Juan Segura, 18, attends graduation practice at Woonsocket High School. He was going to drop out until his guidance counselor got him to enroll in e-learning.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

WOONSOCKET — Two weeks ago, 18-year-old Juan Segura, a student at the Woonsocket Area Career and Technical Center, picked up his maroon graduation gown. Last week, he was busy rehearsing for the Friday graduation at the Woonsocket High School gym.

Getting that diploma seemed like a long shot just two years ago. Back then, he was prepared to tell his teachers he was dropping out. He was 16. School was boring. He didn’t like coming in early. He was hanging out with a group of friends who skipped school regularly and he was doing the same.

Assistant Principal Edward Benjamin convinced Juan to go see Michael Ferry, who supervises the Feinstein E-learning Academy — an alternative learning program at the Career and Technical Center.

At Feinstein E-learning, which is open 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Segura — who was starting his sophomore year — arranged to come in at 10 a.m. Soon, he asked Ferry if he could come in at 8 a.m. Instead of finishing at 3 p.m. when classes end, he stayed until the lab closed at 5:30 p.m. making up the classes he needed in English, social studies, math and science by studying the subjects via computer, taking quizzes regularly and moving at his own pace. When there was a lesson he did not understand, Ferry or resource teacher Sue Leja helped him with it.

Segura, who was a construction technology student at the center, participated in the e-learning program for two years, completing the equivalent of three years work in that time, Ferry said.

Feinstein E-Learning was started in 2005 to get homebound students, dropouts and students who have lost credits to make up their credits so they can eventually graduate, Ferry said. The program is open to middle and high school students.

The e-learning academy, which uses NovaNET, started with three students who were trying to make up credits to graduate high school. In the past school year, 173 students used the academy to make up credits, of those 15 were in the program all year long, 38 were seniors recovering credits to graduate and the rest were other students who needed to make up credits. Ferry said 7.5 percent of those students did not finish the program.

David V. Abbott, the deputy commissioner of the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said e-learning is in its nascent stages in the state and many schools are tinkering with different programs and tailoring them to the needs of their students. But, as far as he knows, none of the programs are on the scale of Woonsocket’s. “To organize a whole school around e-learning, nobody is as far along as Michael is,” Abbott said.

E-learning is an alternative way to help students succeed, he said.

“For some kids it’s the difference between succeeding in life and not. The later you attempt to catch up the less likely you are to be successful. Part of our adult education philosophy is early detection of students at risk of being an adult education person. A successful adult education program is minimizing the kids who need it and having more options for the kids at the middle school and high school. A traditional model is not going to work for everybody,” Abbott said.

Lori Ferguson, assistant principal at Coventry High School, said educators visited Woonsocket before piloting an e-learning credit recovery program this year at the school with 20 special-education students. Teachers did not like the NovaNET program and are trying another, PLATO, next school year to help students, particularly ninth graders, make up credits and take remediation courses, Ferguson said.

Ferry said teachers monitor what students are doing via the Internet and help those who need it. The e-learning program is a hybrid because, in addition to the computer-based lessons, the students are given writing assignments and projects they work on with the teachers. That interaction with a teacher is key in maintaining the student’s interest and motivation, he said.

Students making up credits don’t have to be at school to access their lessons, but they must be at the school to take their tests. Leja said teachers suggest they go to the lab to do their work.

The lab, which contains three rooms and Ferry’s office, is a haven for students like Jasmin Ferris, 14, who could not function in the high school setting and Jason Kittavong, 15, who returned to school last summer after time spent at the state Training School.

Kittavong said the quietness of the lab was the perfect refuge when he came back to school. He recovered credits in the summer and this school year worked to get all his eighth-grade credits so he can start in the ninth grade in the fall. Math was his toughest subject.

Ferry said that Kittavong has done so well that to keep him interested in school, the center offered him a place in the school early. (The 10th grade is the norm). Kittavong said he is excited about the Cox New Media program the school is offering. Will he keep coming to school?

“I told my mother I would. I just want to try hard. I want to help my family,” Kittavong said.

Segura, meanwhile, has a job at Walmart as a stock boy, which he got during school. He gives part of his weekly pay to his father to help with the bills. He hopes to get a carpentry apprenticeship.

His last couple of months at school were tough because he got “senioritis,” he said, and he was tired of schoolwork. But Ferry was there to have what he calls “father and son talks” with him. People bent over backwards to help him, he reminded Juan.

Juan didn’t forget. He thanked those people during his portfolio presentation, and by graduating.

tpina@projo.com