ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMS A `SMORGASBORD OF OPPORTUNITIES' (GETTING A DROP ON DROP OUTS: PART 3)

Not all students are cut out for a mainstream education.

Some students don't have the temperament or maturity to make it in a normal classroom setting, so they drop out. Others have slower or lower mental or physical capabilities, and they also leave without graduating.

Almost none of the students that drop out have the vision to see how important a high school diploma will be later in life.

Rather than see these students continue to raise the drop-out rate in their schools, Cape Girardeau administrators have developed a number of programs at the elementary and secondary levels devised to help these students graduate by any means necessary.

""We have a smorgasbord of things we're doing trying to address the problem early," said Dr. Barbara Kohlfeld, principal of May Greene Elementary School. "It's really important to start teaching them early because we're projecting kids into the future, and we want them to understand the smorgasbord of opportunities as far as employment that can be available to them."

Kohlfeld said her school has a number of clubs designed to teach social and organizational skills, as well as responsibility. Everyone in the school is a member of all the clubs, she said, but they choose how much they want to participate.

"We do a lot around the club idea because we want the kids to have a sense of community," she said. "We actively teach social skills, because life skills are absolutely essential, probably just as much as the educational aspect. We know without both of these things the kids aren't going to be employable."

Two of May Greene's programs designed to teach important skills to students are the Career Club and the Fight-Free Schools program. Both of the programs are designed to arm students with skills that will help them stay in school.

The Career Club teaches students about career options by bringing in a speaker to give a presentation on his or her career once each month. Kohlfield said the school tries to bring minority professionals as often as possible because of the large percentage of minority students at the school. The Fight-Free Schools program is a behavioral development program that teaches the importance of self-control and alternative methods of handling disputes.

Kohlfeld said it is important to empower students with confidence in their mental and social capabilities. Students need to believe they have the knowledge, the capability and the opportunity to do something, she said, or else they will not even try to succeed in school and in life.

"Kids need to have that sense of belonging, that they are valued, appreciated, and that they belong in school," said Kohlfield. "Hopefully, if our students reach a crossroads, all those things will be there to remind them which road to take."

The Alternative School was developed within the school district last year as an option for students struggling in the traditional classroom setting. "Our school differs first and foremost because these students want to be here," said Sheldon Tyler, Alternative School coordinator.

Tyler said he and the school's four teachers interview students before they enter the program and make sure they know their education is their responsibility. The teachers play an integral part in this, he said, because what they learn during the interview process teaches them how to deal with the students in the classroom setting.

"We have the opportunity to be a lot more personable with them, and we know them better," he said. Tyler said the school is different from a traditional school setting because the student-teacher ratio is smaller and the atmosphere is not as stringent.

Attending the Alternative School often gives students a different mind set about education, said Tyler. "It shows them they can still be educated, that their responsibility is for themselves. We try to teach them that their mistakes are not the administrator's fault. When they mess up, they know they cannot blame anyone but themselves."

Currently, 40 students are enrolled in the Alternative School. Since it began in November 1995, the school has graduated two students, and two more will graduate in January. Two other students will graduate after they complete correspondence courses. The Alternative School is currently housed at the Salvation Army building, 701 Good Hope. In January, the school will move into the Cape Girardeau Civic Center, 232 Broadway.

The School to Work program has helped at-risk students for nearly 10 years. It is housed in the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School and caters to students between the ages of 14 and 21 in the vo-tech serving area. "We kind of have a one-room schoolhouse that tries to help kids falling through the cracks," said Gary Jenkerson, who teaches at the school.

Jenkerson said students come to the program because they cannot make it in a traditional classroom. "They're just, for whatever reason, not getting it from the traditional classroom," he said, "so they become successful at failing. We try to provide a safe-house for them, and it seems to click with a lot of the kids."

Jenkerson said the program's rules are no different from the home-school. The main difference, he said, is that the program provides students with more individualized attention and a work-like atmosphere complete with a time clock that teaches them responsibility.

"We try to keep things as much like school and as much like work as we can make it," Jenkerson said. "We have the same rules and regulations as the sending school. If they can't wear a hat in their home school, they can't wear a hat while they are with us.

"This is a work situation, and we do what our boss says. They look at it as silly school stuff, but I look at it as making a living."

Jenkerson said the program succeeds with three out of every four students who enter the program. "The difference is they want to be here," he said. "Anything we accomplish is seen as a major accomplishment because everybody has already given up on them.

"Those four kids who come to me, they're already seen as failures, so we turn around three who have reached the end of their rope."