Near the end of the school day Wednesday, students at the Tuolumne Learning Center played guitars, talked among themselves and asked polite and curious questions to a class visitor. Laptop computers were closed on their desks and books were neatly put away as the students waited for their rides home. 

Nobody would guess that these well-groomed, courteous students are the ones society often deems the “bad kids,” who have been expelled from area schools. 

The Tuolumne Learning Center serves sixth- through 12th-grade students from Tuolumne County and is operated by the Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools Office. The office is charged with providing education to students whose paths have been littered with challenges and ostracism. 

Cathy Parker, assistant superintendent of schools and overseer of the TLC program, said the best way for county schools to fulfill this is to pool resources and have students from all over the county meet at a central location.

In spring 2014, Tuolumne County Office of Education staff, under the leadership of Superintendent of Schools Margie Bulkin, came up with the idea to treat the whole student, emotional baggage and all. The program started in earnest in August 2014. It’s the only program of its kind in California. 

“We were finding more and more students had experienced quite a bit of trauma,” Parker said. Previously, the County Schools Office operated a middle-school program for expelled students at Sonora Elementary and a high school program at the Sonora Dome campus. 

The challenges staff and students face are many. Not only must teachers gain the trust of students who’ve never had faith in the school system, but they also must do so before any academic or emotional progress can be made — all in a semester or two. Sometimes it’s less for kids scheduled to go to juvenile hall. 

[For more of this story, written by Lacey Peterson, go to http://www.uniondemocrat.com/i...amp;utm_medium=email]