A Service of The Arrow           Friday December 17, 1999 7:52 PM

By: Jim Bennett

ARROW STAFF

It's the end of an era.

Craig Hunnicutt is leaving the career center to supervise and teach at District 5's new alternative school, Bridge Academy. This new academy will housed in the basement of the retired hospital and the present home of the Flathead County Health Department. The classes are of an undisclosed number, and the teacher numbers will between two to five for the current time.

The new education approach is called contract-based education.

“Students will work independently,” said Hunnicutt. “And at this point we are looking at a computer- based model.”

The new school will be detached from FHS, and will offer an education to those students who want to attend school, but are unable to, due to outside factors. The school computer-based curriculum will focus on mastery, under which a student must pass a chapter test. If they fail, they have to take the unit over until they pass the test.

“We are still in the idea phase,” said English teacher Susan Ledford, who also plans on teaching at the proposed school. “But we want it to be up and running by Second Semester.”

Both Hunnicutt and Ledford, who also is involved in the project, are set to present the initiative to both the state and the Northwest Accreditation Association, which accredits all high schools in the region. The new school needs to be authorized by Jan. 24, the second semester.

The success of these new schools has not been proven in Montana, yet, but it has had major success in other states. The closest example of contract- based education Spokane, Wash. The school is geared towards self- motivated students and requires three hours of on-site school time per day, and 12 hours of on-site per week, the weeks themselves will be limited to four school days, and about three hours of homework per night.

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