- [announcer] this program was made possible by roos roast coffee, home of lobster, butter, love, art and coffee experiences, in ann arbor, michigan. to learn more, visit roosroast.com. enspire dental, committed to supporting the community through comfortable, comprehensive, and personalized dental care. explore more at enspiredental.com. fresh forage, committed to delivering locally sourced, fresh, seasonal food experiences in the ann arbor area. find out more at freshforage.com. the film program at college for creative studies, providing students with the tools needed for careers in dynamic creative industries. learn more at collegeforcreativestudies.edu.

the michigan theater and state theater, bringing films and performing arts to the greater ann arbor area. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. (radio static vibrating) - [narrator] for the past two weeks in ann arbor, michigan, parents, and many children have been waiting in line in sometimes freezing weather. they're hoping to get into the school of their choice, the district's only alternative public high school. npr's don gagne reports. - [don] more than a dozen brightly colored tents dot the lawn behind the ann arbor public school district administration building. in the parking lot, there are three pop-up campers and assorted minivans. ever since march 17, this has been home to a dedicated band of district residents, hoping to secure a spot for a child in the coming year's freshman class at ann arbor's community high school. (mellow jazz music)

- i loved school. i was always a good student, but when i learned about community, it was like a whole different ball game for me. i really wanted to be able to explore the world, and that's what community offered in a way that no other school offered. when i got to harvard, i was able to function pretty well. and maybe, in part, it was community that taught me that it's important to challenge yourself in different ways, and it's not just about being different for being different's sake. that's not our bus. (laughs) - [interviewer] is it? - i don't know. that is, that's our bus. all right. i used to ride the bus back and forth to community every day for the first couple of years that i was going to community. it was a long bus ride. i'd get up in the morning in the dark, leave the house.

(laughs) but i was so excited to go to school that i didn't care. it didn't matter what the weather was. it didn't matter how cold, didn't matter how dark, i was ready to go to school every day. i have a kiddo and she's in eighth grade, so this is the year when kids decide where they want to go to high school. for a while, she didn't want to apply to community. she was afraid that she would get her heart set and because community's now so popular and it's a lottery, only one in four kids get in and she wasn't sure that she can take the disappointment. but yeah, she's decided she's gonna, she's gonna go in for the lottery.

(students chattering) (upbeat band music) - this is the best day. welcome to the first day of school, 2016-17! (crowd cheering) we are so lucky that we get to have all of our assemblies in this beautiful, beautiful place. st. andrew's is part of our community, and that's what community high school is about. it's about learning from your community, giving back to your community, and learning how to be a part of a community. i am inspired by students, by staff. i look at your passionate teachers who've been working so hard all summer long. so for example, judith dewoskin,

(crowd cheering) right here. judith is 73 years old and still comes to school and learns something every day from you guys. (crowd cheering) (mellow jazz music) (students chattering) - i went to community high, graduated in '76. i didn't go there all four years, but that group was the first graduating class that had been there, many of my classmates from ninth grade to 12th. this is the founding blueprint. this was the group of teachers and administrators, and so on, who designed the school, including the idea of what forums are, why it's called community, that you earned credit for doing stuff in the community.

basically it ran the gamut and they, i think they tried to find teachers who were willing to, think outside the box. - some people stuck with very traditional values about the classroom and the structure, and then there was a more vociferous group, of which i was part, that said, "let's play with this. let's play with this." - so it was a combination of people who were failing at other schools and also geniuses. it kind of went to that spectrum and i was failing, (laughs) but community high saved my life and i do hold it totally responsible for having a bachelor's degree, a master's degree and everything. - i think a lot of people were challenged by what was going on in the late '60s, early '70s, psychologically, emotionally, culturally, traditionally. lots of stuff was being thrown up in the air.

