Bloomington Graduation School

Bloomington Graduation School is an alternative high school. Students who for academic, social or personal reasons decide not to go to High School North or High School South, go to Graduation School to finish high school. When students talk about reasons that they like this school, they all mention that they like the small classes; and indeed they are small with fewer than ten  students in  each class I visited.

The students are really friendly and open to talk to me. I have been visiting the English class of Becky Rupert who has been doing a unit on "Literacy in our Lives" with the students. In short, they use  a planning sheet to map out all the areas in their lives where they use literacy. They explain the type of literacy skills they use in each area and why this is important to them and their personal identity. Using an iPad, they then create a movie of their life and the literacy involved in it.

Many students here want to graduate early, so they have the ability to work ahead at their own pace if they finish a unit of work.