Right Choice school a first in South Carolina
About 120 Beaufort County students have finished the inaugural semester at Right Choice, the only alternative-education public school in the state.
While other districts offer alternative education programs for students who land in disciplinary trouble, the students attending them have traditionally stayed enrolled in their home schools and gone on to graduate with their former peers.
The Beaufort County School District is doing things differently.
Students not only attend Right Choice following a disciplinary hearing, they can choose to enroll there for its alternative structure, according to chief student services officer Gregory McCord. In fact, nearly 60 percent of the students attending the school this year sought it out.
The rigid environment may act like a punishment to some, but it serves as a haven for many students from the judgment of peers and the stress of returning to or remaining in a relatively-unstructured classroom.
"Sometimes kids, when they return to (their home school), they feel ostracized by not just their peers but sometimes by adults," McCord said. "We want students to feel successful with their return, and if we're not doing that," another option is necessary.
Right Choices is an offshoot of the district's alternative education program by the same name, Right Choices, which is a highly-structured, temporary assignment for students in need of behavior modification or as an alternative to expulsion.
Both the program and school are run out of the district's main office in Beaufort, a former high school facility, and offer core classes and physical education.
Getting the school off the ground cost about $1.3 million in renovations to the building and the hiring of a P.E. teacher, nurse and guidance counselor, according to district spokesman Jim Foster.
Most of the students in the Right Choices program this year were assigned there after committing drug offenses, McCord said.
They and other disciplinary offenders cannot attend sporting events, participate in most extracurriculars or take specialty classes like JROTC. They don't even get a chance to talk with their friends -- or cause trouble --between classes, as room changes take just a few seconds.
"They're restricted in their privileges, they're restricted in their choices, they're restricted in their movement," McCord said.
Both the program and school do give them something else -- daily group sessions in which they have a chance to express themselves and puzzle through the kinds of situations that landed them in alternative education.
"When they get into those small groups, they're more apt to be open and honest about their wrongdoings as opposed to if you ask a kid in a regular setting, 'Who's responsible for this?' you may never get to the bottom of it," McCord said.
Right Choice serves students in sixth grade and up. The district also has eight elementary school students in its similar Promising Students Program in northern Beaufort County, launched in 2013.
Class resumes Jan. 6.
Follow reporter Rebecca Lurye on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Rebecca.
Related content:
- School district adds alternative program for elementary-grade students, September 22, 2013
- School board considers expanding alternative education programs, April 5, 2011
This story was originally published December 26, 2015 at 1:19 AM with the headline "Right Choice school a first in South Carolina."