Equality means everyone gets the same thing. Equity means everyone gets what they need. This philosophy is illustrated by the school s willingness to let students choose the direction their education takes. If a student is really into authors like Stephen King or V.C. Andrews, instead of fighting that so much, we can go with it and introduce new reading materials for comparison, Bain says. We allow students to stick with the things they enjoy.
Personal attention is one aspect of education the school is happy to deliver.
With just 25 students on different schedules, Bain says the school is usually occupied by only six or seven students at a time. This is much different from his experience student teaching at a traditional public high school, where he had five classes of about 30 students each. Personal attention was limited at best. At Hammons, I can ask a question and if the student doesn t answer in a way that makes me think he understands, I can ask more questions, he says. I can really focus on what students are doing here.