HANCOCK -- Friday is the last day of class for students at BRIDGE Alternative High School in Hancock, but the school may not be available for students this fall.
“In order to effectively run BRIDGE High School, we have determined that you need approximately 45 students enrolled. If there’s only 35, the cost associated with running that program obviously goes up,” said Superintendent of the Copper Country Intermediate School District, Dennis Harbour.
One of the ways to fix this problem is to have all seven local high schools within the district agree to foot the bill for any of their students attending BRIDGE Alternative High School. Those schools would collect the state aid on each student and then pay the Copper Country Intermediate School District.
Harbour says there are a lot of success stories of students who have attended the school, and the current students are benefiting from the one-on-one learning.
“When people think of an alternative high school, they think they’re bad kids and got kicked out of every other school in the city, and that’s not usually the case. It’s usually the kids that don’t learn well in those schools, and I have ADD and it really helps with the kids who have any learning disability,” said student Roger Wood.
If the school is no longer available, school officials say students may have a difficult time transitioning back into a traditional high school.
“When I tried getting back in school in Illinois, no one would let me go back, so BRIDGE was my last chance to graduate, and I accomplished that,” said student Zach Edwards.
If the schools cannot come to an agreement, the students will have to attend the alternative school in Mohawk, which is a much further drive for some students, and four teachers will be out of a job.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWLUC