Giving Compass' Take:

• The Marietta Alternative Placement is an alternative program for students who have long-term suspensions from high school. The program offers student resources and access to counselors, academic advisors, and materials they need to graduate. 

• If this program model works, how can education administrators replicate it in other school districts?

• Read more about the better ways to judge how alternative high schools perform. 

Marietta Alternative Placement (MAPs) is an alternative program for students in Marietta City Schools in Atlanta. The student population at MAPs is mostly comprised of learners who have been placed on long-term suspension and are banned from their home schools, usually (though not always) pending some type of criminal charge. The program is designed to meet students where they are, help them grow academically, emotionally and socially, but most of all, it exists to support them in overcoming often significant out-of-school challenges and building their way out of complicated circumstances.

MAPs wasn’t always designed this way. The program was previously run through a third-party company unsuccessfully for several years. I have been working in alternative education for my entire career, and in my experience, alternative education programs too often become a dumping ground.

According to the superintendent, Grant Rivera, that’s what had happened to MAPs. It had become a place to “send kids.” It looked like a computer lab with a babysitter.

Programs like MAPs have an important place in the school system. At-risk students deserve more than being farmed out to a tech lab monitored by babysitters.

Read the full article about alternative schools by Farhat Ahmad at EdSurge