Alternative schools for intermediate grade students should be small and located in a separate building, where students and teachers can develop their own sense of identity. Curricula for high risk students require three components: a vocational orientation, interdisciplinary team projects, and a mastery learning/continuous progress approach.…

Excerpted here from an address presented to the Indiana Association of Secondary School Principals, this article focuses on how community education programs can help solve some of the crises schools face today as they search for relevancy and meaning. (Editor)

Alternatives in junior high, middle, and intermediate schools run the gamut, the researchers of NASSP's exemplary program files discovered. A few of them are described in this article. (Editor)