PART One

Sixteen-year-old Jason Camron appears in many ways to be an aver age high school student: he is tall, athletic, and sports dark brown hair. Outside of class , he spends most of his time on the golf course. Camron has been on the Mountain View High School g olf team all three years, and has been playing golf for most of his life, allowing him to tra vel to many places. His strong passion for engineering led him to take the engineering class at Mounta in View High School and enroll in the engineering program at Foothill Middle College. Currently, Camr on is fulling his needs for education by pursuing alternative education to gain the change in classwo rk as well as the change in environment.

Many people assume that alternative education is for “bad” stud ents. In “Reimagining Alternative Education,” Tesha Robinson explains, “alternative education is often associated with students who are at-risk and who display extreme misconduct.” Robinson emphasiz es the improvement in students when they switch to the alternative education, rather than staying i n the “normal” school route.

Camron, as a mainstream student, contradicts this stigma. Suza n Woolflolk, the Director of Alternative Education Programs at the Mountain View-Los Altos Union School District, claims that it is a brave jump to switch to these programs because it shows that you put your education first.” Camron clearly shows that he puts his education first. One example was when he left Mountain View High School to attend Foothill Middle College, by doing this and is actively s howing how he is taking back the negative stigma that alternative education gets. In fact, “Alternative schools have the potential to create a personalized educational experience for the student that is oft en not possible in another type of school setting, in particular, a local public school” (“Benefits of an Alternative School’’). Camron’s decision to pursue alternative education is a testament to the fact alte rnative education is different rather than “normal” school. Camron emphasizes that he “gets a new classro om every quarter. To change the environment.” This quote contrasts the normal school environme nt as you only move classrooms every year. When Camron arrives at Foothill each day he attends to his classes but each quarter he is experiencing a new setting to avoid the lack of reputation that he was receiving at Mountain View High. Also This show how these slight changes in the school environment and teaching ways help Camron learn.