BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON -- The words in red and orange letters seem to jump off the bright blue poster hanging high on the classroom wall: "To settle an argument, think about WHAT is right, not WHO is right."
Messages about self-control and proper behavior are given as much emphasis in this special school as academics.
The reason: Most of the students here got into fights at their regular schools, and many have been hauled into juvenile court. "We have two girls who got into a fight with each other on the first day of school while coming home on the bus," said Judy Carnes. "We have two sisters who fought with each other at school."
Mrs. Carnes is administrator of RESCUE, a new alternative school for suspended or expelled students in grades 7-12 in Hamilton city schools. RESCUE is an acronym for the Roosevelt Expulsion - Suspension Center for Uninterrupted Education
The program at the former Roosevelt Junior High School opened Aug. 31. Butler County officials are searching for a similar site in Middletown for Middletown-Monroe students.
The alternative program for Hamilton and Middletown-Monroe school districts is a pilot project paid for by a $1.5 million grant from the Ohio Department of Human Services.
The program receives support from the county juvenile court, county social services and the county commissioners, who agreed to pay $397,000 for the one-year lease and the refurbishing of Roosevelt. Some county social service programs also will use the building. The enrollment at Roosevelt was five students at the beginning of last week and 16 by Friday. As the school year progresses, Roosevelt's enrollment probably will shoot up to 180, Mrs. Carnes said.
RESCUE offers a highly structured educational setting for students who would otherwise be at home watching TV or running the streets.
"Most of them are, deep down, good kids who are making bad decisions," Mrs. Carnes said. "Our goal is to make a difference with as many students as possible. We're not going to save them all, as nice as that would be."
RESCUE has six certified teachers, and will eventually add two more.
The students take academic subjects from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and receive counseling services from 4-6 p.m.
Security at the school is tight. Students must go through a metal detector when they enter, and they can't leave a classroom unless they're accompanied by one of the hall monitors.
The counseling services include anger management, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and family intervention, which involves their parents.
The teachers try to maintain a balance between nurturing and disciplining.
"They need so much nurturing," teacher Laura Rentz Krause said. "But we have to do it with tough love. Mollycoddling them won't work."
On the school's opening day, teacher Jan Wilson asked several students to write down what they did to merit their suspension or expulsion. Then she told them to write down other behavioral options they could have chosen that might have kept them out of trouble.
"One boy looked at the options on his paper and said, "I sure picked the dumbest one, didn't I?' " Mrs. Wilson said. "To get them to admit that is a big step in the right direction."
