee's work resulted in the location of a site and a program design that was again cost prohibitive, Staff was directed to bring back an alternative proposal. On October 20, 2003 the Orange County Board of Education approved the creation of alternative educational services for students needing a non- traditional program. The program consists of a component that serves students that have been long-term suspended and for other students needing an educational day or program that differs from the traditional school day. The components include: • The ACE (Alternative Choice in Education) program located at Orange High School in classrooms vacated with the addition of Cedar Ridge. This program offers Internet-based instruction (NovaNet) for students needing anon-traditional day. This program began in February with a licensed teacher as the facilitator and will remain open until Junel8th. Even with the late start the program will allow ten students to graduate this year.. This program is open daily from 12:00 noon unti16:30 p.m. and can serve up to 20 students.. • The alternative program for long-term suspended students as you are aware will be located in a temporary mobile stnrcture on Tryon Street. The staff has been hired and structural changes made to the facility to