After months of discussion, questions and public criticism, the Issaquah School Board is still trying to decide the long-term fate of Tiger Mountain Community High School.
The board met with several district administrators Sept. 24 in a roundtable-format study session. Much of the two-hour meeting was spent addressing concerns about what happens to students if the district’s plan to close the alternative school next year is approved.
The board held two public hearings on the matter earlier in September, but a timeline for making a decision hasn’t been announced.
Tiger Mountain, which has served as the Issaquah School District’s alternative high school since 1991, has fewer than 100 students enrolled this fall. Most live inside the district’s boundaries and would otherwise attend Issaquah, Liberty or Skyline high schools, but a few come from neighboring districts.
District Superintendent Ron Thiele has proposed closing Tiger Mountain for the 2015-16 school year, and then opening a new alternative school under a different educational model in 2016-17.
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That plan has drawn the ire of the Tiger Mountain community, which has started an online petition to keep the school open.
Dennis Wright, the district’s director of career and counseling services, said about a dozen Tiger Mountain students are currently using a 504 Plan, which allows them to receive in-school accommodations to deal with a physical or mental disability.
Other students have individualized education plans, or IEPs, that require schools to give them specialized instruction and support services because of their disability.
Around the district, about 2,200 students, or about 12 percent of the population, use IEPs or 504s. Tiger Mountain parents and students have said those plans weren’t followed during their time at comprehensive schools.
Officials indicate they take those plans seriously.
“If you’re out of compliance with an IEP or 504, there’s possible discipline that goes with it,” said Andrea McCormick, principal at Issaquah High School.
The district has received a lot of public feedback about the use of those plans in conjunction with Tiger Mountain’s possible closure. Thiele, a former school principal, said he’s very familiar with the plans.
“It’s not perfect. If it were perfect, you wouldn’t have heard any of the testimony you did,” he said.
If Tiger Mountain closes, the district plans to develop personal learning plans for every student that hasn’t graduated. The plans would be drawn up using a team approach — the student, their parents and a general education teacher would all have input.
The plans would be designed to help Tiger Mountain students reach the 20 credits they need for graduation — a number that increases to 24 with the class of 2019, next year’s ninth-grade class.
Tiger Mountain Principal Michael Schiehser said there’s a growing national trend of closing traditional alternative schools. Some districts are replacing them with “forward-thinking” instructional models like Big Picture Learning.
Thiele noted that neighboring districts like Bellevue, Tahoma and White River have closed their alternative programs in recent years. He also said Issaquah could waive certain graduation requirements under the personal learning models.
“We would want to take it case by case,” he said.
As part of the discussion about a new alternative school, officials have noted the large number of students throughout the district who aren’t attending Tiger Mountain even though they’re at high risk of not graduating.
The district has added new full-time support positions, known as graduation specialists, at its three comprehensive high schools to help struggling students. If Tiger Mountain closes, its students could theoretically return to a comprehensive high school to get more individualized help.
Liberty Principal Josh Almy said his school’s graduation specialist is devoted entirely to students who are at least two credits behind. The school is doing a series of “credit retrieval” programs this fall in English, math and social studies, he said.
“I believe with our sophomores and juniors, a big chunk of them will be on track to graduate in the next three semesters,” Almy said.
Thiele acknowledged the likelihood that large comprehensive schools simply won’t work for some Tiger Mountain students.
But administrators also believe they’re putting plans in place that could help students who need a nontraditional setting to succeed academically.
“I think I could see, if kids choose to return to a comprehensive high-school setting, having more success than they did before,” McCormick said.