Alternative High School a last chance for some, the beginning for others
By Cathy Kozlowicz
Correspondent
Before Kelly Gleason enrolled at Walworth County Education Alternative High School, she was failing nearly all of her sophomore classes and did not fit in with the traditional high school setting.
Now, she has her doctorate.
After graduating high school in 1998, she proved to be quite the academic. Gleason received her PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2017.
“I was kind of a rebel,” Gleason admitted. “I was able to go how fast I wanted (at AHS). As a child, I was a straight-A student. I knew it was there but I could not deal with high school. High school was suffocating and so boring. College fit me like a glove. The standardized process didn’t.”
But she thrived in the small-class setting at AHS that was tailored and enabled her to work her third-shift restaurant job. Even if she never had the AHS option, she may still have found her path.
“But it may have taken me longer,” Gleason said.
Read more in the Jan. 24 Elkhorn Independent or upcoming issues of Southern Lakes Newspapers’ other publications.
