VALTS, the Valley Alternative Learning Transitioning School, celebrated 25 years serving 11 area school districts this week.
The program has students who- for some reason or another- just don’t fit into their home district, so they come to VALTS, where there is smaller classrooms and hands on learning.
Longtime teacher Karen Reason says one of the factors the program is so successful is because they are able to build relationships with the kids to help them further out in their life.
” It’s awesome. As all the teachers here all tell you that,” she explained. “We all have kids on our Facebook or kids in our phones contact us after they graduate. It’s fun to see where their lives are. They’ve got kids, they’ve got careers, they’ve got jobs. But they always know that they can come back here if they need help with anything, whether it be applying for college, applying for scholarships or just basic life lessons that we can help them with filling out applications, writing resumes. They can always come back here. We have a student in tonight that graduated seven years ago and still pops in to see us. And we appreciate seeing him and he appreciates us being here, too.
She believes the program can also continue for another 25 years with the ongoing support from the partner school districts.
“I absolutely think so. There’s always going to be a need. Like I said, we have students that are out here for lots of different reasons, and that’s going to continue. We’ve got very, very supportive school districts. And so they’re going to continue to send their kids here because they believe in the program. And that’s what it’s all about, is making sure that we’re providing the programs that they need for their kids.”
