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Teacher urges board to keep Accelerated Learning Academy in separate building, warns relocation could harm vulnerable students
Summary
An Accelerated Learning Academy teacher told the Flint Board of Education that moving ALA into a wing of Southwestern High School would harm students who rely on the program’s trauma-informed environment and warned against repeating past consolidation mistakes.
Melissa Kronken, a high school science teacher at Accelerated Learning Academy (ALA), told the Flint Board of Education she supports keeping ALA in a separate building rather than moving it into a wing of Southwestern High School.
Kronken said she has taught in Flint for 28 years and described ALA as a "unique and vital program" that provides a safe, trauma‑informed environment for students who have struggled in traditional schools. "Our students are succeeding because they have a safe space, a place where they are supported, respected, and able to thrive," she said.
Kronken told the board that placing ALA students in a hallway at Southwestern would risk retraumatizing students and undermining interventions used at ALA, including PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports), mindfulness practices and social-emotional strategies referred to in her remarks as "capturing kids' hearts." "When students feel unsafe and exposed to judgment, their brains go into survival mode. And when that happens, learning stops," she said.
She warned the board against repeating past consolidation mistakes, citing a former alternative program that lost enrollment after moving into a traditional high school and eventually closed. "We cannot afford to let history repeat itself," Kronken said, adding that Dr. Rice visited ALA two years ago and called it "the best alternative school he had ever seen," a point she used to underscore the program's effectiveness.
Kronken asked the board to "keep ALA a separate building where our students continue to thrive." The board’s formal agenda later included broader facility-rightsizing discussions; during that conversation trustees mentioned the need to balance fiscal sustainability with program integrity.
What was not decided: The meeting included discussion of facilities and a retreat focused on long-range planning, but the transcript does not record a board decision at this meeting to move ALA or to change ALA’s location.
Quote: "ALA moving ALA to a wing of Southwestern is a mistake, one that could undo the progress that we've worked so hard to achieve." — Melissa Kronken, high school science teacher, Accelerated Learning Academy.
