Alternative School

LIBERTY - Casey County Board of Education will consider an alternative school calendar at the request of board member Mike Davis. The board suggested Monday that Dale Wilson, director of pupil personnel, look into the issue and begin discussion with a calendar committee. Davis told the board that Pulaski County has a calendar that allows classes to begin Aug. 4 and end May 18. Students get a two-week fall and spring break and a three-week Christmas break. During one week of each break, students who are borderline or falling behind can participate in an accelerating program four hours per day, Davis said.

MIDDLEBURG - An alternative school for students who have caused disruptions in the regular classroom has been established at Casey County High School. The school opened three weeks ago with 10 students from the high and middle schools, high school Principal Tim Goodlett told the Board of Education Monday. "We've received positive comments from the students, and the parents of the students are supportive of the school," Goodlett said. Parents from all but three students placed in the alternative school have been in to see the progress.

LIBERTY - Casey County students who are likely to be suspended or expelled for being disruptive in the classroom, suspected of using or distributing drugs, or those with other problems may soon have more choices to remedy the problems. The Board of Education will meet in special session at 7 p.m. Thursday at the administrative office to discuss an alternative placement program and/or hire a police officer for the high and middle schools. Problems in the schools concern more than 20 students who repeatedly are sent to the principal's office.

This May, more than flowers are blooming - young artists from Danville and Boyle County are in fine form at the Community Arts Center's May exhibits, the High School Artist Project and the Youth Arts Fair. High School Artist Project The High School Artist Project is a unique collaboration between Ephraim McDowell Health and local high schools - Danville, Boyle County, and Day Treatment. Ephraim McDowell provides the canvas, brushes, and paint and the students create the artwork , which will be on display at the Community Arts center for the month of May before moving to the walls of Ephraim McDowell hospital where patients can enjoy them for an entire year.

The Clark County Public Schools Day Treatment Program is no more. Thanks to an effort by students, the district's alternative school located on Vaught Road is now the Phoenix Academy. Principal Dustin Howard said he was approached by student council members at the beginning of the school year about possibly changing the name because of the stigma associated with it. “The student council met with me and said they felt like there was a social stigma out there with the name Day Treatment and they wanted to move forward from that and make things a little different,” Howard said.

LIBERTY - Most personnel have been rehired for the Casey County schools this fall, Superintendent Linda Hatter told the Board of Education Monday. Her report shows non-renewal letters were sent to 12 classified employees and 12 certified employees. Three people also were notified of salary reduction because of job changes. However, Hatter said most of the people will be rehired except for a couple of instructional assistants. She also said moving the alternative school near Casey Academy will eliminate some of high school Principal Tim Goodlett's duties and salary.

A Boyle County Middle School student was arrested Monday after police found what they described as a "hit list" threatening about a dozen students and a teacher. The student, a female juvenile, was taken into custody just after 3 p.m. at Bruce Hall Day Treatment Center on the Kentucky School for the Deaf campus, which serves as an alternative school for the Boyle County and Danville school systems. The girl was charged with second-degree terroristic threatening, a felony. She was later released to her parents' custody, police said.

LIBERTY ? The Casey County boys basketball team is still without a coach, but a hire is drawing nearer. Casey principal Tim Goodlett said the school board is still accepting applications for the position, but he hopes to have someone in place by the end of next week. ?The job is still posted,? Goodlett said. ?We?ve gotten some applications, and we?re going to start going through those by the end of this week.? Former coach Shawn Conley was fired last month after compiling a 33-79 record in four years with the Rebels.

A Boyle County student who created a hit list threatening other students and a teacher has been removed from the school system while her future is being decided. "We will try to do what's best for this child, who made a poor decision, and what's best for the other kids as well," Superintendent Steve Burkich said Wednesday. The student, a seventh-grader at Boyle County Middle School, was charged with a felony count of terroristic threatening and released to her parents. The list was recovered Monday at Bruce Hall Day Treatment Center, which serves as an alternative school for Danville and Boyle County students.

LANCASTER - Mayor Pro-tem Donna Powell said she's happy to announce that part of the old hospital building is officially signed over to the City of Lancaster. She said it will be referred to as the Municipal Building for now. Ownership of a portion of the facility at 308 W. Maple Ave., next to the high school, was offered last May as a donation to the Garrard County Board of Education by administrator Tom Davis and Gary Parker of Care Centers Management Group. But the board said it had to decline because of the financial burden of bringing the building up to code with state education requirements.

