Graduating with his class seemed out of reach for Mark Morris High School student Anthony McClenny. The senior began the school year several credits behind, but was offered new hope through a new program being offered by the Longview School District.

McClenny, 17, is one of 200 R.A. Long and Mark Morris High School students enrolled in the On Track Academy, a new alternative-learning program that opened its doors this fall.

“I didn’t like the whole school thing,” McClenny said, but he described his first week at On Track as “fun.”

“If I work hard enough, they said I can graduate with my senior class. I want to go to college and do things,” he said.

On Track’s purpose is to reduce dropouts and improve on-time graduations by helping juniors and seniors catch up on lost credits through an online-based program, said Terri Page, program director for On Track. It’s located at the Harding Building, across the street from Monticello Middle School on Harding Street.

Starting the program cost the district about $70,000, most of which purchased computers and other technology for the classrooms, said to Chris Fritsch, Director of Leadership and Learning for Longview Schools.

Page said she believes its a worthwhile investment.

“I absolutely believe it will help the graduation rate,” Page said. “These students are less likely to drop out because they have a place,” and a plan helping them to graduation.

R.A. Long High School has struggled to keep students from dropping out. In 2007 it was infamously labeled a “drop-out factory” by a John Hopkins University study that found 40 percent or more of the students enrolled as freshmen don’t make it to their senior year.

On Track is different than most alternative high schools in several ways. For one, all students continue to take most of their classes at either R.A. Long or Mark Morris.

Students attend On Track for only two hours a day, either in morning or afternoon blocks.

Also, it’s unusual for a computer-based alternative school to have subject-specific labs with a teacher who specialized in that subject, Page said. Through the On Track program, students can also join the Virtual Academy — the district’s first entirely online school, she said.

The school district closed its last alternative school, Natural High, after a 20-year run in 1994 in favor of other programs to help students in danger of dropping out. But Suzanne Cusick, who took over as Longview superintendent last summer, reintroduced the idea of starting an alternative school when she joined the district.

The five teachers in On Track have 20 students in each class. Most learning is done through an online computer program called APEX, but teachers are available for questions and to coordinate various classroom activities.

“Having the specialists … it makes this really rigorous schedule doable,” Page said.

Students attend a different subject each day at On Track, which is equivalent to a week’s worth of lessons, Page said. Individual learning plans are assigned to each student, based on their need and desired time line for graduation.

Students who fall behind in he program or get sick during the year may need to extend their graduation goal, Page said.

Teacher Kurt Gray said his math class has students ranging from pre-algebra to trigonometry this year.

“For me, that’s exactly what I like,” he said. “I like the challenge on my brain to switch from the quadratic equation to turning fractions to percent.”

R.A. Long senior Ian Mahncke, 18, said he likes the accelerated pace On Track allows. Mahncke said he’s two credits behind schedule, but he should be able to graduate this spring with his class. He likes that the program doesn’t separate him from his friends at R.A. Long.

“It’s pretty much like going to R.A. Long,” he said.