School, extension service team to broaden educational experiences

WELLSBURG -- Students at the former Brooke County Schools Alternative Learning Center have been learning new things and more about themselves, thanks to a partnership with the Brooke County West Virginia University Extension Service, say school officials.

Michael Lewis, the school's administrator, said it has been renamed Brooke Bridge in hopes of shedding any negative image it may have had in the past.

The alternative learning center was established years ago to provide instruction to students not compatible with a traditional classroom setting. Discipline problems often were a catalyst for the students' entry to the program.

But Lewis said that's much less the case now, with such issues linked to only a handful of students among the 72 who were taught there last year.

He said if there's a common link among them, it's a lack of interest in school that put them at risk of dropping out.

"To be able to bring them back in, it's important to find out what their passion is," said Lewis, who added the partnerships with the WVU Extension Service have opened new pathways for the students to explore.

Lewis said one has been involving them in community projects in which they can take pride.

Through the efforts of Jason Rine, Candy Taylor and others with the extension service, a 4-H chapter at the school has taken over the community garden planted when the building housed Wellsburg Middle School.

Lewis said students were given seeds to plant their own vegetables at home, and there are plans to teach them to can produce harvested from the school's garden.

He noted students already have enjoyed chopping vegetables into the omelets they have cooked at the school.

Members also aided the Brooke-Hancock Family Resource Network in installing a Blessing Box, in which people may leave non-perishable food and toiletries for residents in need, outside the Brooke County Public Library.

Through the extension service, the school has received several bicycles for use in their physical fitness classes.

Lewis said the students enjoy bicycling and walking because they can get away from classrooms, but the two low-stress activities also provide them with plenty of exercise.

He noted the students carry digital pedometers while walking and have learned to record their vital health signs while doing so.

Staff with the extension service also have obtained fishing poles and other gear for them, said Lewis, adding they may compete in a state fishing tournament.

Lewis said the school also has had a great working relationship with the AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America program.

In exchange for their service to various nonprofit organizations, participants in the national program receive a stipend for living expenses and funds toward their educational expenses.

Lewis said last year two AmeriCorps VISTA participants -- Michelle Montelione and Taylor Cross -- tutored the students in areas of difficulty and assisted with activities at the school.

A reminder of their presence are the lockers they painted to resemble bookshelves. Lewis noted they taught students at the school to add their own favorite books to the "shelves."

Such partnerships aren't unusual for the school, which also has sent a couple of students to nearby Brooke Primary South to teach the children there about caring for fish in an aquarium they helped set up.

Lewis said there also are two 50-gallon fish tanks at Brooke Bridge that are maintained by students.

He said such activities help to build students' self-esteem.

Lewis said he and his staff stress accepting mistakes and learning from them, so students come to understand they may make bad decisions but are not bad themselves.

"If you put our kids in a different light, they start to see themselves differently," he said.