What happens when a regular high school decides no student is a lost cause?

SEQUIM, Wash. — Brandan started it. He chucked an orange at Mason, who grabbed it and threw it back across the classroom.

Zak, who’d been in a funk, started laughing. So did the girls, Dustin and Sierra, who’d been doing schoolwork. And Jordan and Brayden, who’d been watching BMX bike videos on their phones, started laughing too.

And then the weirdest thing happened. The adult in this high school classroom, teacher Bridget Shingleton, did not start shouting.

“That’s the nature of this job — one minute you’re talking to a real person, then they’re chucking oranges at each other,” Shingleton said later.

This is Hope Academy, an alternative program for ninth- and 10th-graders at Sequim Senior High School, in the rain shadow of Olympic National Park. The goal is to offer an alternative for kids who struggle in standard classrooms.

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Photo Credit: Lillian Mongeau Hughes/The Hechinger Report