Alternative Learning Centers Break Prison Pipeline

October 8, 2024

By Morgan Milman and Naomi Thayer

Youthcast Media Group®

Alternative schools are not what you might think. They are not wilderness camps where you’re taken from bed in the night and shipped off to the woods. They are not holding tanks for violent criminals in sterile environments. They are instead places for troubled students to work on their social-emotional wellness needs.

Across Northern Virginia, Alternative Learning Centers, or ALCs, serve as a place for students to rehabilitate from previous infractions and return to public schools. ALCs such as Montrose, adjacent to Alexandria’s Holmes Middle School, provide nontraditional learning spaces to help students who have faced “behavioral challenges, academic difficulties, or students who simply require a nontraditional learning environment,” according to Fairfax County Public Schools’ website.  

Students in ALCs work with counselors and therapists to help them feel connected with staff. The goal is to make them understand that they matter. 

Ben Diconi (courtesy of Diconi)

“A lot it was more counselor-focused like you talk to a counselor every day,” said Ben Diconi, a former student at Montrose ALC who is now a student at Annandale High School. “You know, here [at AHS] if you want to talk to a counselor, you have to go out of your way to talk to them. There a counselor kind of checks in on you like once or twice a week.”

Diconi attended both Burke and Montrose ALCs in 6th and 7th grades for a disciplinary infraction serious enough to remove him from his middle school. 

“I hated Burke. Burke was awful,” Diconi said. “The teachers weren’t there for you, they were kind of just there showing up for their job. And I don’t need a teacher to be there for me, but it was different. Even the teachers here [at Annandale] are better.”

Student support is a focus of many ALCs. Therapist Sammia Jones of New Beginnings Vocational Program high school in Washington, D.C. works closely with ALC students.

“Alternative schools offer a holistic and individualized approach to education, emphasizing mental-health support and addressing learning differences,” Jones said. “By focusing on creating a positive and nurturing environment, these schools can significantly contribute to preventing students from entering the criminal justice system and supporting their overall wellbeing.”

ALCs are an alternative to juvenile detention, thereby allowing students a significantly higher chance of rehabilitation and a future outside of the criminal justice system. Even so, transitioning to an ALC after an infraction is not easy.

“So the start was terrible,” Diconi said. “I was in ISS (In-School Suspension) [at Holmes] for probably a month and a half, just in there by myself like every day. Then [I] had to go to a hearing, like seeing yourself before a judge or something for the school. They talk to you about the situation and kind of ask you what happened. They were doing like a little good-cop, bad-cop thing. I hated it.”

Diconi’s experience at Montrose was not great either, but it wasn’t all bad. 

Students at Montrose were not allowed to interact with the students next door at Holmes. “That was a little hard because you weren’t allowed to talk to them,” Diconi said. “It was a little hard but I still texted them, you know.” 

Montrose staff strives to provide a supportive environment for students to feel connected.

“Everyone there was just uplifting, like positive,” Diconi said. “They want to see you succeed, and get out of there. You could tell with every staff member that's what they really wanted.”

After attending Montrose for the required two quarters, Diconi was able to transition back to Holmes. Students get ready to rejoin the classroom by working with counselors at both schools during the reintegration process. 

“The transition back was really smooth, like doing one semester/two quarters at Montrose and then that's pretty much it,” Diconi said. “After the second quarter ended, I remember the first day I had to go to the counselors’ office and sign a bunch of papers, and then they just let me walk. Printed me a schedule and said, ‘Go to class.’ ”

Not all students have an easy transition back. “The shift back to mainstream schools,” Jones said, “can be accompanied by various obstacles, some common challenges that students face, [such as] stigma and stereotypes, educational gaps.”

Even years after a student transitions out of ALCs, stigma sometimes lingers.

“I wasn’t even a bad kid, you know, I was in middle school,” Diconi said. “People look at me like I’m a thug. It was bad, though, like I hate telling people about it, [but] it was also a good lesson, I think. I really try to keep myself out of trouble now, you know, with college and everything.”

Fairfax County Public Schools, the 10th largest school system in the country, houses four ALCs: Bryant, Burke, Montrose, and Mountain View.

Morgan Millman and Naomi Thayer graduated in 2024 from Annandale High School.