Farmington Alternative Learning Back On Campus

FARMINGTON — After using the Alternative Learning Education center at Boston Mountain Educational Cooperative for more than 10 years, Farmington High School will bring the program back on campus for the 2017-18 school year.

Farmington’s ALE Academy will be located in the old maintenance building, a small brick structure near the high school. Right now, the building houses the nutrition department and is used for food storage. The building will be renovated to fit the needs of the program.

The decision to bring the center back to Farmington was one made of necessity. At one point, seven or eight high schools in the area were using the Cooperative’s alternative learning center.

However, over the years schools have pulled out, leaving only three schools - West Fork, Greenland and Farmington - still using the program. West Fork this year decided to pull out and the program was not financially feasible with only two schools.

Bryan Law, Farmington superintendent, said he hated to see the Boston Mountain center close because it was an excellent program.

“I thought what they were doing was a tremendous thing for the kids,” Law said. “We will try to copy the same type program.”

Farmington High School Principal Jon Purifoy also said he did not have anything negative to say about the center but added, “We have to do what’s right for our community and that’s one of the reasons we felt like we needed to bring it back on campus.”

Most students assigned to the Alternative Learning Center are there for credit recovery, Purifoy said. They could be behind in high school credits for several reasons. Examples include a student who missed a lot of school because of illness or because of injuries from an accident. Some are transfers from other districts. Others may have failed classes and need to make up those credits.

“We don’t put kids there because they are troublemakers. They are behind and we want to help them catch up and be able to graduate on time,” Purifoy said.

The goal is to get students caught up as quickly as possible so they can return to the regular classroom.

There will be advantages to having the center at Farmington, Purifoy said. The school will not have to transport students to the center in West Fork and back each day and the program will be on school campus.

“I think it’s going to be a good move for our students. They will get a quality education out there and that’s what we want. They will have our own personnel whom they know and they will be a good benefit for them.”

Farmington School Board approved a recommendation to hire Glenda Bollinger as the ALE Academy facilitator. Bollinger has been working for the Boston Mountain ALE Center.

Two licensed high school teachers, Sarah Patton and Si Hornbeck, will come into the classrooms during the day to teach English, science and special education. Other courses, such as math and history, will be online but teachers will be available to help. Patton and Hornbeck will attend professional development workshops on alternative learning education this summer.