Mission
Our mission is to provide students with additional chances for personal and academic success in a safe, supportive school community and to enable students to achieve individual goals through the creation of a reclaiming environment that provides experiences that meet individual needs of belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity.

Program
The Ulster BOCES Center for Alternative Education offers a full academic program approved by the New York State Education Department. Students receive academic credits for the course work and can earn their Regents diplomas. Over the past several years, more than half of these students who once were on the road to dropping out of school not only complete high school, but go on to college as well.

All ninth and tenth grade students enrolled in the A-School participate in career exploration classes. Students are introduced to a variety of career options and learn necessary skills for success in the workforce. In the tenth grade, students will select one cluster to focus on. Finally, in eleventh and twelfth grades, all students choose to specialize in a career area at the Career & Technical Center. Work experience and career preparation activities and programs are available to all students, as well as Career & Technical morning or afternoon sessions. Students also receive individual and career counseling education.

Students
Almost all of the students were once potential dropouts. They are referred to the program by their home school districts. The admission process includes an intake interview, testing, and a determination by the school that the student is committed to approaching this alternative educational experience in a positive way.

Staff
All teaching at the school is undertaken with the understanding that students have different learning styles. The program is fully committed to adequate staffing. The staff includes teachers, guidance counselors, social workers, case aides, crisis intervention specialists, teaching assistants, teacher aides, one principal, one nurse, two secretaries, two custodians, and one volunteer.

Support Services
Adequate staffing allows for much needed day-to-day processing of problems between students and their peers, students and teachers, or students and their families. The effort to change the cycle of failure and conflict is viewed as a continuing process. While the answer for some students has not yet been found, the current attendance rate shows that the Ulster BOCES Center for Alternative Education offers something that keeps students in school and gives them the opportunity to succeed under the supervision of a deeply committed professional staff.

Attendance
Innovative programs are among many methods used to eliminate poor attendance and other problematic student behavior. The way staff systematically responds to students’ behaviors also contributes to academic success. During the past several years the use of out-of-school suspension has dropped dramatically. Often perceived by students as a way of staying home and sleeping late, suspension served to create a more negative attitude about school and caused students who were already having trouble completing work to miss even more class time. Today, relatively short in-school detentions are used for inappropriate behavior. In addition, students are assigned to community service projects as a method of instilling respect for property and other people at the school.