- all of this sort of turmoil led to them trying to settle things down, and they tried to create programs for kids because you had pioneer high school, this big high school there, they're building huron, those two schools were the most expensive schools in the country when they were built. - these parents, they wanted something different for their kids, some kind of alternative school program. so then, bruce macpherson was brought in as the superintendent because he had started something in philadelphia called the school without walls, and that was a program where kids could get credit for doing work outside the school. and that was like the seed that sprouted into community high school. - well, i was interested in being in a new type of high school and it was groundbreaking, so i was excited about that. my father was pretty frustrated

because they did not have the backing of most everybody. i mean, if you go back and check the "ann arbor news" out, you'll see some things going on and my father used to come home and say, "hmm." the time that we had our very first meeting at the church across the street, well, i think one of the articles, or on the news or something, said about the pot smoking in the church in the balcony. so my father definitely had to mention that. - i wanted to be exposed to people who were aware and thinking. i wanted to have choice over what i was gonna learn. community high was the closest thing to that. so i came in with that understanding, as well, that we were changing education throughout the country. (mellow jazz music)

- well, forum is the most important part of the school. if forum is done right, that's where you do a lot of learning and a lot of the learning you do in high school is growing up. it's nice to have older kids and younger kids together, so the younger kids can learn from the older kids and then have a significant adult that kids are able to talk to. (students chattering) - it's like a homeroom on steroids. i think people understand homeroom, but they don't understand that a forum leader goes camping, has sleepovers at her house, feeds kids all the time, keeps food in a closet. i had mice in my closet this year (chuckles) and i had to say the kids, "we can't do this. the pantry's getting invaded."

it's an advocate. it's a social director. we call it a forum mom and a forum dad. - [student] okay, what else do we need? - hey, i will buy you any junk food you want. so, i don't know the junk food. you give me the name. - [student] put takis fuego. - what is takis? (students loudly chattering) wait a minute! i don't know what a taki is! (students laughing) - of course forum was different because that was not really like an academic class. i know we would plan our camping trips and stuff like that, and you know, when people would have problems or something that they needed to deal with, that wasn't so much during the forum class time. that would be like a one-on-one with the teacher, talking about what was going on. (students laughing) - kids, i think you've got it. you're not gonna starve. no, the money, i didn't tell you because... - it's the greatest concept because it gives you your anchor. for me, i think it really did substitute for a family where i wasn't getting that same nourishment or care, i guess, somebody who's genuinely caring

about my interests and welfare. (upbeat rock music) ♪ oy, oy, oy ♪ nick loves forum every day ♪ he does a lot of work just to get an a ♪ ♪ hey craig, that's the wrong grade ♪ ♪ you're lowering his gpa ♪ forum's supposed to be an easy a ♪ ♪ that grade should be a 10 in space ♪ ♪ stop this madness right away ♪ they don't learn anything anyways ♪ ♪ why didn't i get an a in forum ♪ - i would go on these camping trips and my aunt would say to me, "judith, are other teachers doing this?" and i'd say, "yes, we all do it. we're all going camping," or, "we're all having activities that involve spending days with and evenings with our students." that makes a huge difference. ♪ whoa ♪ give nick an "a" ♪ in forum (group laughing) - this room, i think sometimes it's like 110.

it is really hot. it's like at the end of the day, when you're absolutely dead, you have 26 wired little kids come in the room and they're bouncing and they're starving, and then you do this. i mean, it's kind of nice because in a way we all kind of collapse together. - [interviewer] have you been at the school for a couple of years? - 30. - [interviewer] have you been in this room for a long time? - yes, all that time. this is my room, my room. - [student] thank you, judith! - thanks, judith. - bye, you're welcome, guys. - bye, judith. - any more? he didn't just eat two hot dogs. - no way, he definitely ate more than that. - community high had adults who would say, "oh, i perceive your interests, and let's give you this opportunity." i mean, it's built into the structure of community high, community resource, right? (mellow jazz music) - david tuck and i were quite close, and he's the one who came to me as dean and said, "we wanna have skateboarding for pe credit.

