Specialized Charter School Publishes 'How To' Manual

My wife and I opened one of the first contract schools authorized by the Texas legislature in 1995.  It was a store-front one-room school housed in an abandoned Mexican restaurant with two bullet holes in the front window.  We advertised in a local newspaper to inform drop outs and under-performing at-risk teenagers that they had a choice of schools in Dublin, Texas (a rural community).  We opened with six students and quickly expanded to our capacity of 24 students with as many as 35 on the waiting list.  In year two, Paradigm Alternative Center was recognized in U.S.A. Today as one of America's top 58 effective programs for recovering at-risk teenagers.  We morphed into Paradigm Accelerated Charter School in 2000 and doubled student enrollment.  In 1997 we received a two million dollar grant from a private donor to produce textbooks specifically designed to recover father-challenged, under-performing teenagers.  We hired writers, editors, illustrators and composers to produce core subject textbooks in science, social studies, math and English.  We now operate four charter campuses in rural Texas communities.  Recently we published a comprehensive Campus Operations Manual that covers A to Z details for designing, setting up and operating an accelerated, individualized charter, contract or voucher-supported high school.  

By Ronald Johnson,

Paradigm Accelerated Charter School