The Monroe City School System has quietly made a dramatic shift in how it handles its most troubled high school students; it’s condemning them to a slow, permanent subclass life by removing them from any form of structure.
On paper, the district calls it a virtual alternative setting. In reality, it is a program that risks being little more than an unofficial expulsion, clearing them off campuses while still collecting the funds for them.
Yes, students are issued Chromebooks.
Yes, lessons are provided through Edgenuity, the same program used in the district’s virtual academy.
Yes, mentors and social workers are assigned, with weekly check-ins and the occasional home visit. These supports may sound impressive on a superintendent’s report. But without the daily supervision, structure, and accountability of a school setting, many of these students are left to drift.
Let’s be honest: the very students most likely to need consistent oversight are the ones being removed from it.
Many parents labeled as a “Learning Coach” cannot realistically fill the role of trained educators—especially when many parents haven’t learned basic parenting skills.
Critics are correct when they argue this arrangement blurs the line between homeschooling and expulsion. The difference is that the virtual students are still counted in district enrollment, ensuring funding remains intact, yet they are effectively erased from the life of the school.
They will have no extracurricular activities. No daily supervision and, importantly, no chance to learn discipline from the structured environment Sherrouse was built to provide.
And after months or a year of this unsupervised life, it will be more difficult to integrate them back into the system.
The district insists this is an opportunity for students to “catch up” or “work their way back into school.” But without a firm structure, catching up is wishful thinking. These are not highly motivated honor students choosing virtual learning—they are young people already struggling with behavior, academics, or both.
For many of them, being told to stay home with a laptop is not a path to redemption but a recipe for failure.
What makes this difficult is that it is being proposed by Black educators. We would be screaming to high heaven if a white superintendent had proposed the same arrangement.
Every community has students who stumble. The question is whether we provide them with real tools to get back on track or quietly push them aside.
A system that replaces structure with isolation and professional supervision with parental hope, risks writing these young people off altogether.
