No Alternative

To help deal with a $37.1 million budget shortfall, the Seattle
school district could soon shutter several of its alternative schools,
including Alternative School #1, Summit K–12, and the African
American Academy, along with as many as six other buildings and
programs. Of the other six alternative schools in the district,
two—Pathfinder K–8 in West Seattle and Thornton Creek
elementary in Sand Point—could end up moving to other buildings;
their programs, however, would remain intact.

Despite common perception, alternative schools are not dumping
grounds for kids who get pregnant or start fires. They offer an
open-ended, experiential style of classroom teaching, as opposed to the
rigid district-directed curriculum generally offered in traditional
schools. They also often feature hacky-sack-centric gym classes,
Ultimate Frisbee teams, and teachers who fondly remember Woodstock, or
parts of it.

I went to an alternative school, New Options Middle School (now
Salmon Bay), where, like many alternative school students, I had long
hair and wore a really stupid hat.

I ended up at NOMS after six years in an insanely structured AP
program at Madrona Elementary and a year at Washington Middle School
where I did terribly (full disclosure: I have always been a terrible
student).

At NOMS, I worked on larger, project-based assignments, rather than
daily busywork; had a single teacher for most of my classes; and,
perhaps most importantly, sat on a couch instead of at a desk. While I
still did my share of goofing off, the flexibility of my teachers and
the curriculum kept me tuned in to class and turning in homework every
once in a while.

The problem with this kind of open, sprawling classroom environment
is that it doesn’t lend itself well to standardized testing.
Standardized testing, in the form of the high-stakes Washington
Assessment of Student Learning, is one of the main criteria used in
singling out schools for closure; the others are the building’s
condition, the need for schools in the area, how much a school costs
per student, and proximity to other schools.

According to the district’s data, only about a quarter of AS#1
eighth graders who took the WASL between 2005 and 2007 met minimum
reading and math standards, while only about 10 percent of students met
science standards. The African American Academy showed similarly low
scores, with about 8 percent of students’ math and science scores
meeting the district standard. About 40 percent of the school’s
students were at the appropriate reading level for their age.

Summit’s students scored slightly better: In 2006 and 2007, 70
percent of students were at an appropriate reading level, while about
35 percent met math standards. Students’ science scores bounced between
20 and 40 percent between 2006 and 2007.

By comparison, about 70 percent of students at McClure and Whitman
middle schools, in Queen Anne and Ballard, respectively, passed the
reading portion of the 2006 and 2007 WASLs, while between 40 percent
and 50 percent, respectively, passed the math and science portions of
the test.

It’d be easy to blame alternative schools for putting themselves in
this position. The WASL—right or wrong—is the district’s
yardstick for school success. But that doesn’t necessarily make sense
at alternative schools.

Alternative schools tend to teach things at their own pace, and
parents and students at such schools tend to see standardized testing
as “conformist.” (My wife also went to an alternative school, and she
swears they never bothered to teach her fractions). Although
alternative schools should be held to some academic standard, there’s
no easy way to translate the success of students who get smiley faces
and frowny faces on report cards instead of As, Bs, and Cs.

At a point when the district is considering cutting staff and
services to keep things running in the next few years, keeping programs
like AS#1, Summit, and African American Academy is going to be a hard
sell. The district is already proposing to move other programs into
Summit’s and AAA’s buildings to save money.

Despite their low test scores, these schools provide a home for
students who can’t, won’t, or don’t want to hack it in a traditional
educational setting. If alternative schools help kids become
self-directed and self-sufficient, as mine did, isn’t it worth the
money, inevitable political battle, and logistical headache that will
come from preserving, improving, and even expanding some of these
programs?

jonah@thestranger.com