Nespelem adding ALE school and high school basketball

Nespelem School District’s high school will add a 10th grade this year, plus an alternative learning experience program that could push enrollment high enough to add a high school basketball program.

The school board Monday night approved hiring Marion Ives and Rowena Antone as coaches for the high school boys’ and girls’ teams. They coached them at the middle school level in the 2023-24 season, superintendent Effie Dean said.

The district, which started its new high school program in 2023 with just ninth grade, plans to add 11th grade, then 12th in the following two years.

Their ALE program will be guided by Mark Herndon, who ran the Grand Coulee Dam School District’s program for several years, trying to keep it to 40 or fewer students, but experiencing more demand for the service each year.

More than 300 ALE programs exist across Washington state.’

“The Alternative Learning Experience (ALE) is public education where some or all of the instruction is delivered outside of a regular classroom schedule” so that “students have educational opportunities designed to meet their individualized needs,” the state’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction says on its website. They provide students, whose personal circumstances don’t fit well with typical classroom schedules and methods, a way to obtain an education.

Dean said Grand Coulee Dam’s ALE program has a waiting list, as does Omak’s, and she expects Nespelem’s to fill up too.

“We’ve got to get these kids graduated,” she said Tuesday. “That’s why we started the high school in the first place.”

With 15-20 students in grades 9-10, plus about 20 in their ALE, Dean said, Nespelem’s high school enrollment could reach 30-40 this year.

Since basketball is an important part of Nespelem life, the school board approved forming the high school teams.