Principal Carol Melcher, second from left, plans many changes at Saline Alternative High School. Here she discusses plans for the upcoming year with, from left, school social worker Jason Pickett; para-educator Nancy Miller; counselor Cathy Redies; and para-educator Tracy Lamb during an organizational meeting.

Angela Cesere | AnnArbor.com

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct a name in the caption and the age of the school.

Mike Rothman is a testament to the importance of alternative education programs. As a freshman at Saline High School last year, he felt lost in a sea of 1,800 students. By the end of the first trimester, he was failing three classes. In classrooms of 30 students, he couldn't get the individual instruction he needed.

“I didn’t really care about the homework,” he admitted. “I figured if you have me trapped in that school for seven hours I’m not going to go home and spend five more hours doing this ton of stuff.”

But at Saline Area Schools' alternative high school, he made a dramatic improvement in an environment where help was readily available. “You don’t even really need to ask,” he said. He made up his lost credits and started to enjoy school.

But many students have not had that kind of success. In its 13 years of existence, Saline Alternative High School's best graduation rate was 48 percent. On average, it’s about 20 percent.

That's in a district that consistently produces some of the best test scores in Washtenaw County and in the state of Michigan. So the district is revamping the school and has hired a full-time principal. Carol Melcher has worked with the district for more than 20 years, mostly in special education.

“We weren’t happy with the overall graduation rate, the end result,” said Saline Superintendent Scot Graden. “The program needed some fresh ideas and Carol’s provided that.”

Because Melcher has done a lot of work in the special education departments, “she’s used to making accommodations so that students can be successful,” Graden said. “That’s really what the alternative program is. Making accommodations to our instructional program so that students can be successful.”

Accommodating students

Students at the alternative high school fulfill all of the same educational requirements mandated by the state, just like their peers at the traditional high school. This year, two teachers, two para-educators, and one principal will lead 50 to 75 students.

But the alternative program is set up so that students work at their own pace in courses through e2020, an online learning school. The program had used the e2020 courses in the past for most classes, with a few teachers providing instruction for classes such as English. Starting this fall, all core classes will be online.

Many of the e2020 lessons consist of an interactive PowerPoint presentation, quizzes and activities. Students can access their quiz results, learn what questions they missed and why, and even retake quizzes to fix their mistakes. Instructors monitor how a student is progressing through a course, and can tell if a student is actively engaging in an online class or goofing off on the computer.

Sam Tumulo, 19, liked the online classes because they helped her work at her own pace, and because she found it easier to catch up after absences. Tumulo has dyslexia and sometimes suffers from depression. Dyslexia made it hard for her to keep up, and she was hospitalized for depression twice.

When she returned to school, she wasn’t overwhelmed by the workload because it was all available online. She was also surprised by how much support the staff gave her. “They would really make it seem like I was really wanted. They really encouraged me,” she said. “They would even call me at home to see how I was doing.”

Tumulo graduated a year early and has completed a year at Washtenaw Community College. This fall, she will study graphic and website design at Ferris State University.

Tumulo said that by the time she graduated, she had more than friends: she had a family. She felt close to the teachers and to many other students. Catherine Redies, who works as a teacher and counselor at the school, said the strong relationships are key to giving students the confidence they need to get to graduation. “Rarely do they ever go back to the high school because they like this environment,” she said.

Tumulo knew of students whose parents dealt drugs. She knew of students who had to work to pay for their own apartments. She knew of students who were homeless.

She knew of one student who was good in school but didn’t show up often. “I found out that she had to work because she had to keep this apartment, because there were several students living with her because they had nowhere else to go. She was driving them to school, she was buying them food,” Tumulo said.

This is one reason that the alternative school is important, Graden said. “I don’t want to stereotype the students that we have in our alternative program, but from the Saline perspective they tend to be of higher need.”

Redies said on average, a quarter of the students in the alternative high school receive free or reduced lunch. At Saline High School, that number is less than 5 percent.

Being of higher need makes success all the more important for these students. Tumulo graduated with a lot of “super seniors,” students who take more than four years to graduate. “To see their faces, when they finally got their diploma… Some were 20 years old. They just didn’t stop because they wanted some kind of success,” Tumulo said proudly.

Closing campus, strengthening connections

But in order for students to graduate, they need to attend school. One of the biggest problems at the alternative school has been attendance. Attrition was so high that often it was difficult to tell who was still enrolled. Melcher plans to address the issue by creating “families.” Families will consist of one teacher and five to 20 students. Families will meet each morning. Melcher hopes students will form stronger relationships with each other and with teachers. She hopes the family will give them a reason to show up to school every day.

“This may be the only strong relationship that they’ve ever had in their young lives,” Melcher said. “We want to make sure that that is first and foremost; that they know that we’re there to help them succeed, and all we need is a little bit from them and I can pose a guarantee: that if you attend consistently, if you follow the rules, you will graduate.”

Another way to address the attendance problem is by keeping kids on campus once they get there. For the first time this fall the alternative school will be a closed campus. In the past, students enjoyed an open campus, taking breaks when they felt like they needed them, and going out to lunch.

“They like the freedom but they were too young to handle the responsibility,” Redies said. “So I think closing campus—they’re all going to hate that. But it’s going to be in their best interest.”

One reason that students went out to lunch so often is that the lunch wasn’t great. It was delivered from the middle school, and by the time it arrived, it wasn’t in the best condition.

“The grilled cheese might be good when you make it, but let it sit for half an hour before these kids get it,” Redies said. Students often avoided the hot food and opted for salads, but even the salads weren’t always fresh, Rothman said.

This fall, Melcher hopes to offer a life skills course in which students order, prepare and serve lunch. She is working on establishing a kitchen and the course. The class would be part of the service learning component that Melcher is requiring of all students starting this fall.

Melcher describes service learning as getting students involved in hands-on activities to give them real-world work experience. She is talking with local businesses about the idea.

Students will be able to put this job experience on their resumes, which is another requirement Melcher is implementing this fall. Students will graduate with a resume, created in a format that will be transferable to the web.

“They will have something that they can take with them and show future employers or future college admissions folks what they’re able to do,” Melcher said.

Melcher also wants each student to create an Educational Development Plan with her or Redies’ help. All classes that a student needs and service learning to explore a student’s career interests will be on the EDP.

Melcher also wants to change the way students think about the school.

“In the past, students were placed there almost as a punitive measure for not succeeding in the traditional high school,” she said. “I want to put a positive bent on it that it is really a place where the nontraditional student could succeed, but not a place where students who were choosing not to succeed at the high school were placed because they were not making progress.

“Even though we’re offering the students lots of opportunities that haven’t been there before we’re also asking a lot more of students too,” she said.

Tara Cavanaugh is a freelance reporter for AnnArbor.com. To reach the news desk e-mail news@annarbor.com or call 734-623-2530. To read more Saline news, visit our Saline page.