I’d noticed him earlier, of course. In the post 9/11 environment, I notice everyone on airplanes, particularly those sitting next to me. I’d already made my mental note for the FBI in the event that he attempted to hijack the plane: Soul patch on chin, very short dark hair, baggy jeans, blue T-shirt with grey stripe across the chest, overstuffed backpack beneath feet, CD player on, headphones wrapped casually around neck instead of over head, late teens or early 20s.

I know. I have issues. I’m working on it.

Anyway, with highlighter in hand, I had buried myself in the book I was reading on alternative education (reviewed on page 6). It was not a book I’d considered a conversation starter, so I was surprised when the young man next to me volunteered that he had attended an alternative high school.

When I asked him if he’d mind telling me about his experience with alt-ed, a large smile spread across his face.

“I’m always happy to talk about it,” he said. He introduced himself as Sean and explained that he and his parents went through quite a struggle with the school system before they found an alternative high school.

Sean stated that he’d been diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) as a child and had been medicated ever since. By his freshman year in high school, he said that his attention span was decreasing. He stopped do

ing his classwork and started to experiment with drugs and stealing. Ultimately he was expelled from his public school. For his sophomore year, his parents enrolled him in a private preparatory school. Things didn’t change much in that environment, but it was there he had a friend who introduced him to the drums and uncovered a passion for music.

“As far as school went, I still had behavior problems,” Sean said. “I was pretty defiant. After not being wanted by a couple of schools, I knew something needed to be done. The only option was this [alternative] school my dad found out about.”

The school was Oak View in Agoura Hills, Calif. He had an interview with the principal, who explained that the school was really in demand for people, such as he, who lived outside the immediate community.

“She explained to me how it worked,” Sean said. “We had self-paced packets that we turned in every week or so, so you could work as fast or slow as you wanted.”

The difference between the alternative school and his previous experiences with both regular public school and private school was like night and day for Sean.

“The teachers really showed a genuine interest in seeing the kids succeed,” Sean said. “The classes were smaller and I got a lot of one-on-one attention.”

An alternative school is just that: a school that provides an alternative to a regular public education, and it can take many forms. Some alternative schools are for students with high aptitudes for specific disciplines such as the sciences, math or the arts. Others provide specific vocational education or simply provide a nontraditional approach to teaching, such

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