Enterprise opens Temporary Alternative Placement Center

Enterprise City Schools has started the school year with a new facility under its belt.

As students returned to their classes Monday, some reported to the Temporary Alternative Placement Center.

“We want to help all of our students,” said superintendent Aaron Milner. “We want to make sure that students don’t disrupt learning for other students, but we also want to make sure that students that may have been disruptive are in a setting that allows them to overcome and be successful.”

Milner said Adequate Yearly Progress requirements leave the school accountable for every student, meaning the days of casting away a young person are over.

“We’re held accountable for every single student that doesn’t graduate with his age group,” Milner said.

Jason Stump, a former teacher and coach in the system, has taken the role of principal at the Temporary Alternative Placement Center.

“Right now we’ve got two parts to the school,” Stump said. “We host students with disciplinary problems that otherwise could have gotten in trouble and been expelled and we have students making up credits in our credit recovery program.”

Stump said the TAP center provides an alternative that allows struggling students to stay in school.

“For the students with disciplinary problems, it’s a more rigorous kind of setting with less freedoms and less socialization,” he said. “The children in the credit recovery program are not in any trouble discipline wise, but may be struggling academically.”

Stump said credit recovery could be required if a student is behind on credits due to absence or sickness.

“The students can come here and do an accelerated course online and even some courses that we’ll offer through Access or Compass Learning, which can help them catch up with their age group and graduate on time,” Stump said.

Due to the Alabama’s new graduation calculation rate, all systems are held accountable when students do not graduate with the class they started school with.

“We have to make sure they graduate in four years to meet accountability standards,” Milner said.

Milner said students could also utilize the TAP center to get ahead.

“Students can take their core classes and then come to the TAP center after school hours and take classes that will allow them to get ahead,” Milner said. “This is great for students who want to graduate a semester early and students who might want to take a class they couldn’t fit into their schedule due to an elective.”

Stump said he’s excited about opening the new facility, which is located in the old choral music room next to the system’s central office off of Henderson Street.

“We’re working to get all of our classes online so we won’t have to move assignments back and forth from school to school,” he said.

For more information, contact Enterprise City Schools at 347-9531.