News Photo by Temi Fadayomi Claw Academy senior, Brooklyn Storey, sits in a Claw Academy classroom on the Alcona Community Schools campus on Tuesday.

LINCOLN — Some students in the Alcona area are being given a second chance at graduating with the new Claw Academy.

Claw Academy is an alternate education institution located in a small building across the street from Alcona Community Schools. Work is done online and class meets Monday through Thursday with class sessions split into a morning period and an afternoon period.

“I’m feeling really good about it,” Alyssa Lara, a junior who attends school through Claw Academy, said. “I’ve definitely gotten ahead of most of my classes, in actually succeeding at school, and not failing this time.”

There are currently 19 kids enrolled in Claw Academy with two mentors between them all — online coordinator, Shelly Hoffmeyer, who is in charge of organizing and monitoring the online courses that each student takes and making sure they stay on track to graduate and work-based learning coordinator, Joy Bullis.

“I started this year, not on track to graduate, and I made up my credits in like, a week,” Senior Brooklyn Storey said. “Now I’m on track to graduate, and I feel really confident in this program.”

By the end of each week, students have to have a certain percentage of all of their class completed, but they are free to approach reaching that goal in whatever way they believe works best for them.

“It’s like, you can just sit down and do whatever you want to do,” Storey said. “I don’t have to do geometry every day, I don’t have to do English every day, I can just stick with one class a day, if I wanted to, and just go through it.”

One of the major goals for Claw Academy is for it to provide students who didn’t do well in the more traditional structure offered by the Alcona High School with another education model that would provide them a way to learn and complete class work while still letting them graduate.

“I think every one of our kids here have other elements outside of school that got in the way,” Hoffmeyer said. “This is a program where they can come to graduate to finish their high school.”

The academy, which was announced earlier this year has been successful so far and students say Claw Academy provides the ideal environment for them to succeed in school.

“I know my attendance over at the regular school was poor because I truly did not want to be there.” Storey said. “But I wake up every morning now, and yeah, it’s hard waking up in the mornings, but when you come here and you’re in a good environment, you just have a good day.”