Discovery Alternative Middle School

Students Blossom at Pasco School*
By Wendy Culverwell, Herald Staff Writer

Students who once gave principals in their old schools migraines now flourish in Raul Sital's one-room school in Pasco.

Now in its second year, the Pasco School District's experimental alternative program for middle school students is growing. It is about to gain a second teacher and soon will move into its own home. It also has racked up an impressive list of success stories from the young teens it serves.

Sital has served as principal, teacher, mentor and friend to students who have attended since Discovery Alternative Middle School started in the fall of 1998.

Discovery's lessons always have focused on personal and social responsibility, areas where students often had shortcomings. This year, teachers added an on-line learning system called novaNET.

The school district pays novaNET, a private company, to provide on-line lessons tailored to each student's academic level.

Sital said the computerized approach means each student gets lessons suited to his or her skill level, not that of the class in general.

The Discovery staff will double this week, with the addition of a second teacher, Sarah Ard. The other major development is the school's pending move to the campus of New Horizons, the district's alternative school for high school students.

By March, Discovery will be entrenched in a series of portable offices trucked over from the Hanford site and donated to the school district.

Sital estimates 45 pupils have passed through Discovery's doors. Some have returned to their home middle schools; some have moved on to Texas or Mexico for the winter...[more]

*Note: In doing research for this school, this Tri-City Herald article dating January 17, 2000, was the only piece of information I could find for the school. The Pasco School District's website has this school listed as a school in the district, however, no information was available. If you, or anyone else for that matter, would like to submit an article about Discovery Alternative Middle School, please do so.