Hitting Rock Bottom: New Beginnings for At-risk Youth

Forty-two teenage men and women, all wearing camouflage Army uniforms, standing in columns with their platoons, as the American flag is being raised. Many of their uniforms displayed medals for outstanding achievement. All of them proud of what they represented - the Alder Grove Academy.

They came from most of Placer County’s high schools and junior high. Even though they each had their own story, they were either arrested and placed on probation and/or suspended or expelled and sent to the Academy as their last shot at turning their lives around. Most of these at-risk students hated school and their truancy had resulted in credit deficiences. Others had rebelled against authority figues at their school. Some had alcohol and drug use problems that furthered their downward spiral.

At the Alder Grove Academy they would come face to face with a retired police sergeant who prided himself as an Old School teacher. They would be entering a school that operated on order, structure and discipline. There were no victims in the Academy. For many, this would be the hardest academic and physical school they had ever attended. In partnership with the U.S. Army, they would slowly become a familiy, learning that their choices from here on out, depended on whether they had reached rock bottom and sincerely want to change.

They offer their stories in hopes of turning at least one at-risk student around like they did.