is it okay?" i said, "just come back and explain to me how it qualifies, 'cause i don't know anything about skateboarding." and so they took me out in the parking lot and they were whizzing around and jumping on the little cement abutments. and i was like, "i'm down, let's do it." - i wasn't a big fan of gym class, so me and my friend marnin created a community resource class called, swim, swam, swum, where we snuck into swimming pools of hotels around ann arbor and recorded our swimming and our heart rate, but also wrote about the experience of trying to sneak into these pools and not get caught. - we had a student nursery in the school where kids would bring their babies and leave them there. other kids could get community resource credit for learning how to take care of babies, which is really cool. - they had to do a certain amount of educational value and the kids had to learn some.

i mean, if the cr is being monitored correctly, they have to learn something. - but over time, it became a little more structured, and so there were classes like you would see in any high school, but you also had a real option if you wanted to do something different. - i was in charge of community resource department, and teaching speech, and a forum leader, and we had hundreds of crs. i would have a caseload, sometimes 250 crs. a lot of kids spent more time out of school than in school and it was based on the parkway philadelphia idea that education isn't contained in brick and mortar. - [narrator] cue down. - good afternoon and welcome to "students in the spotlight." i'm vicky henry, and today with me, i have tracy osborn, who is a student at community high school. hi, tracy. - hi. - i understand community high's an alternative high school. what's that mean? - it's a lot more freedom than most schools. like, i don't know, most ann arbor schools.

- what do you like best about this school? - i like the freedom and the teachers. they're really nice, and the students are nice too. - well, we're out of time for today. i hope you'll tune in tomorrow when i'll be talking to another community high student. thanks, tracy. - all right, leah, do you have your phone? you have everything else you need? - [leah] yeah. - okay. so we did check out the application, actually, a few minutes ago and there's nothing to it. it's just like, your kid's name, your name, i think where they're in school right now and that's it. so, we're going to community high school for the information session for incoming ninth graders. because my daughter, leah, is gonna enter the lottery to see if she gets in. these didn't exist back when i went, so this'll be different. leah, do you know what to expect? has anybody told you? - [leah] no, everybody just said it was really packed. - it was just really packed. so, it's so popular now that they have to have five of these things

'cause there's just so many families to include. yeah, these are definitely not our era. - this one is. there's tidra, right? that's my sister. - so my husband is trevor staples and he hung out on the front porch, if he ever came to school. many years later, after i had already been married and divorced and had a child, he and i met again, actually at a community high reunion, and became friends. and then several years after that, we started dating and eventually got married at community high school (laughs) on the front porch. - we definitely had different experiences at community high. i have friends that are lifelong friends from my time at community, but you know, the other day kelly asked me who my forum leader was, and i just said, "i don't know." i don't remember who my forum leader was.

(laughs) i mean, that's how detached i was from the academic part of community. (soft music) and that's part of why it's surprising for people that we're together and that we're still together. the other high schools were very strict and rigid, and community high was a place that was more loose, and maybe something in between there would have been better for me. i wasn't prepared to do school how community does school, or did school then. - [woman] how are you? - she's totally calm. she's not sweating this. i'm like the wreck. already, it seems so much more professional. we were so, not gonna say disorganized, but it didn't feel formal in any way. and so already though, i can feel like it's a little more serious than it was. - [teacher] we all know that community high school

is a lottery school, which means every year... (students chattering) - when i was in eighth grade and starting to figure out if i could go to community or not, my dad got really sick. he knew about this plan and was supportive of it and then in march of my eighth grade year, he passed away. my mom was completely in favor of it. so it was an open secret that i lived in ypsilanti and was going to school in ann arbor. and so people, for the most part, just looked the other way. it wasn't until my junior year that it became a problem. what i ended up doing was, i got emancipated by the court and i joined a co-op. and i moved into a co-op on university of michigan's campus.

