Durham mall is site for center

Alternative school will see 100 teens

DURHAM -- School officials are on schedule to open four specialized schools this fall and agreed this week to put one of them -- an application-only alternative school -- at Northgate Mall.

School board members decided in a closed session late Thursday to lease an 8,200-square-foot office space in the basement of the mall for about $75,000 a year, said Hugh Osteen, the schools' head of operations. The new program will house about 100 students starting in August.

The school, called a Performance Learning Center, is a model of alternative education for students 16 and older designed by the national nonprofit group Communities in Schools.

The program is aimed at teens who are capable of earning a high-school diploma but didn't succeed in traditional high schools because of other challenges, such as having to work or care for a child. It's not designed for students with disciplinary problems or special needs.

Instead of rows of desks and a blackboard, classrooms will be office-like. Each student will have his or her own computer, work at his own pace, and will complete an internship before graduating, said Bud Reiter-Lavery, executive director of Communities in Schools of Durham.

For the nature of the program, the location near so many businesses is a bonus, he said. In addition to the retail stores in the mall, the lower level houses offices for counselors, attorneys and other companies that could provide internships.

"There's a strong emphasis on linking students to the work world," Reiter-Lavery said. Being close to businesses will save time and transportation, he said.

School board members agreed unanimously in December to create the alternative program using some school district money and about $250,000 from a grant the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave to Communities in Schools late last year.

The grant covers computers, one staff position and other supplies. The school district will pay for five full-time instructors, plus some transportation.

Reiter-Lavery said he estimates about half of the students will drive to school, and the other half will use city buses to get there or take school buses. Details have yet to be set.

The office space that will house the school was designed for 250 workers, so students won't be lacking for space, said Bruce Benton, who is in charge of office leasing for the mall.

There are more than two dozen Performance Learning Centers throughout Georgia, the first one formed in 2002. North Carolina's first such school opened a few months ago in Charlotte, which Durham administrators are scheduled to tour next month.

As local school leaders plan for the school at Northgate, they have three other programs also to launch in August.

Two are small science- and technology-based programs within Hillside and Southern high schools. They won't increase the overall population at either school -- the programs will redirect about 100 students from mainstream classes to project-based learning.

The fourth new program will be a magnet middle school in a building on Umstead Street that used to house W.G. Pearson Elementary.