There are not enough guidance counselors in the high school to adequately perform the roles of crisis counselors and their more traditional tasks of helping students with career or college choices

Lisbon - There is no Alternative School or program for "at-risk" students in the district.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Superior Court found that the petitioner districts have sufficient intervention programs to address the needs of their "at risk" student population. The Superior Court held that the existence of a few programs in some of the petitioner school districts was evidence of constitutional adequacy.

The Superior Court determined that the state is addressing the needs of the state's "at risk" student population because of the availability of: the free lunch program, the Reading Recovery Program and the Minimum Standards requirement of guidance counselors at every school.

Petitioner school districts presented evidence that existing programs do not meet the needs of their "at-risk" student population. Some of the petitioner school districts have requested help from the state to assist them to serve their "at-risk" students, but have not received any assistance.

The districts that most need to supply costly "at-risk" programs are often the poorest districts with the highest concentrations of children in need of assistance. The above chart of the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunches illustrate that almost 1/5 to 1/2 of the students in the petitioner school districts, using the Superior Court's criteria, could require early intervention or "at-risk" programs.

By contrast the comparison schools have the resources to provide more programs, though they have a much smaller "at-risk" student population. Lebanon is able to provide the following resources to its "at-risk" elementary school students: a breakfast program, an associate physiologist, two full-time special education teachers, a speech pathologist, a full-time guidance counselor, three reading recovery teachers and a media generalist.