NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Melissa Evans with Midtown at Avenue A in Hutchinson USD 308 is excited to see what the 2024-2025 school year brings.
"Midtown is our alternative high school in 308," Evans said. "We serve kids freshmen through senior year. We have switched to an application process and we've capped our enrollment. What we found is there are a lot of kids in our district and our county that are looking for an alternative learning environment, and while we would love to serve all of those kids, we have to make sure we're ready to serve all of those kids. By going to an application process and capping enrollment, it allows us to really build some systems and really solidify what we want that alternative education to look like. This year we did an application process and we capped enrollment and we are currently full, which is really exciting."
There are opportunities for kids at Midtown who may have had some difficulties in the larger setting at Hutch High.
"We're getting to see some changes in our master schedule that we were really intentional about building and just some culture building time with our kiddos because it's a smaller setting," Evans said. "There is more of a, I would almost say a family feel. You get to know each other pretty quickly and we wanted to make sure we were really intentional about building in time to get to know the kids beyond what credits they need, beyond even necessarily what career they want to pursue."
The school had its first town hall meeting this week and they talked about a vision for the year.
"What supports do they need so that they can be successful beyond Midtown, and then what does success look like for them beyond Midtown," Evans said. "We talk a lot about college and career readiness and I think that that's still gonna be the focus for us, but being an alternative school, I think you get an opportunity to get even a little bit more creative and more personalized for those kids, which we're really excited about."
Midtown at Avenue A is at 111 S Madison in Hutchinson.