REUNION TIME

MAT-SU — They were the outcasts, the bad seeds, the teens nobody wanted to deal with.

Well, almost nobody.

For the past 22 years, the Valley’s unruly and untamed students have had one thing in common — they’re all Peter Burchell’s kids.

“I call them that, ‘my kids,’ because that’s the connection we had,” said Burchell, founder of Burchell High School. According to the school’s initial grant requirements, “the kids (attending the school) had to be super far behind, poor, and if they had a criminal record it was better. They turned out to be wonderful kids.”

That was 1988, and Burchell had just opened his school in half a portable building behind Wasilla High School. There were five students that first year, with an initial graduating class of two — a boy and a girl. More than two decades later, Burchell still thinks of the nearly 1,500 graduates of BHS as “my kids.”

And there’s a family reunion planned. For the first time, Burchell students and staff will gather for a high school reunion July 16-18. Anyone who worked at or was a student at the school from 1988 to 2000 are invited.

While Burchell’s vision has enjoyed success, including 17 Burchell-model schools in Alaska and about another 17 in the Lower 48, its success wasn’t always touted.

“People say alternative schools are for losers,” Burchell said. “I say my kids are winners. They know they screwed up, but they stick with it. … the goal is to educate successful adults. The one figure I’m most proud of is that in the (first) 10 years at that school, we had one fight. We went 11 months of the year because we always had summer school running. The kids knew when they come here, you don’t do that (violence) here.”

It was that focus on non-judgmental education that kept Jennifer (Nohr) Hughes in school. She was one of Burchell’s first students, attending from 1989-91. As a teen who became pregnant, she felt unwelcome in the Mat-Su Borough’s traditional schools.

“Back then we were really shunned,” she said. “People thought we were just the degenerates of society, but we were just kids who needed a little more help or a second chance. … I had a child when I was 16. I wasn’t actually told you cannot be here (at her high school), but it was a clear message. I still wanted interaction with peers and I was a good student, so I was hurt and upset that just because I was pregnant, I wasn’t good enough to go there anymore.

“The way the (Burchell) school was set up, they provided child care and education, as well as having you get a job.”

Hughes echoes a statement many who have attending BHS over the years have made, that without Burchell, “I probably would have been a high school dropout.”

The same is true for Terry (Chvastasz) Trask. Trask and her husband Matt both were Burchell students in 1989-90.

“I dropped out of Wasilla High School in 10th grade,” she said. “I don’t know how I knew Mr. B had the school there, but I went in and talked to him one day. … We were more like a family. Mr. B did things for us, he gave us rides, fixed our cars, paid for vet bills when one of our dogs got hurt. But he always held us responsible.”

Accountability

It’s that firm but fair attitude many students remember, Burchell said. While the school has always been committed to teaching academics, it also has a commitment to making sure students also learn basic life skills to be successful after high school.

“The myth of education is that kids want a free ride,” he said. “When you talk to the kids (at BHS), they will tell you that everybody (plays by the rules) and there’s no exceptions. For a lot of them, we’re the first people to tell them no and really mean it.”

To illustrate his point, Burchell recalled the story a current student told him about his mother, who was in one of the school’s first classes.

“That one young man was in the day care center then, now he’s a high school student,” he said. “He told me about his mother, who wasn’t going to school because she was partying the night before.”

That doesn’t hold with Burchell, who tracked the young woman down and brought her to school.

“Since then, my mother has never been late for the doctor, she’s never been late for work,” Burchell said the boy told him. “She’s afraid Mr. B’s going to go get her — and I’m never late either.”

Developing strong work skills, whether in the classroom or out, was a key part of Burchell’s first decade, he said. In fact, students weren’t only encouraged to get jobs, they were required.

“A work ethic is something that’s missing in a lot of people, not just kids,” Burchell said. “In some cases, it’s just not there. That’s why we had a work requirement. … My whole thing is, when you walk out of here as a graduate or a dropout, either one, you have the skills to survive.”

Trask recalls the work requirement well and wishes the school still had that rule.

“Now I have a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old and I’m disappointed that’s not there anymore,” she said. “I think that was necessary, because some needed to learn how to take care of themselves, because they didn’t have anyone to take care of them.”

Model for success

Success is measured differently at Burchell High School than other mainstream schools, Burchell said. Not every student can be turned toward a good path and there have been plenty of tragedies over the years, including students who have died in accidents or ran afoul of the law.

Although he has a reputation for “being made of Teflon,” Burchell simply didn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve.

“I would wait until I got home, and then I would cry,” he said. “I choose when I do it, that’s all. And it makes me just furious when I do eulogies for some of these kids.”

Then there are the students to beat the odds, graduate from high school and go on to college or other productive pursuits. Burchell would know, as he’s been beating the odds most of his adult life. He’s an alcoholic who’s been sober for 43 years.

“I very much so identify with what some of these kids are going through. I was one of those people in high school who had brains, but didn’t use them very well,” he said. “When they do well, you just sit back and say, ‘I’m so proud of you,’ They stop by and say, ‘You were right, I don’t do the drugs and alcohol anymore.’ And they introduce me to their wives, husbands and children.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.

IF YOU GO

There will be plenty more introductions next month when Burchell High School holds its first reunion July 16-18. If you’re a student who attended BHS from 1988-2000 and would like to attend the reunion, contact Peter Burchell at 376-8256.