You know the kid. He cuts up in class. He stands and karate chops while the other children quietly listen to a story. He spends more time in the principal’s office than he does in his own classroom.

What stands between this kid and drugs, secondary school expulsion and gang membership?

For at-risk students at Victor Scott Primary School in Pembroke, the answer could be a new classroom.

Victor Scott principal Gina Tucker was so alarmed by the growing line of “regulars” outside her office every day, she decided enough was enough.

“I worry about what will happen to Bermuda and society in general, if we don’t start helping these kids as a community,” Dr. Tucker said.

In September, the first alternative learning classroom opened at Victor Scott called The Alternative Centre for Education (ACE) — or to the students ‘Another Cool Environment’. ACE emphasises experiential learning through field trips, hands-on experience and smaller class sizes.

The Royal Gazette visited the classroom on a Tuesday morning with Dr. Tucker to find out what the programme was all about. On this day, students were picking out adjectives in The Royal Gazette <$>with teacher Gladnora Ming and para-professional Renee Lewis.

When asked to find an adjective to describe his class, one little boy said: “We go on lots of field trips.”

“That’s not an adjective,” said another student.

“Oh,” he said. Then with some prompting, “Helpful.”

“Is it boring?” his teacher, Ms Ming asked him.

He shook his head hard. “No. It’s not boring. We go on lots of field trips.”

The field trips were a popular item in the class.

In this classroom there was only one girl. The nine others were all boys ranging from grades P2 to P6.

“There are ten students in this class, and there are easily ten more that need to be here, if we had the space and the resources,” said Dr. Tucker. “Around 90 to 95 percent of the students who need to be here are male. We do have some girls. There is one in this classroom, but generally, it is a ‘boy thing’.”

This was not a classroom where students sat in neat little rows and listened quietly to the teacher. During the lesson, students regularly stood up, moved to a second room to get a book or a piece of learning equipment. One child stood, doing a little dance while waiting for the teacher to look at his work. Students were enthusiastic about their task, but it was clear that many of them had trouble simply sitting still. Ms Ming and Ms Lewis constantly worked to focus and re-focus the students.

“If some of our students are having behaviour-challenges, then that prevents other students from learning,” said Dr. Tucker.

“It prevents teachers from teaching effectively. Everything in a learning environment is effected by the challenges of anti-classroom behaviour. So we went out on a limb. This is very much us trying to do something for some kids who we really care about, who need a chance to feel better about school.”

Although some children were antsy, they were clearly into the lesson, attentive to Ms Ming, in their own way, and happy to be with other children who had similar hurdles to overcome. The mood in the classroom was a productive one.

“Some of our students have told us, they’d make trouble in a regular classroom, because sitting outside the principal’s office was better than embarrassing themselves, trying to read in front of their classmates,” said Ms Ming.

Ms Ming and Miss Lewis were positive with the children, finding things to praise.

“A big part of your learning stems from your self-esteem,” said Dr. Tucker.

“If your self-esteem is not in check, ultimately you are not motivated to feel comfortable learning. Ms Ming does a wonderful job. She is really working to build that self-esteem. We are trying to tell the students, ‘You are valued. You are a good person.’”

Not every day is a good day though. The students do have their meltdowns and tantrums. Outside the classroom the words “It’s okay to be mad” were painted on the wall in brown finger paint.

It is a dream of Ms Ming’s to one day have a sensory room, where students can go to calm down after a tantrum. Some of the ACE students have chemical imbalances or emotional difficulties to work through.

Ms Ming said it is still early to tell if the students are benefiting from the ACE classroom.

“I think we have come a long way,” said Dr. Tucker.

“I haven’t suspended any of the children since September. Before, these kids would have been in the office on a regular basis. When you think of that kind of experience or referral — those have minimised. They are better able to understand their circumstances and challenges.

“Can they do better with more — of course. You always want to give them everything they need. Clearly, we just don’t have everything. But there has definitely been progress, just in the fact that they are in school more than they’re out of school. And they are in a learning environment more than they are in the office.”

Ms Ming created the classroom out of two old school changing rooms. When she came in there were electrical outlets, and that’s all. CellularOne, recently stepped in and donated Internet and Yak Wireless telephone service.

Unfortunately, students still don’t have any computers to actually use the Internet.

“We are excited to be partnering with CellularOne, and we are now looking for other businesses in the community to donate laptops to the ACE programme to provide our students with the advantages that come with computers and the internet in the classroom,” said Dr. Tucker.

“The ACE programme is in continual development and we are working closely with the Ministry of Education to ensure that the needs of children in this programme are fully met.”

Ms Ming said a donation of computers, would be a tremendous gift to the ACE students.

“They are technically inclined,” she said. “When you put computers in front of them they go wild. They have IT instruction with the IT teacher once a week. They catch on very quickly. They are doing power point presentations and they are on the Internet.”

Dr. Tucker said the school has a wonderful window of opportunity to really help their at-risk kids.

“As a community, we really need to give these young people who have these challenges, everything we have to save them early and prevent later inappropriate conduct. It will come.”

Ms Ming is looking for trades people and other community members to come in and talk with the children on a regular basis about their careers and lives. Recently, they had a plumber come in to talk to the students, and they really appreciated it.