By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer

LERNA -- Imagine trying to teach an English class while having to keep an eye open for visitors. That's something Marilyn Purcell had to do last year in the building where she taught .

"When people came in the door, they would walk through my classroom," Purcell said.

But this year, Purcell and her colleagues have their school program in a school building. They like the new location for the Regional Office of Education's Bridges program. The office began renting the elementary school building in Lerna this year, after the Charleston school board decided to close the school.

Bridges is for students in grades six through 12 who have been expelled or been through other discipline problems, and works to get them back to where they can return to school. It also has sites in Shelbyville and Paris. The Lerna location replaces one in Mattoon.

Last year, the program operated out of a former church on Marshall Avenue, and before that it was in a converted house on DeWitt Avenue. Purcell, who's been with the program for four years, welcomed a building that has individual classrooms, a gymnasium and enough space for outdoor activities.

"It's a wonderful building," she said. "It's going to help their learning."

Bobbi Mattingly, the program's administrator, echoed Purcell's assessment of the move and said she's grateful that the Charleston district was willing to lease the building.

"We've made some pretty minimal facilities do for us," she said. "This is like heaven."

The program at Lerna has four classrooms designed for about 12 students each. There are about 20 students in the building now, but Mattingly said enrollment increases as the school year goes along, and students can stay for a maximum of two years.

Another advantage of the Lerna building is having a room that's used only by staff and for the conference that takes place before a student is admitted, Mattingly explained. The student, a parent and an administrator from the student's school district meet with someone from Bridges, and all of them have to agree that the student would benefit from the program.

There are classes in math, English, history and science and character education and anger management, with four fulltime teaches and part-time art teacher. The building's individual classrooms have also allowed the teachers to teach only their speciality subjects for the first time, Mattingly said.

"They can move around more easily than they did before," she said.

As for the students, Mattingly said the program's "intimacy" seems to work better for them. Computers are used extensively — the building's computer access is another plus — because for many of the students "pushing pencils kind of turned them off" and it's good to have another teaching method, she added.

"We keep up their academics regardless of the choices they've made on the social front," Mattingly said.

She admitted that the students' transition back to a regular school is difficult, but the program lets them go back "caught up" academically while also saying "you can go back to school and be successful" despite the bad choices they've made.

The Lerna site presently has students from Charleston, Mattoon, Casey, Cumberland, Martinsville, Neoga, Sullivan, Lovington and Villa Grove. Students from Arcola and Tuscola also can go to that location.

Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.

Published on Friday, September 9, 2005 11:44 AM CDT
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