The Leelanau Peninsula High School (LPHS), the alternative education facility for county students in Lake Leelanau for more than 10 years, will close at the end of the school year.

Suttons Bay and Glen Lake boards of education voted unanimously Monday in separate meetings to send their “alternative” education students to Traverse City High School, part of the Traverse City Area Public Schools. Alternative education is for students who have difficulty learning in the traditional school setting.

The decision comes as no surprise, in part because of the implications of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.

“We’ve been talking about this for the last three years,” said Michael Hill, superintendent of the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District. “It’s the convergence of several issues that led to this final decision.”

Effective June 30, 2006, the NCLB requires that teachers be “highly qualified” to teach their particular subjects. The Intermediate School District had secured a 1-year exemption for the alternative high school, which has two dozen students, from Glen Lake and Suttons Bay districts. The exemption is scheduled to expire June 30.

“We would have had to hire ‘highly qualified’ teachers in each subject area,” said Hill, adding that in his recent visits to the school there’s been no more than eight students at one time since many spend a half-day at the Career-Tech Center in Traverse City. “It’s gotten to a place where we’re in a deficit situation at the end of the year.”

Diana Trimberger had been the mainstay of the program, acting as an administrator and teacher as well as a friend to students since the school’s inception. However, late last year, Trimberger was taken from school in an ambulance after a health incident. She hasn’t returned to the school, and announced her retirement in January.

ISD employee Tom Dayton has been serving in Trimberger’s place since her departure. Dayton, Glen Lake Superintendent Joan Groening and Suttons Bay Superintendent Mike Murray were scheduled to deliver the news to students later yesterday morning. Also expected to take part in the delivering the news was Lance Morgan, who will be the new principal of the alternative Traverse City High School next year.

Board members were hesitant to take action to close the facility, whose staff worked hard at keeping “at risk” students in school. However, they were convinced to do so after learning more about the Traverse City High School, located at the former East Bay Elementary School in Traverse City.

With an enrollment of more than 200, the school provides “highly qualified” teachers in each subject area, extra-curricular activities, athletics, clubs as well as the support services afforded them at LPHS.

“We’re fortunate to have such a comprehensive, quality program in the area,” Groening told her board members at Monday’s monthly meeting.

Glen Lake and Suttons Bay are working to provide transportation to the new alternative campus. Students must now rely on their own transportation to make it to the school, located in Lake Leelanau. Traverse City High School, which is located near the Career Tech Center, is more convenient in terms of transportation.

“There’s always someone going to Traverse City,” Groening said.

Closing the school will impact more than students who have been attending classes there. Space now occupied by the school is leased from the Benzie-Leelanau Health Department, and LPHS has been the largest and most steady occupant of the building since it was opened in 1999. Created in 1995, the school was originally housed in the building that is now occupied by the county Conservation District.

Money generated from rental of space is used by the health department to cover its mortgage on the building, which was built through the creation of a non-profit organization that sold bonds to finance the project. However, in recent years the department has had vacant space in the building, forcing the agency to supplement $7,000 monthly mortgage payments.

The department is expected take $25,600 from its own budget to cover the mortgage this year. As a result, the board of health voted in January to raise the rent by 10 percent to offset the shortage.

Further complicating matters is that the county Commission on Aging is scheduled to move a year from now upon completion of the new county building, leaving more space vacant.

Health department director Bill Crawford said Tuesday he had received word that the school would be closing. The development, as well as the possible sale of a vacant lot adjacent the Connie Binsfeld Resource Center, is expected to be discussed when the Board of Health meets in Benzonia next Thursday, March 22.

“It’s hoped that sale proceeds could be applied to reduce the balance owed on the building, “ he said.

As of Nov. 1, 2006 the payoff stood at $901,803.