at the time, i act like it didn't matter, and maybe it didn't, maybe it only matters now. this is where i used to hang out, where the sort of geeky, political types hung out. do you want to see the fitness stuff on the first floor? like the dance room and the workout room? - do you wanna go see it, mom? - we can see the dance room, at least. i never went into the fitness room. (laughs) (students laughing) - [hannah] i should not be trusted with blades. that's a true fact about me. - [teacher] i'm a little bit scared with you handling this, hannah. - ha ha. (deep bass music) we've got a lot of news because, as you can see, it's the election. so we covered tim kaine, hillary and bernie. we're covering incarceration again, which we've done in previous issues, but i think it's like a different take on it, which is cool.

should we open more boxes? (students chattering) (bright music) - this is what it looked like. well, this was actually like the year before i started, 1999. and this is what it looks like today. this is the best edition they've ever, ever, ever put out, like the best. - [student] do you have a "communicator"? - [girl] i got one. - [student] you got one! - it's nice to give them something that everybody gets it in the school. so rarely do people get the same information at the same moment in time, and "communicator" when we distribute, it's one of those moments where everyone... i like walking around the hallway and seeing what they're looking at. (laughs) - learning how to put together a newspaper and writing for it was an instance where the work was real. and when you think about creating an intellectual culture

that students actually value, those are examples of things that are true performances of real work and are being used by other students, and faculty, and so on. and so, when you can create real work that students can engage with, it totally changes how you invest in it and how seriously you take it. (upbeat jazz music) - [student] okay, so like we're coming back in like, what? 10-something? - [boy] we're probably not gonna leave there until 10-ish. - [student] okay, so like get back at 11 or something. it takes awhile. - 10:30 or 11. that makes sense, because we have to roll. oh yeah. - you're going to be so glad that you don't have to repack this there. so just lift it in as a unit and we'll do the next one next to it. so we're at the north american international auto show. it's a charity gala. there's going to be over 13,000 people there tonight,

a lot of vip's and politicians and famous folks. this is just one of nearly a hundred gigs that we'll do this year, and this is one of the bigger ones for sure. and it all comes out of what was going on in the '70s with bart polot, and then later on mike grace in the '80s and '90s. the whole idea was to make a small group jazz program. that's all we do here. that's what separates us from every other school is that that's what we study, and that's all we study. (bright jazz music) (crowd chattering) - for all your performance needs. - thank you. community high jazz, and you guys are high schoolers? i walked past and it was just amazing. i was like, "they got the beach boys downstairs? please, they need to be downstairs." - there are very few kids at community that get lost or that's how it should be,

that you're known there. and really, that's what you want to achieve in high school, because isolation, disenfranchisement are so easy with adolescence and you're not gonna deny adolescence. a school that sort of accepted that and rolled with it was gonna be better for kids. (upbeat music) - there was always that really marvelous mural of the anti-zebra mascot. it was right next to the office where there's the zebra of many different patterns running against the tide of zebras, who look sort of astounded. the expressions on those zebras' faces in the original mural are really good. the zebra has a lot more going on than rainbow, right? there's patterns, it's many different patterns. anything can happen on an anti-zebra. - oh, this is the where the rest of the pictures are. the feathered hair (laughs)

and the '80s blowbacks. so, i'm here in the main office waiting for my parking pass, and then we're gonna go upstairs to judith's classroom and i'll do a little chat with her forum, tell them about what it was like in the '80s, and what judith was like when she first started here at community. i think she's still in the same classroom. (students chattering) - would you all welcome kelly, and she can have a seat? (group clapping) you get the seat of honor. - so i first came to community in the ninth grade. that was 1983, and i graduated in 1987, so i graduated 30 years ago. it was filled with people who didn't quite fit in other places, but people don't fit in for all kinds of reasons. there's all kinds of things that could be making you feel kind of out of sorts, right? - [interviewer] what do you want for christmas? - i want some cotton underwear. - [interviewer] anything else? - cotton underwear, get a close-up on the cotton underwear. long johns, get a close-up on the long johns! - [kelly] like these! (tv static vibrating) (hard rock music)