This May, more than flowers are blooming - young artists from Danville and Boyle County are in fine form at the Community Arts Center's May exhibits, the High School Artist Project and the Youth Arts Fair. High School Artist Project The High School Artist Project is a unique collaboration between Ephraim McDowell Health and local high schools - Danville, Boyle County, and Day Treatment. Ephraim McDowell provides the canvas, brushes, and paint and the students create the artwork , which will be on display at the Community Arts center for the month of May before moving to the walls of Ephraim McDowell hospital where patients can enjoy them for an entire year.

The Clark County Public Schools Day Treatment Program is no more. Thanks to an effort by students, the district's alternative school located on Vaught Road is now the Phoenix Academy. Principal Dustin Howard said he was approached by student council members at the beginning of the school year about possibly changing the name because of the stigma associated with it. “The student council met with me and said they felt like there was a social stigma out there with the name Day Treatment and they wanted to move forward from that and make things a little different,” Howard said.

The Kentucky Department of Education late last month passed new regulations designed to help state officials keep better track of the state's alternative school students. The new rules, which go into effect next school year, set minimum requirements for the schools and stipulate that they meet or exceed class options found in traditional classrooms. Also beginning next year, school districts must report data on students in their alternative programs, the dates they entered and exited the programs, why they left and whether placement is voluntary.

Juniors at The Providence School in Jessamine County led the way in 2011 ACT scores, increasing their composite score nearly a whole point while scores of juniors district-wide went up slightly and stayed above the state average. The scores were shared with the Jessamine County Board of Education at its work session Monday. Every Kentucky public-school student is required to take the ACT during his or her junior year. Providence only had 22 juniors last year to take the test as opposed to 33 in 2010, but the scores jumped from a composite 15.3 to 16.1 in 2011.

All kids are not alike, and statistics show that some students just don’t perform as well as others in a traditional school setting. Unfortunately, all too often, some traditional school administrators and teachers give up on some of those students, and they fall by the wayside. Dropout rates are at an all-time high across Kentucky, and school districts are scrambling to find ways of engaging the at-risk students and keeping them in school and graduating. One way Clark County Public Schools is addressing the needs of its at-risk students is the Clark -Bourbon Day Treatment Program.

STANFORD - Lincoln County schools will set sail into uncharted waters Aug. 5, in a vessel officially known as the Innovative Alternative School Calendar. Lincoln is the first school district in the area to adopt such a calendar, which will extend instruction time 30 minutes each day and close schools on 12 Mondays throughout the school year. â?¨ LINCOLN SCHOOL CALENDAR Aug. 5: First day for students Sept. 7: Labor Day, no school Sept. 21: Staff work day, no school Oct. 5-9: Fall break, no school Oct. 19: Professional development, staff only Nov. 2-3: Staff work days, no school Nov. 16: Staff work day, no school Nov. 25-27: Thanksgiving break, no school Nov. 30: Staff work day, no school Dec. 7: Staff work day, no school Dec. 21-Jan.

When the school facilities construction committee began working on a new building plan a few years ago, the district's most dire need was to renovate or replace some older elementary schools that were in poor condition. The committee, and subsequently the school board, however, veered sharply off course by deciding to build a new high school first. Tonight the Clark County Board of Education has an opportunity to correct its mistake by reordering its priorities. First, let's look at where we are and how we got here.

Due to the recent promotion of Mike Lafavers to the position of assistant superintendent, Boyle County Middle School will have an interim principal when classes resume on Aug. 6. And to find the right man for the job, Boyle looked to Anderson County's past. At a special meeting Thursday night of the Boyle County Board of Education, held in lieu of the regular meeting for July, Superintendent Steve Burkich announced Tom Swartz will be taking the position on a one-year basis at BCMS.

Listening to college kids talk about their spring break exploits is not the usual fodder for a Danville Kiwanis Club weekly luncheon, but there were no stories of wasted days and wasted nights Thursday when some Centre College students were the guests of honor. Rather than beer bongs or girls gone wild, they spoke of spackle and drywall, of oddly disparate things like bowling balls and ironing boards littering the landscape, and of what people are willing to endure to return to their homes blown away more than two years ago by Hurricane Katrina.

Former Danville woman elected president of international association Melissa Edwards Rogers of Frankfort, formerly of Danville, recently was elected as president of the International Association for Truancy and Dropout Prevention at the annual conference Oct. 22-25 in New York City. The association was founded in 1911. She will attend the United Kingdom's National Association for Social Work in Education annual conference in Manchester, England, in April 2008. Rogers is the principal of the Educational Development Center, an alternative school for Franklin County Schools, which offers online curriculum for credit recovery and also an alternative to suspension program for students who violate the student discipline code.