MOUNTAIN HOME — When the discussion turns to drugs and alcohol in Rick Mattick's second-hour health class, most students have years' worth of war stories to tell.
But these students at Baxter County's Alternative School are only teen-agers. Run-ins with school authorities or the law have landed them here -- the last stop before expulsion or worse.
Forty-year-old Mattick, a 7-foot-1/2-inch-tall former basketball player once drafted into the National Basketball Association, delivers a message to the students that is simple and straight out of his own life.
"Kids respond more to personal experience than learning out of a textbook. When they hear that I was a professional athlete who was brought down by drugs and alcohol, they can look at that and say, 'Whoa,' " says Mattick, who describes himself as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.
"I tell them, 'If you think it's all fun and games, you might as well get it out of your system now. The farther you carry this into life, the farther behind you get. It just doesn't work,' " he says.
The alternative school, a branch of Baxter County's juvenile services department, opened in the spring of 1996 with 20 students, most threatened with expulsion from other schools. At the end of each semester, the school's population swells above 50.
"The reason we started this school is that some 70 percent of students expelled from school are from homes with no parent at home during the day. So they get expelled, have no one to answer to and end up getting into more trouble," says the school's administrator, David Hudson.
The school's curriculum is designed to help youngsters straighten up and return to their normal course of study. While here, students can earn five academic credits per year -- fewer than the seven offered at a normal school, but far better than nothing.
For the privilege of studying here -- and avoiding expulsion from public schools -- students sign a contract requiring them to abide by a strict code of discipline, including such basic courtesies as addressing the faculty as "sir" or "ma'am."
"A lot of our kids are probably not, at least as a lifestyle, accustomed to boundaries that are enforced in love," Hudson says.
Parents also must attend an eight-week course that teaches anger-reduction and conflict-resolution techniques to remedy problems at home that may cause the student to act up in school or away from home.
Penalties for xoffenses such as inappropriate language and tobacco use are spelled out. The first time a student is caught smoking, he has to perform an hour's community service. On the fourth offense, the school can file charges in court, depending on the offense. By the same token, good conduct is rewarded with increased privileges.
"As long as these kids will operate within the guidelines we set down, we'll bend over backwards to help them succeed. But when they step outside the guidelines, I'll do everything legally possible to force them to make choices to come back in," Hudson says.
Jeff, 17, has no illusions about why he's here.
He got so drunk one day at the public high school that when a school administrator made him blow into a Breathalyzer, Jeff fell over backward. Threatened with expulsion, he reported to the alternative school.
T. James, now 18, wound up here after stealing software worth thousands of dollars from the school's computer lab.
Not all the students here committed flagrantly criminal acts.
Jessie, 16, skipped school one day, then called in to excuse her own absence. When an administrator called her on it the next day, Jessie exploded in a fit of anger, spewing obscenities.
"He suspended me and told me to leave campus. I said, 'No, I wasn't going to leave because I didn't want to be suspended,' " she says.
Police were called to remove Jessie from the campus. After 10 days of community service, she reported to the alternative school.
The school also prepares students to take the General Educational Development exam, a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat for 17- and 18-year-olds who haven't earned enough credits to graduate with their peers.
To pass the GED, a student needs a composite score of 45, but the alternative school requires practice-test scores of at least 48 on all sections. More than 50 percent of the school's students who have taken the exam scored high enough to qualify for scholarships at Arkansas State University or the North Arkansas Community/Technical College at Harrison.
The alternative school also provides an invaluable service to the area's mainstream public schools: It rids school district classrooms of the worst behavior problems, allowing teachers to teach.
Rick Covington, assistant principal at Mountain Home High School, says that when students come back to class after a stint in Hudson's program, they have usually changed for the better.
"We send some kids there who are terminal and will get their GED. But the ones that have the intention of returning, do so with a renewed sense of dedication, focusing more on what they want to accomplish, plus a little more insight toward respect," Covington says.
The alternative school receives a "pass-through fee" of $23 per day paid by the public school district for each student referred. That's the alternative school's only steady source of revenue.
The school received a three-year Governor's Partnership Grant for $25,800 and a two-year $26,800 grant from the state's Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention unit.
Both grants run out this year.
"There is no formula in place for any type of long-term funding," Hudson says. "We don't qualify for the same funds as public schools do, and we're not in the county budget. We have to generate the income for whatever we do."
Until this spring the greatest challenge facing Baxter County's experiment in alternative education was finding a permanent schoolhouse.
The school first occupied a condemned building on the courthouse square, then moved into temporary quarters at a local church before the county footed the bill to outfit a new building near the high school.
Hudson says that the state and county are getting a bargain for the money -- just over $150,000 per year -- they invest in the school.
"I firmly believe that the work we do here is helping some young people make decisions that ultimately will change their lives and keep them out of prison. If we could help one student a year make the decision that avoids a life in prison, we would more than pay for the entire school," Hudson says.