- [interviewer] why did you decide to come to community high school? - community was a place where you could fit in, even if you had never fit in before. (students shouting) we had this sense that, if we didn't keep it together, that any minute now they could close the school. this could be the last year. so we worked really hard to reach out to the community and try to get folks to come here. - we were fighting harder at 10 years than we did the first seven or eight. the administrative role became very, very crucial, right then, for posterity, not just balance your budget, take care of discipline, but we were really fighting for longevity

and that might be the hardest fight of all. - everybody was afraid. i mean, we've always been afraid because they had count days, they would count the numbers, that somebody is going to come and shut us down because we're not getting enough students. so i bought a full page ad in "the observer" and said, "community high enrollment starts march 31st," or something, "seats are limited." and people showed up. first year, some people lined up, but they got right in. the second year, the line was too long and then it got crazy. (upbeat music) i mean, it got crazy because people started realizing that this place is a pretty good deal. - we are in the parking lot of the balas administration building.

my friend and i were talking with our parents about how we really wanted to go to community and we weren't sure when the line was gonna start or who was gonna start it. and my mom was a single mom working in jackson at the time, 45 minutes away. and she knew that if the line started during the middle of the week, she wouldn't be able to get me there in the morning. and so, i was the first one who showed up and a woman got out of the minivan and she said, "excuse me, are you starting the line?" and i was sort of like, "yeah, i guess i am." and they called people and they had some sort of elaborate phone tree plan. and within 30 minutes, the lot was full of eager, bright eyed, bushy tailed eighth graders, who were really committed to getting the education that community would provide. - if you're forced to wait in line for weeks on end,

you're gonna really love whatever it was that you waited for. so there must be like a super intensity among the people that waited in those lines. - when we were there, some national magazines came in and did some stories or something, maybe "teen" magazines, or something like that. - i personally think it was kurt cobain and nirvana. i mean, they came out right after, then the whole grunge movement hit like hardcore. it was just, "i want to be alternative just like everybody else." so you go to community high to be alternative. - like community was already the alternative, and all of a sudden the alternative became cool. - it became the cool school because it became the smart school. community kids were outperforming the two main high schools. parents recognized that the quality of the education was almost rivaling a private school education. - it was a very complicated time because it had built up to that, and i didn't like it, to be real honest. i mean the first time the line came, when it lasted all night, it was sort of a festival and that was funny. it had nothing to do with the inconvenience for me,

but see, i could see who wasn't going to community all of these years. it wasn't a diverse school and that was pointed out to me by other people in the community all the time. i always wanted to figure a more equitable way of doing it, but i couldn't come up with anything other than a lottery. - at first, i thought a lottery was a bad idea because then we wouldn't necessarily get the most committed people. but what we were getting from that kind of a line was that it gave a special priority to people who could afford to hire people to stay in line, could fly their grandparents in, or quit work for two weeks, and that's crazy. (upbeat music) - even before there was a lottery or a line, you had to be guided there, often, by someone. and so, if you weren't connected in to a network, or a community of others that knew about the place and knew what it represented and what its potential was, you weren't gonna get access to it.

- they have outreach programs. they try very hard. it is a fair lottery, absolutely. ann arbor is a super rich, super white town, compared to what it used to be. community has a special, precious place in the community. and frankly, the community is getting more wealthy and community high school has been getting more wealthy. so although it's still a lottery, you still just have the people that are able to actually get to community high school all the time and be involved on that level. - so community had this reputation of being like, this really weird little school, so a lot of the children of african descent were not in that school. i think after i got there more came, but it was still a special group of students. kids didn't want to leave the mainstream high school. - i had a mission as dean to increase the minority enrollment, period. i didn't care if the state required it, or the district wanted it. i was like, "no, if we're a community, we need to reflect the community."