Alt ed program a success

By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer

MILO — For the last two years students in both SAD 41 and its AOS 43 partner district SAD 31 have had the option to take part in the Carleton Project, an alternative high school for pupils who may not have been succeeding in a traditional classroom setting. During an Oct. 7 meeting of the SAD 41 school board, Superintendent Michael Wright said AOS 43 is continuing to offer an alternative program but on its own instead of through the Carleton Project.

“We still have the philosophy of the Carleton Project without the cost,” Wright said. He said AOS 43 was under a two-year contract with the Carleton Project, which he said is a private program.

“We changed from the Carleton Project to a district alternative education program,” teacher Joanna Charles said. She said under the Carleton Project students needed 19 credits to earn their diplomas and now they need 24 to meet the requirements of Penquis Valley High School or 22 as required by Penobscot Valley High School in Howland.

Charles said alternative education participants can take part in their respective high school graduations, be included in the yearbooks and participate on the sports teams if eligible. “These are all positive changes,” she said. Charles added that previously students were graded by either pass/fail and now there is a four-point evaluation system in place.

“Currently we have 11 enrolled, eight are from SAD 41,” Charles said. “We are working hard to find a balance between traditional and alternative.”

“We have had 20 students graduate the last two years,” teacher Ella Lyford said. Two of these graduates, she added, are now enrolled full-time in college, another is attending college part-time. “We have eight students who are actively working” and three others are mothers, she said. All of the students may not have graduated if not for the program, according to Lyford.

“In a lot of ways our kids need to be more responsible,” Charles said. “They pick and choose what they work on in the morning and in the afternoon. At any time you can have 11 students working on 11 different things.”

Lyford said the students, who start on a 10-day trial basis, have run into problems with their education previously. “We are seeing these kids come in and want to graduate and that’s the positive, positive thing,” she said.

Board member Leon Farrar said he has attended the graduations back when the program was under the Carleton Project, and he can tell the students love their teachers. “I think it’s one of the best things we have done,” he said.

In other business, Wright discussed ongoing issues at the elementary schools, saying there have been fleas and rumors of mold at Brownville Elementary.

Building and grounds head Donnie Richards said state officials came to Brownville to test for mold last month. “The results are none, there was no mold we could find,” he said, with another test set for January. He said no such tests, which are done free of charge to the district, were conducted at Milo Elementary, but the board indicated its members would like a mold examination conducted there.

Richards said spraying was done to take care of the fleas.

Penquis Valley School Principal Jeremy Bousquet has been working to organize a community day of service in which students in grades 6-12 would head out into the various SAD 41 communities. “I had a very productive meeting with the Kiwanis,” he said, speaking to members of the Three Rivers Kiwanis at an organization breakfast about the service day and hearing that the Three Rivers Kiwanis may sponsor event T-shirts for all of the students.

“I’m still looking for connections, and it is looking to be more in the spring than in the fall,” Bousquet said.