Salinas Community School looks for bigger, better home as it ages out of current trailers.

When Bryan Torres was 16, he was expelled from Everett Alvarez High School for fighting. He’d done poorly in classes and was behind in his graduation schedule, so he was enrolled in the Salinas Community School. Now, officials say, the school for troubled students is on its last legs and needs a new home.

For more than two decades the Salinas Community School – one of three such schools in the county – has been housed in portable buildings in the shadow of Monterey County Juvenile Hall. Community schools take students who have been expelled or are referred by truancy or parole officers.

“[The current buildings] are fully depreciated,” says Joshua Jorn, MCOE’s director of general services. “At this point you don’t want to put money into portable structures. And by portable I mean, they’re on wheels.”

MCOE and Salinas city officials are exploring a two-acre property at 615 Leslie Drive, currently home to a church, to house a replacement for the school.

When the Salinas Community School first began, it often enrolled students for a semester before sending them back to their original schools. But the program has evolved so that students often stay longer, taking advantage of the more focused learning environment.

“It’s morphed into a whole different kind of program” says Gary Vincent, director of MCOE’s alternative programs.

Torres, who graduated in 2011, says transferring from classrooms of nearly 40 students to classes with 20 or less provided the attention he needed to succeed. He also benefited from the strict structure of the program: “In every class there was always a probation officer, and if you wanted to go to the restroom someone had to go with you.”

By taking supplementary classes at Hartnell Community College he graduated a year ahead of schedule, he says.

Another advantage of a new location, Jorn says, is a plan to create a multi-purpose building which could be used by the community after school hours. The model has proven successful for community schools in Los Angeles and would be the first such space in Salinas.

MCOE is looking at four choices for the replacement community school, including the current site and two other sites in East Salinas. The Leslie Drive site will undergo environmental review.

Last year 120 students graduated with high school diplomas and GEDs from county community schools.

“I got more help than I would have at Alvarez,” Torres says.