By Carol Anders Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — By mid-October, an alternative school in Plymouth for students in grades five through eight will be in place.
Reid Gault, assistant principal at Lincoln Junior High, and Donna Burroughs, principal at Riverside Intermediate, are two of the administrators who have been working on the project for several months.
“The Plymouth Alternative Learning School will be for those students who are not being successful in the traditional way and have not responded to other interventions,” Galt said. “In a small classroom setting, there is less outside stimulation and distractions.”

The number of students enrolled at any one time will be limited to 10.
The classroom has been set up in the Service Center off Berkley Street where the alternative school for high school students is housed as well.
Burroughs said, “We are not doing this as a disciplinary thing. It’s a part of an intervention system.”
According to Burroughs, students enrolled in the program will continue to receive instruction over the same material as others in the same grade are covering. Gault said, “The goal is to prepare them to be more successful in their “home” school.”
Burroughs said a committee of parents, teachers, administrators and others will meet to formulate a plan for each student and each one will have an individual learning plan.
“There are as many reasons for kids being there (alternative classroom) as there are kids in the program,” Burroughs added.
She said they do not anticipate students having difficulty returning to the regular classroom setting at some point.
She said, “Kids are pretty resilient.”
Gault said there will be a review process for each student one time each semester.
The teacher of the program, Mary Wood, was officially hired at the last school board meeting on Sept, 17. Wood taught in a similar program for high school aged students for more than 10 years. Wood said, “I’m looking forward to being back in the classroom after working at Notre Dame for the last three and one-half years.”
Counselors from Bowen Center will also be made available to the students as well. Burroughs said, “At that age, everything is going on in the body — not just in the mind.” She said, “Many are asking how they fit in the world.”
Plymouth Schools’ Superintendent Dan Tyree is a strong supporter of the program. Tyree said, “We are using stimulus dollars to fund this position for two years.”
He added,” We are excited about the addition of this program for our students. We know that school cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution to education. This gives Plymouth Schools another choice that will replace home-bound education, suspensions, and/or expulsions.”