Claw Academy Re-Opening at Alcona Community Schools
Claw Academy is a branch of Alcona Community Schools that offers a flexible learning space for students, who can choose to supplement their traditional education with this alternative form of learning.
“The real benefit here, I think, is to try to offer as diverse programming as possible for students,” said Alcona Community Schools Superintendent Dan O’Connor. Not everybody fits in that five days a week, 180 days, seven hours a day type of educational process, and this works for some people.”
Roughly a dozen students have already signed up for the program before it has been widely advertised, due to the fact that it was so heavily demanded the program be brought back.
“It kind of came to a point where we had to determine a way to come up with the capacity to get the program open again because the students wanted it, and so that’s why we’re here,” said O’Connor. “That’s the primary reason behind getting started and it took less than two weeks to have a dozen kids essentially registered or interested in the program.”
Alternative course work has become an increasingly efficient method of learning in schools in recent years, but some people may still be skeptical of it and prefer a more traditional form of learning. O’Connor says there are success stories to point to with alternative learning.
“The moment we were able to offer some additional online courses for those students in the past couple of years, they thrived and totally turned it around,” he said. “If we would have kept forcing them into the same system and asking them to be in a classroom seven hours a day, that just didn’t match what their strengths and skills were.”
The program is expected to be open on the first day of school on August 28th.
“We’re working with the students who are already signed up right now to try to get their schedules aligned and ready to rock when we start the new school year,” said O’Connor.
Parents who are interested in learning more about claw academy can call Alcona Community School at 989-736-6212.
