Looks like SEED Alternative School is on its very last legs. This is the alternative high-school I attended from 1988 to 1992; it's the oldest public alternative school in Canada. The school's new administrator (who pitched a tantrum when he met with alumni, students and parents, rejecting the notion that SEED's stakeholders had any business advising him on his custodianship of a unique educational institution) has proposed the elimination of every "alternative" element of the school's day-to-day functioning. SEED School turned me into the person I am today, gave me the confidence to strike out on my own, start my own business, to become a writer.
Tim, the new administrator, has proposed eliminating outside instructors drawn from the community ("Catalysts" in SEED-speak); credit for out-of-classroom work unless it is formally assigned homework (I got English credit for writing and publishing science fiction); and will require fall classes to be scheduled the spring previous (SEED usually gathers its students every fall, determines which classes the students are interested in, and cooperatively sets a schedule that allows the greatest number of students to attend the most classes).
Finally, Tim will eliminate the idea that the students have any business guiding the direction of the school.
There are a lot of SEED alumni who read this blog; I can't imagine that we're any of us too pleased with this. Erik "Possum Man" Stewart has been working with current SEED student to try to resist this stuff; drop him some mail if you have any ideas (or just to lend some moral support).
