In 2010, when Micah Mobley took over as director of The Edge, an alternative school at Edgewood High School, his position at Edgewood Junior High School had just been cut. Worse, the alternative school itself had recently been in peril as the Richland-Bean Blossom Community School Corporation cut more than $700,000 from its budget in an effort to save teachers’ jobs. Since then, however, the school has continued doing what it did under the leadership of current EJHS principal Melissa Pogue – help students who are struggling in traditional high school classrooms succeed – albeit a little differently than before.
In an October 2012 interview, Mobley summed up the school’s role.
“We are serving a group of students who are just trying to find their way and we’re just trying to support them in finding their way and knowing (a high school diploma) is the best opportunity for a lot of different paths beyond that.”
Sometimes, for whatever reason, it is not clear to students that a high school diploma is important or they struggle because of issues at home or otherwise outside of the school’s control in a traditional setting. Or, as Mobley suggested, the student may require more attention than can be afforded by their teachers due to the larger and larger numbers of students each teacher has.
“It’s unrealistic, I think, to expect that all the kids are going to be successful in any (general) education high school given the number we have. That’s where we come in.”
Mobley said some students in the 2010-11 class would not have graduated on time had they also held a job, so he did not believe the rule made sense for all students participating in the program.
The job requirement came to an end, though preparation for life after high school remained part of the alternative school’s purpose. Students were still allowed to get a job if they could prove that they could manage both school and work.
For those students who do hold jobs while attending The Edge, there is a state program called interdisciplinary cooperative education that allows students to earn credits while working.
“The spirit of the law by the state is that it’s kind of like a way for people to really just develop work skills in general,” Mobley said.
For the program to work, however, the school needs to provide a classroom component for the kids. To that end, there is a professional development class every week during which students practice mock interviews, learn about body language, work on building and writing resumes and more.
The students’ employers, which are businesses like Hardee’s, McDonald’s, Chicago’s, and area grocery stores, report back to the school with feedback forms about how the students are performing the lessons from their professional development classes.
“What we want to see from it is that they’re doing it and that they’re meeting their employers’ standards,” Mobley stated.
Students who have jobs can attend six-hour or three-hour school days, with the option of not attending school on Tuesday or Thursday, one or the other, so long as the student remains on track to graduate on time.
The Edge makes it clear that the diploma is not the end of the journey.
“We do stress that a lot. It’s not a finish line, it is just a springboard to various different paths they want to take,” Mobley added.
Mobley said that time constraints prevent him from building relationships with area businesses that might be able to provide jobs for his students, so he hopes that a steady stream of good employees from the school will foster relationships.
The school system also provides students with resume building experience. Some students at the alternative school work in volunteer positions as teaching aides at Edgewood Primary School one day a week, while others participate in a program called Clothes for Classmates, which sells gently used clothing donated for that purpose.
During their senior year, students at The Edge explore what their lives might be like if they went to college, joined the military or entered the workforce after graduation. For many of them, it is the first time in their lives that they can take a step back and think about what they want to do and what they have to do to get there.
Still, Mobley said, the work component of the program is not the focus.
“My first and foremost thing is get your credits. That’s the No. 1 reason why we’re here. After that, it’s, you know, then your career development.”
Nearly all students who come in to The Edge are juniors or seniors behind in their credits, but in order to be accepted, they cannot be too far behind.
Students must have a minimum of 20 of the 43 credits required to graduate.
“This is like a credit recovery program. It allows them to work at a faster pace,” Mobley said.
Additionally, because The Edge only has 15 students at any one time, prospective students must pass a thorough screening process beginning with the guidance office reviewing their application. If the guidance office feels they’ve made a compelling case, then the application is sent to EHS Principal Dick Ackerman. If he, too, feels the student’s case is made, he sends the student to Mobley for an interview.
“My first year down here, I thought it was really about me having to really interview them, make sure they were the right fit. And actually, it’s kind of the opposite way. I try to just be as upfront as I can about what they’re actually going to be doing on a day-to-day basis and how hard it’s going to be and what people struggle with when they come down here and just lay it out there,” Mobley said.
He added that he has only rejected a few kids that made it through to the interview. The process weeds out the kids who want to go to the alternative school for the wrong reasons.
“Most of our kids are coming from places where they’ve got a lot of issues anyways. There seems to kind of always be some kind of obstacle in the way,” Mobley noted.
The school has been instrumental in EHS’s overall graduation rate remaining over 90%. Its 17 graduates in the class of 2012, including four graduates who walked the stage in September 2012, drove EHS’s graduation rate up to 91% and helped keep the school at an A rating from the state.
Originally published in Ellettsville Journal, 2013. Republished here for archival and portfolio purposes.