The USD 497 School Board voted in September to turn the former Centennial Elementary School building into a space for a new alternative high school program.
Superintendent Jeanice Kerr Swift presented the plan at a school board meeting on September 24, addressing questions from school board members.
“The Centennial Choice campus is really a student choice option…It may be for full-time students, for part-time students, for both credit acceleration…and for credit recovery,” Swift said. “We really are excited about opening the door to a different way of learning, really based entirely around the profile of the student and what they need.”
Swift noted that while the Lawrence Virtual School and the College and Career Center are popular alternatives, they do not always meet students’ individual learning needs.
“Students who need a different way of learning have often had the choice of virtual, or they might choose the Academy [College and Career Center], even though that’s not really meeting the need perfectly,” Swift said. “A choice campus at Centennial will provide students with equitable access to a flexible non-traditional high school program, ensuring that every learner has the opportunity to thrive in an environment that is personalized and designed to best meet their needs.”
The new choice school will not deter the College and Career Center, which will continue serving students in career-focused pathways.
Swift believes that the population of the new choice school provides more flexibility compared to the previous school’s 102-student cap, allowing the building to fit more students who attend at different times.
“Because of the come and go morning, afternoon, and evening sessions. I have noted that you’re able to serve quite a lot of students,” Swift said. “A student needing credit recovery at one of our high schools might choose to go Tuesday and Thursday evenings… A student who chooses it full-time…perhaps they’re on a 12 to 5 schedule or a 4 to 8:00 pm schedule. So, we feel like the flexibility is going to allow us to serve more than you might think.”
The choice school would not disrupt the current use of the Centennial building for LHS sports teams.
“[Centennial] has served for some of the time as a location for the virtual school at one point, and also as a practice site for Lawrence High baseball. It currently serves that way, continuing even now with indoor batting cages and with tennis and golf and other LHS sports storage and usage there,” Swift said. “I do want to also emphasize that the current proposal does not displace those athletic purposes. There really is room in the building to achieve both goals.”
Lindsey Cleavenger, an LHS SPED teacher, attended the Lawrence Alternative High School, which closed in 2003 due to high costs and low student performance, after becoming pregnant during her sophomore year at LHS.
“They would only give you a few weeks off when you have a baby, which I didn’t really like, so just moving there to a more flexible environment with everything that I was going through anyway, [was] more comfortable,” Cleavenger said.
Besides convenience, Cleavenger noted that the staff-student connections at the school were beneficial to students’ learning and achievements.
“The teachers were on a first-name basis, and they were very supportive and encouraging and flexible and really wanted the students to succeed,” Cleavenger said. “I think that without that, a lot of other students who went there would not have graduated high school.”
When asked about her opinion on the reimplementation of an alternative school, Cleavenger supported the idea– if it’s financially viable for the district.
“I think it’s a good idea if it’s executed properly and they can financially maintain it. I see a need [for the school], I have at least one student off the top of my head that needs a different environment,” Cleavenger said. “They can work very well in my room, where it’s a smaller class size, so I think there is definitely a need for it.”
A common misconception associated with alternative schools is that they primarily serve students prone to misbehavior. Lori Stussie, an LHS building substitute teacher and former Lawrence alternative school teacher, opposes this assumption.
“Students at the alternative high school had to apply to come there. They could not be placed by an administrator or anyone from the other traditional high schools. They had to come in and go through an interview process, and they had to have a stated goal of wanting to graduate from high school,” Stussie said. “The key component of making that school successful was it was filled with students who wanted to be there.”
Stussie emphasized the diversity of the previous alternative school’s population.
“We had a National Merit semi-finalist at the alternative high school, we had students who had experienced great tragedy, I had a couple of students who had infants, I had one who was a single mom and living in an apartment alone,” Stussie said. “We’ve got people that work for the district that graduated from the alternative high school, nurses, doctors, and teachers.”
Stussie believes the school could be reintegrated as a well-utilized resource for high schoolers looking for a different learning environment.
“I think students who maybe feel a great deal of anxiety when they’re surrounded by 1,500 people, but do want to be successful academically, [would be good candidates for the school]. Students who maybe want to accelerate their process of completing credits are good candidates,” Stussie said. “I just think the main component is actually a desire to get that degree and be successful.”
According to Swift, the cost of the project will fit within the district’s approved 2025-26 budget from the capital outlay fund. The district plans for the school to be operational by August 2026.
“To me, the powerful lever here is that it’s student choice,” Swift said. “It’s not the result of an IEP meeting or the result of a chief team meeting, It’s the student and family choice to say, ‘I need something different. I need something small. I need something individualized. I’d like to set it up this way.’ And for great professionals to support them in doing so.”
