Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Classes to Begin at Converted Jail : Education: Expelled students get their last chance to stay in the school system at no-frills rehabilitation facility.

Call it academic justice. Students expelled from the Antelope Valley Union High School District will have one last chance to get back into school starting Monday, but only if they go to jail.

A portion of the county’s Mira Loma jail, closed in 1993 due to budget constraints, has been converted into a year-round school for expelled students who volunteer to attend. The “last chance” school will be a rehabilitation site for the high desert’s bad apples, said Supt. Robert Girolamo. Expelled students who behave for a specified length of time will be eligible to return to one of the district’s five regular high schools.

“A student who gets expelled will have to attend for the current semester, plus all of the following semester,” he said.

The first batch of 10 students expected at the Mira Loma Community School on Monday morning can expect the instruction to match the decor, said John Hutak, director of attendance, welfare and security for the school district.

“They’ll come in together, sit together and take their breaks together. . . . It will be fairly regimented in terms of scheduling,” he said.

The students will be required to adhere to a dress code: white shirt, blue jeans and white tennis shoes.

They will be confined to a 3,600-square-foot room, which has been cleaned up and painted for them, Hutak said. They will be taught by a teacher and an aide.

Freshman through seniors will sit together, but course work will be tailored to students at each level, Hutak said. The school day will begin at 8 a.m. and end at about 2:30 p.m.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed last month that the district could use the facility rent-free. The county will allow use of the jail as long as it does not need to reactivate it as a prison.

School officials expect to be able to use the jail at least through this year.

Some teachers have criticized the program, saying it undermines the district’s “zero tolerance” policy, which automatically expels students for serious on-campus violations.

But Girolamo said students are required by law to attend school until they graduate or are 18 years old. He said the Mira Loma program will hopefully keep kids from being on the streets illegally or forcing their parents to move to a new district.

Hutak said the district’s zero tolerance anti-drug and -weapons program--which offers rewards to students who inform administrators about illegal activity--has led to increased expulsions over the previous academic year.

“I would like to think our ability to detect people breaking school rules is more acute than before and that it’s not an increase in violations,” said Hutak.