School Overview

History

Welcome to Moorhead Alternative Learning Center (formerly Red River Area Learning Center). The ALC has been partnering  with participating schools since 1992, to ensure that a continuum of programs and services are available to meet the unique needs of K-12 students at-risk in the learning process. 

The Moorhead Alternative Learning Center is located at the Vista Center for Education in south Moorhead. Although the Moorhead Alternative Learning Center at Vista Center for Education is also home to separate site programs for middle and high school students, these are just two programs in a comprehensive range of options that the ALC provides.

ALC services are designed to:

  • Intervene with the youngest students through Targeted Services

  • Intervene with students at risk of dropping out of high school

  • Provide students who have already dropped out a way to come back

  • Provide specialized options not typically available in traditional school settings

Programs

student working on remote control vehicle

Why Alternative Education?

Alternative education is based on the belief that all learners have the right to be educated and that it is a benefit not only to the individual learners but also to society to ensure that they are. Therefore, determined communities must work together to meet the needs of all children and youth.

Traditional education simply doesn't work for all students. The programs and services of the Red River ALC are designed to provide a variety of structures and environments to increase the likelihood that each student will find the path to success.

Student receives diploma

Flexible Options

Based on the belief that every student can learn and succeed, ALC offers alternatives that are customized to the needs of individual students. Eligible students and their families can choose from a continuum of flexible options to create a program that best suits their unique needs, social circumstances and schedules.

Moorhead Alternative Learning Center offers services year round for students in grades K-12. Programs are operated in a variety of regular education settings and at Vista Center for Education in Moorhead.

In order to accommodate a range of unique learner needs, Moorhead ALC options include:

  • Daytime

  • After school

  • Evening

  • Independent study

  • Post-secondary enrollment

  • Community based

  • Work programs

  • Minor parent programs

  • Summer

  • Full time

  • Part time

  • Dual enrollment

  • Combinations

Students tour Fargo Jet Center

Our Vision

To be a welcoming, caring, collaborative community that celebrates the distinctiveness of our unique learners, encourages individual growth and sparks imagination by engaging students in the creative learning process and the continued pursuit of knowledge.

The ALC Spud Way our CREED:

  • Collaborate to solve issues.

  • Respect personal boundaries and use school-appropriate language.

  • Empathize with others.

  • Engage and be present.

  • Determined to improve academic and personal growth.

Student blowing bubbles

Our Philosophy

  • Community of Caring - Parents, staff members, agencies and the community must work together to create meaningful experiences that lead to success.

  • Learning must be related to the learners' world and reaching the learner’s maximum potential now and in their futures.

  • Family, school and community collaboration develop learners as contributing members of society through involvement in the community, including being assisted by community mentors and earning credits through work experience and entrepreneurial projects.

  • Recognition of the dignity and worth of all learners is basic to the learning process as they develop individual strengths and build to overcome challenges.

  • Personalized learning allows the specific needs of the learner to be met through unique instruction and assessment.

  • Learners work to develop positive attitudes toward learning, active participation, responsibility, self-motivation and positive self-esteem.

  • Learners need to develop their own goals, while exploring different ways of learning and finding a way that is best for them.