FAIRHOPE, Ala. — “We planted a tree last week,” said Cassie Malden, a student at the Baldwin County Alternative School in Fairhope, pointing to a small fragile-looking tree, its leaves already several bright shades of orange and yellow fall colors.

“What kind of a tree is it?” asked John Cummings, who teaches social skills at this school serving approximately 80 students from throughout the county.

“A maple tree,” a student answers.

”We planted it for Veterans Day,” student Jesse Rowell said.

Eight students in several middle and high school grades waited one day last week for Mary Thomas to arrive before they headed into the large community garden the school grows and manages, to prepare it for temperatures expected to drop below freezing that night.

“Look for bell peppers that are big enough to pick,” Cummings said, after Thomas arrived and both adults helped guide students to different raised beds to work. “We’re picking the tender vegetables and covering the others.”

Thomas is a paraprofessional whose green thumb is widely recognized around school as the secret to the garden project’s success, with a cornucopia of vegetables growing in 19 8-by-8-foot plots being the obvious proof.

“Mrs. Thomas is pretty much our garden expert,” said Assistant Principal John Helms. “She looks after everything out here. But everyone has a role to play. Mr. (Jack) Perkins built the gardens, and Mr. Cummings makes sure his students know what to do when they’re out here. But it’s the students who really make the difference.”

Set among majestic live oaks on 18 acres, the Alternative School is one of the most picturesque in the county system, even though a tall fence surrounding the grounds can give people a different impression about the campus.

But its faculty and students tell their own stories of what it’s like to teach and attend school there. And the community garden is a good example of that positive experience.

“The students get an opportunity to see us as more than just teachers,” Helms said. “We work right beside them. They get a chance to work with other students and adults and use their hands. They can come out here and be successful, which can translate into success in the classroom.”

Expelled or referred for other reasons, students come to the Alternative School for a temporary period before returning to their own schools. They do not come by choice, but many are glad they did, years later if not immediately, some administrators say.

“The Alternative School plays a pivotable role in the life of students who find themselves there because of disciplinary action,” said Terry Wilhite, director of communications for the Baldwin County Board of Education. “Educators and administrators at the Alternative School help students get back on the road that leads to a successful education and life. 

“Helping kids make right choices is a huge responsibility generally for educators, but even more so at the Alternative School because serious wrong choices have been made by students,” Wilhite said, “but to teachers and students’ credit, countless, positive success stories have come from children who’ve attended the Alternative School, who have overcome their adversity to do great things for themselves and others.”

The school works on a reward system of four levels, encouraging greater degrees of independence as the students are promoted through red, yellow, orange and green levels.

“You have more one-on-one time with the teachers,” Malden said. “They teach you about respecting yourself, elders and schoolmates. It’s all about respect. I’ve only been here two weeks, but things have completely changed at home.”

The community garden includes a greenhouse and was funded with support from local state Rep. Joe Faust, said Helms, adding the city of Fairhope has also been very helpful in supporting the school and its projects.

“It is a unique opportunity because the students continue to receive academic instruction as outlined by the Alabama course of study and (can) focus on making better choices for their academic success as well as social development,” said Assistant Principal Pat Malisham. “We want students to make better choices and recognize their lives are fashioned by choices. First they make choices, then their choices make them.”

Out in the school’s community garden last week, lessons were learned and choices made that might have lasting impact.

“Some kids really work hard out here, and you are sometimes surprised by which one it will be,” said school counselor Susan Harrell. “Every day is a new day. We don’t judge the students on their pasts. We’re a family. This allows them a chance to be successful.”

After less than an hour, the eight students, two teachers and one assistant principal have gathered several buckets of cayenne and bell peppers, onions, radishes, lettuce, eggplant, mustard and turnip greens. The garden also grows broccoli, Brussels sprouts, okra, potatoes and okra.

“We have a little bit of everything,” said Thomas, as she worked side by side with students in one garden plot. “I was raised on a farm but many of the kids have never been exposed to anything like this. They just open up sometimes.”

The kids are well-behaved for the most part during their work, sometimes tossing a cayenne pepper at each other, but they usually end up in the bucket a student is carrying. There’s a lot of laughter but also a lot of serious gardening going on.

Not all students were as excited as others to be at the school or in the garden but they all worked together that one day last week.

One student said the school was too strict, and he looked forward to leaving, and he seeming ponder that statement as another lesson. In another breath, he said he had been promoted to the next level, which earned him the right to work in the garden. Those promotions allow students to become helpers or assistants in the garden and other places on campus, earning them incremental freedoms, by how they conduct themselves on campus.

“Many of our students have lost their belief (in) the possibility of their own personal success,” Helms said. “As the students become comfortable with small successes at our school they begin to believe in their future again. This belief will enable these children to return to their own schools as successful students. A student who does not believe in his future will not prepare for it.”

As the students were leaving the garden and heading back to the classrooms, they dropped their remaining vegetables in buckets as their teachers worked behind them.

“We’re starting to plant seeds in the greenhouse,” said Cummings, about plans for geminating their own plants for the community garden. “It’s kind of a work in progress.”

That’s a lesson one always keeps learning.