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Students at Alpha School in East New York gather twice a day to form an 'A' shape and recite their code of respect.

Things are looking grim for Alpha School.

Despite the East New York alternative program’s last-minute attempts to convince the state agency that it had made a wrong decision, Alpha School will not be funded by the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services next year.

Until last week, the program’s director, Barry Addison, had been in talks with OASAS commissioners and had been told to “sit tight.” But yesterday an agency official called to tell Addison, or Mr. B, of their final decision not to restore funding.

“They said, well, a decision was made, and they had closed their budget gap partly with closing me down,” he said. “There was nothing left for me to say.”

One of the city’s GED Plus programs, Alpha School graduated 32 students with GED diplomas last week. It has also garnered widespread community support, from officers in Brooklyn’s 75th precinct and politicians like State Sen. John Sampson.

Mr. B says he’ll spend the summer trying to find private-sector funds to open the school’s doors again in six weeks.

“It’s not what I do, I just don’t know how to reach out to philanthropists,” he said. “But if I’m going to do anything, I have to reach out.”

The latest city schools official in the running for a top post outside New York is someone who has kept her name out of the headlines. Cami Anderson did this while overseeing the education of some of the city’s most challenging students: high school drop-outs trying to earn GEDs, students in prison, and others in drug rehabilitation programs.

Anderson is one of two candidates being considered for the job of Newark schools chief, the Star Ledger reported today.

Appointed superintendent of the alternative schools district, known as District 79, in 2006, Anderson immediately began shaking up the schools under her control. She closed the city’s remaining schools for pregnant women, known as P-schools, and overhauled the Department of Education’s programs for students studying for the GED exam. As part of a district-wide reorganization, she helped negotiate a deal with the teachers union that required many District 79 teachers to reapply for their jobs.

Yet despite these changes, Anderson has largely worked out of the public eye.

“People have made a lot of comparisons of her and [former Washington D.C. schools chief] Michelle Rhee,” said someone who worked for Anderson. “Michelle was this very vocal ‘I’m not going to do this with these people anymore’ leader, and Cami really took a different route.” (more…)

The city is closing Community Prep High School, the only program here designed to transition students from juvenile prisons and jails to mainstream high schools.

Launched in 2002, Community Prep works with the most struggling young people in the city, offering support and coursework for a few semesters before routing students into high schools and GED programs. On average, Community Prep students have attended seven different schools when they enter, a former director said.

The program has successfully steered many students back into high school, but it has struggled to reach all its charges. The school’s average monthly attendance this year was less than 50 percent. In the first semester of this school year, students earned only 40 percent of the course credits they attempted.

The disappointing showing is the reason that Department of Education officials have concluded the program doesn’t work, despite praise from juvenile justice advocates.

“We know better options already exist,” said spokeswoman Ann Forte. (more…)