High-school students in Jackson and Perryville will have an alternative to regular classrooms when their districts get new alternative school programs underway later this month.

Both school districts have been awarded a Division of Youth Services Juvenile Court Diversionary Grant to help develop creative education and life skills classes for at-risk students. The grants are worth nearly $49,000 each and are sponsored by the 32nd Judicial Circuit.

The money was originally awarded to Cape Girardeau public schools, but was returned after the district received a matching consortium school grant from the state Safe Schools Act to support its alternative program. Juvenile officer Randy Rhodes then offered the funding opportunities to Jackson and Perryville administrators to provide alternative programs for the remainder of the school year.

Jackson plans to have its program on line by March 24.

"We'll focus on a very intense, one-on-one kind of a program," said Rick McClard, assistant principal at Jackson High School.

The Perryville program will be similar to Jackson's and is expected to begin by March 10. The maximum class size will be around 15 students ranging from 13 to 20 years old. Paul Turner, assistant superintendent of Perryville schools, said their program will be located on the school campus in the old vo-tech building.

"We still have to go through an interview process, where we meet with the students and their parents and decide who to enroll," he said. "We're going to take our time to make sure we have a good selection."

McClard has worked closely with the Jackson project since early February, and said it will provide highly individualized programs for students currently enrolled in school. The class will begin with five to seven students, mostly ninth-graders, and will be located in a house near Jackson High School.

Length of attendance in the program will vary, depending on the needs of the student, but the first class of students will be expected to remain through the end of the school year.

Although Jackson is a member of the Cape Girardeau consortium that received the grant, McClard said its alternative program will differ from the Cape Girardeau Alternative Education Center in several ways. The biggest differences will be which students are served and for how long.

"It's a little different in philosophy -- we're actually serving two different kinds of kids," said McClard. "Most of the students in that program are out of school or had other problems. These are kids who are still in school but are just not doing well and need more help."

The Jackson and Perryville alternative programs will decide on a case-by-case basis how involved students are in school programs like sports and other extracurricular activities. Perryville students in the alternative school will also have the option of participating in vocational programs.

"We're not going to put them in a situation where they were already having trouble, but by the same token, we won't take them away from something they were succeeding at," Turner said.

Both districts will provide a teacher and an aide to conduct the programs. If successful, administrators hope to renew the grants and continue the program next year.