RD122 - Regional Alternative Educational Programs


Executive Summary:
The regional alternative education programs were established by the General Assembly in 1993-1994 with the intent to involve two or more school divisions working in collaboration to establish options for students who have a pending violation of school board policy, have been expelled or suspended on a long-term basis, or are returning from juvenile correctional centers. Section 22.1-209.1:2 of the Code of Virginia requires that a report be provided annually by the Board of Education to the Governor and the General Assembly on the effectiveness of the regional alternative education programs. To complete the 2004 annual report, information was collected and analyzed from the 29programs based on 2003-2004 data.

Evaluating alternative education programs is a complex endeavor. In addition to serving a different type of student, many regional alternative education programs have different policies and administrative procedures than those typically found in traditional K-12 schools. As in regular education settings, alternative programs also vary in their academic standards, structure and accountability mechanisms, basic goals and objectives, parent and community involvement, disciplinary policies, and crisis intervention procedures. In evaluating these centers, the accountability and outcome measures used for mainstream schools are not always as applicable.

A majority of Virginia's regional programs are transitional in nature with the intent of transitioning students back into regular schools. Alternative education accountability measures include shorter-term measures and measures that recognize that many youth in the regional programs cycle in and out of a program before experiencing steady progress. Students are placed in the programs for relatively short periods of time - often a year or less - and traditional assessments often do not accurately reflect the progress the student has made in the program. Other performance outcomes include measures of student motivation, learning to learn, and ability to master content.

The data indicate that the regional alternative education programs continue to provide an alternative learning environment for identified disruptive students. The effectiveness of these programs can be demonstrated in the areas of discipline, crime, and violence-related incidences where there were substantial decreases. Standards of Learning assessment scores collected on these students in 2003-2004 provide a baseline for future evaluation studies. In the fall of 2003, the Virginia Department of Education began using unique student identification numbers for every student in the state. The identification numbers will be a valuable tool in the future in matching alternative students to Standards of Learning results and also to track behavior offenses.