An alternative ending

For the students at Aurora, high school at Bloomington North or South wasn’t just difficult; it was a nightmare. They dreaded school dances, hated the cliques and didn’t bother to attend homecoming.

The students at Aurora were students who were bored at North and South, the drop-outs, the junior with only nine credits and the student who the guidance counselor said would never graduate.

The system had failed these kids and most had lost hope in graduation. Aurora Alternative High School, a small building tucked away on the corner of North Fairview and Ninth Streets, was their last chance.

Aurora was a place where students not only called the principal, Chuck Holloway, by his first name, but where he was also their best friend. Two gargoyles stood guard in front of the school, and Chuck’s collection of gargoyle figurines lined his office.

Aurora offered everything that a home could provide: security, education and family. The teachers were like their second set of parents, and Aurora was like their second home. The students claimed the walls for themselves the way high school kids put posters on their walls. Paintings done by students of Martin Luther King Jr., Led Zeppelin and Princess Diana lined the hallways. And every senior was given a brick they could decorate and make their own.

It might have been a laid back school, but it wasn’t a lazy one. Students came to Aurora to learn, graduate and maybe go to college. Not every student was a success story, and many still dropped out. But for some students, like Oompa, it worked.

Oompa had a record of bad grades that followed her back to the sixth grade.

Her real name was Jessica Barger, but everyone called her Oompa because she was short. She’d always loved school when she was little, but like many kids, it got brutal in the sixth grade. All of her friends turned on her and bullied her around. So she bought a T-shirt that said, “I see dumb people reading my shirt,” and she bullied them right back. Since then she hadn’t tried in school. And when she was 16, she got pregnant and dropped out.

But then she came to Aurora in fall 2009. When she made the honor roll, her mother thought there was some kind of mistake and assumed she’d received another student’s report card in the mail. For the first time, she was making good grades and scaring her family.

“The first trimester I worked my ass off,” she said. “For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged.”

But then on a cold Friday in February 2010 after school had let out and the students trickled home, the news began to spread. The school, which had given Oompa and so many others a last chance and a future, would be shutdown. Without Aurora, Oompa knew she wouldn’t make it.



In a state where budget cuts are hitting school funding hard, they’re hitting students harder. Monroe County Community School Corporation had to make more than $5 million worth of budget cuts more than a year ago as part of a statewide decrease in funding. Aurora was one of the first programs to go.

In November 2010, 17 Indiana school districts asked their residents to pay additional property taxes to help fund their schools. Of those 17, only six referendums passed. Monroe County was one of them, but that still didn’t save Aurora.

Aurora is one example of education lost and diplomas that will never be earned.

Funding cuts are not unique to Bloomington; it’s an epidemic sweeping the country. But at the root of these cuts are the students. Teachers lose jobs, buildings are shut down, but students’ educations are ultimately affected.

The situation of the students at Aurora shows that when funding needs to be cut, kids are sometimes seen as expendable.

Students pleaded at school board meetings to save their school, and Chuck asked the school board not to send the message that these kids didn’t matter. But when the state cut funding from schools, school boards across the state had to make tough decisions.

“I don’t think there’s a way to cut $4.5 million out of our budget without damaging our school district,” said Vicki Streiff, former school board secretary, at a meeting in February 2010. “I don’t think we’re doing good things. I think we’re doing terrible things, but we’re stuck. We have our backs against the wall, and we are not happy about this.”



Before the news of the budget cuts spread, Oompa knew something was up. The usually happy Chuck began snapping at students and was acting more like a principal and less like a friend.

He had Oompa in his office for a “Chuck Chat” one day, his gargoyles looking down on her.

As he finished drilling her on why she had a bad grade in a class, she turned the spotlight on him, asking him why he’d been so agitated lately. Although he couldn’t tell her, she knew him well enough to know that it was about the school.

Then on a Saturday in February, Oompa sat at home as she read the Facebook message. It was a call to come to the school because Chuck had to tell them something.

The news that Aurora was closing spread like lice in an elementary school. Students who hadn’t gone to Aurora for years received texts and Facebook messages.

After spending that Saturday letting reality sink in, Oompa spent every study hall for two weeks doing nothing but trying to keep the school open. She flipped through phone books and made calls asking people in the community to meet her somewhere to sign a petition to keep the school open. Every day for weeks she would go downtown and gather what would be more than 3,000 signatures.

After all, this was the only school that Oompa had ever tried to do anything for.      



A miracle is what Chuck called the Save Aurora effort. Chuck began opening the school in the evenings twice a week so students could come and brainstorm ways to raise money to save the school. Three students, including Oompa, bounced around ideas, such as having an open house.

“We can say ‘You might as well stop by while it’s still open,’” Chuck joked.

They began planning rallies for a Thursday in March and thought about a garage sale to help raise money.

“We could have it at my house or here, your house,” one girl at the meeting said.

“We could do it anywhere ... 7/11 parking lot,” Oompa said.

Chuck pulled up the Save Aurora blog, which had a thermometer that was keeping track of the money the students raised for the school.

“We already have $50,” Chuck said. “Oh wait, that’s $5."



Aaron Rivera was technically a sophomore when he came to Aurora, but with only about four credits, his diploma was as out of reach as a freshman’s.

The transition wasn’t easy. The teachers helped him with his work, but he couldn’t skate through his classes like he used to. His teachers expected him to do his assignments, and if he didn’t, he ended up in Chuck’s office.

Aaron was almost kicked out of Aurora three or four times, which he said was crazy because he doesn’t know what he would have done without the school.

Aaron had been at the school for four years. Only one other senior had been there as long.

Everyone gravitated toward him. If the freshmen were acting up, Aaron would tell them to get into shape. He was Chuck’s wing man, and he’d sit in his office for hours just chatting.

But then one day during the fall of his senior year, Aaron was called into Chuck’s office with a few of the other top students. Aaron assumed he was in trouble again as Chuck’s collection of gargoyles stared him down.

“If they shut down the school,” Chuck asked, “what would you do?”

“Would we be able to graduate?” one student asked.

“I don’t know,” Chuck said.

Becky Rupert asked her English class to write about “A time when something happened to you that wasn’t fair. You can think about your school experience and experiencing injustice.”

Many of the students in the class were writing about their school.

“I’m writing about the rally thing,” Oompa said.

She had small pink and blue braids covering her head that stuck out in all directions.

Each braid was held up with neon colored rubber bands. Today was her birthday.

Students had a rally planned the previous day as part of their Save Aurora campaign, but it was canceled and they weren’t given an explanation. They were still waiting to hear why.

As students walked to a March town meeting, a weekly school discussion in The Commons, they passed signs that read, “Don’t go visit other MCCSC school grounds between 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.” or “Don’t make us like North or South.”

As students sat down for town meeting, Chuck said, “You should hear it from me. I’m sad more kids aren’t here to hear this.”

It was the Friday before spring break, and students wanted to know why their Save Aurora rally was canceled.