“Students moving into the district and in group homes, they are hurting and they’re just not ready to sit and receive instruction,” Dinsmore said. “They need something else. They’re just not ready.”
The students could be put in a building and given extra support with a plan to get those students back into a “regular” classroom, Lisa Minor, Dayton Public Schools associate superintendent, said. But she said there could be options to keep some of those students in the alternative school.
“I do believe we can save all children with the right treatments and with the right people working with them because I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it,” Minor said.
The school could be situated at three potential sites. The district has space on the first level at Mound Street Academy, and already has furniture at the site. The district could purchase Bethel Church, located at 327 S. Smithville Road, near Wright Brothers Middle School, which would cost between $1.7 and $2.2 million depending on how much of the property the district wants to buy.
The district could also use the Jackson Center, at 329 Abbey Ave., which was formerly Gorman Elementary School. But interim district business manager Tiffany Powell said the building has multiple issues with plumbing, heating and cooling and is not accessible for those with disabilities.
Board president Will Smith said the district needs to do something about the many students in the district who are acting out as they deal with severe mental health problems.
“I think it’s really investing in our community’s future when you’re trying to find ways to educate,” Smith said. “I don’t want to create a dumping site, but I really want to create a way that we get to understand what our children are really going through.”
Members of the board said they had multiple concerns about such a school, which has been in practice before at Dayton Public. One of the iterations of this type of alternative school included the Innovative Learning Center, which closed in 2018 as part of a “right-sizing” initiative.
Board members asked how the district would deal with safety, since the reason many of the students would be in the school because they were disruptive toward other students or had brought a weapon to school, as well as how the district would construct a school that wasn’t a reward for misbehavior.
Board members also brought up time. The district plans to have the school open by the beginning of next school year, and the board has yet to vote on a place for the building. Minor said most of the staff could be pulled from those who are already employed, but depending on the needs, DPS may need to hire more.
Two years ago, Dayton Public proposed what is now the International School at an April meeting and was able to have it open by the beginning of the next school year.
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