ALTERNATIVE SCHOOL BOASTS FIRST GRADUATE

Sarah Stephens didn't look like the kind of 17-year-old one expects to see in an alternative school.

She wore unripped blue jeans and a forest-green sweater. Her straight, brown hair barely revealed several silver earrings in each lobe -- her one visible departure from conventional style.

But it was apparent Stephens was comfortable at the Alternative Education Center, part of Cape Girardeau Public Schools. Maybe she didn't have much in common with the gang members and teen moms around her, but they were family.

And they weren't happy to hear she was leaving.

"Yeah, you gonna get into SEMO and forget where you came from," another student said, turning her back and putting her nose in the air mockingly.

Stephens smiled. On Tuesday, she will be a student at Southeast Missouri State University. But on Friday, her graduation day, she was just one of the group.

"I was kind of worried when I started here," Stephens said. "Now I like coming to school. It's like a family thing."

She had a lot to worry about. The bright, college-bound teen made the local news in November after Cape Girardeau Police's drug-detecting dog smelled narcotics in her car. The police found LSD, marijuana and drug paraphernalia and put Stephens in jail.

The school put her on long-term suspension.

"It was horrible," Stephens said. "I had a quarter left to graduate, and I was in a lot of trouble. I had a scholarship to Southeast but didn't know how I was going to use it."

One week after her arrest, the alternative school opened. Stephens was one of the first students enrolled. She finished up her high school course work and began getting her life in order.

"My life would have been on hold without this school," Stephens said. "I worked hard for 11-1/2 years, and I wasn't going to let it slip away because I did something stupid."

Sheldon Tyler, the school's director, said he hoped Stephens' stay at the school wasn't over -- he'd like to see her come back as a tutor for other students. It isn't often he gets alternative school students who score 25 on their ACTs.

But the students there are bright, Tyler said. With the right motivation, about 75 percent could get into college.

There are 24 students enrolled at AEC with six more on the way. Some have been expelled, put on long-term suspension or are in danger of dropping out. They either will finish their education through AEC, go back to regular school after a time or, in the worst cases, drop out anyway.

"They don't fit in with a traditional setting because they don't feel the rules should apply to them," Tyler said. "Here, if everybody does their job, they get freedoms. If not, they get privileges taken away."

The idea is to get students to work together, he said.

AEC is located in the Salvation Army building at 701 Good Hope.