There may still be hope for a program intended to reduce the drop out rate in Pitt County.

School officials are continuing to investigate the legality of a program that brings students back into the school system to graduate from high school.

The Pitt County Board of Education heard a presentation on Drop Back In, a program offered by Baltimore-based Alternatives Unlimited, on June 23.

Later that week, Paul LeSieur, director of the Division of School Business Services at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI), told The Daily Reflector that the state will not pay for a third party to administer classes and award public school diplomas.

School officials held a conference call with LeSieur the next day and immediately decided to stop pursuing a contract to bring the program to Pitt County, Superintendent Beverly Reep wrote in an e-mail to The Daily Reflector.

"Alternatives Unlimited did not agree when we shared this information with them and wanted us to reconsider," Reep wrote. "My position with them was that we were suspending any further negotiation until we received written OK from DPI that we could proceed, and under what conditions."

Reep said that she wants to make sure that any agreement with the company is allowable under state law.

"I want DPI to tell us whether we can contract in this fashion and, if so, under what specific parameters," Reep wrote.

The company is also hoping to work with other counties in the state, and is negotiating with DPI and the state Attorney General's office to draft legal contracts to work in the state.

According to several districts in Florida, the program yields positive results.

In a presentation to the school board earlier this summer, Vincent Brown, executive vice president with Alternatives Unlimited, said the program would recruit students who have dropped out of Pitt County Schools to attend classes at a center, take computer classes and earn a diploma.

Brown proposed that the program be paid for by per-student allotment funds from the state. For every child enrolled in a school district the district receives an amount of money.

The students in the Drop Back In program would have already left the system, so bringing them back would increase funding to the district.

Brown proposed that the schools would receive 10 percent of those funds, and the program would operate with the other 90 percent.

Brown said the company would hire and train state-certified teachers, use computer programs to teach classes and operate in several locations around the county.

Under the program, students would be required to meet the same standards as any other Pitt County students and pass the same state-administered tests.