Senior Connor Barnes doesn’t have to catch a bus at 7 a.m. to get to school by 7:45. His earliest class is at 12:10 p.m., and he can do most of his schoolwork from home.

Barnes is one of 17 high-schoolers who attends StudentLink, the Island’s small alternative school on the edge of the Vashon High School campus. The program’s headquarters — part computer lab, part classroom and part student-friendly den — is a daily refuge for some, a drop-in tutoring center for others and a checkpoint for all StudentLinkers each week.

Students in the program do their schoolwork independently, when and how they want to. They check in with program teacher Nan Hammett once each week. And they work toward credit completion at the rate that suits them.

Students study topics as diverse as sewing, art history and algebra. They give themselves their own homework and projects, so they’re more motivated to do the assignments, students said.

A self-directed learning program, StudentLink earned recognition from the Washington Association for Learning Alternatives this fall for being in the top 20 percent of alternative schools statewide. StudentLinkers work at their own pace toward a StudentLink diploma.

More than two-thirds of students who enter StudentLink receive a diploma from the school, though some take more than four years to complete high school, according to the Washington Association for Learning Alternatives.

“A high-school diploma is pretty important in terms of where you end up in life,” said Julie Hanger, StudentLink’s program manager. “We’re really proud when our kids earn that and go on to other things.”

She said StudentLink’s seven seniors are all on track to graduate this year.

The alternative educational program serves nontraditional learners, former dropouts, those who move slowly and those who move quickly — bright students, said Hammett, for whom traditional schooling wasn’t the right fit.

“I was doing poorly in normal school and wasn’t really happy there,” said Barnes, taking a break from studying in the StudentLink room.

“Now, I can choose the things that I learn,” he said.

Fellow StudentLinker Logan Malczyk, a junior, dropped out of school as a freshman and was sent to boarding school the next year. Upon returning to Vashon, he chose StudentLink over Vashon High School. It’s working out better for him, he said.

“If you’re a really good self-motivating person, you can get work done on your own, and you feel like doing more self-based classes, StudentLink is really good for you,” he said.

Junior Keanu Roush, who took off his headphones and stopped solving math problems to talk to a reporter, said StudentLink is more engaging and flexible than traditional high school.

“I failed a bunch of classes last year because I wasn’t doing the homework,” he said. “I give myself my own homework now.”

There’s a huge difference between Vashon High and StudentLink, he added.

“You don’t necessarily have to sit in class and listen to lectures,” Roush said. “You can study whatever it is that you like, and you can do your work from home if you want to.”

The program — originally an offshoot of FamilyLink, the Island’s homeschooling program — developed a decade ago in response to the needs of high-schoolers who didn’t have parents able to homeschool them but wanted an alternative education.

Students in the small, 10-year-old school must spend 25 hours every week on schoolwork but can choose how to spend their time learning.

They can take one class per trimester at Vashon High School if they like, and they can work independently on as few or as many classes as they can handle — as long as they work for 25 hours each week on school.

There are core requirements students must fill — math, social studies, English, science — but students can complete the coursework in areas that interest them. And there’s room for many electives in the world of StudentLink.

This year, different StudentLinkers have studied alchemy, Mesopotamian history and heavy metal, among other diverse subjects.

StudentLink graduate Mica Gaxiola-Flynn discovered her passion and career path as a student at the alternative school. Today, she is a student in Cornish College of the Arts’ four-year costume design program.

“Before StudentLink, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do — go to college, or which college — but being in StudentLink, I found out this whole new career idea of costume design,” Gaxiola-Flynn said. “It started that I did projects on fashion and that progressed to actually making clothes, which progressed to theater.”

She said StudentLink was a good fit for her because she assigned herself homework and was therefore deeply interested in her coursework.

“It seemed like at StudentLink, every time I had a project, I wanted to put everything I had into it,” Gaxiola-Flynn said.

Each student works with StudentLink teacher Hammett to create an individualized learning plan that will help him or her fulfill goals and school requirements.

Hammett meets with each student for 45 minutes a week to discuss the upcoming week, gather up homework and go over the assignments she graded in the past week.

“The rest of the time, they’re doing work on their own,” she said.

Many students come to the StudentLink room, located on the southeastern corner of the Vashon High School campus, to study, use the computers, have some down time or be tutored.

The room — replete with couches, pillows and other items that give it a pleasantly non-academic feel — is open only three days a week this year due to budget cuts, but students, teachers and tutors are making good use of Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Hammett said.

Her students are very different, she said, but share the common bond that a traditional model of learning was not working well for them.

“There’s a wide variety of reasons,” Hammett said. “Some of them are super-creative, out-of-the-box kids; others have very distinctive learning styles. Some have very challenging home lives, or there are things in their lives that take up a lot of their energy.”

Traditional schooling doesn’t work for every student, said Janet Chapman, the program’s secretary and mother of StudentLinker Sam.

“Not everybody fits in a traditional system,” she said. “StudentLink is about what the kids can do, as opposed to what they’re always told they can’t do. (StudentLink) is education in its purest form, because it meets the student right where they are.”

Parent Carol Lutra-Johns, whose daughter Zoe is a StudentLinker, said the alternative school is a good bridge between adolescence and adulthood.

“It’s good for kids who are self-motivated and are ready to make that transitionary step from being supervised and out into the world,” she said. “There’s more than one way, more than traditional schooling, where kids sit at a desk and are talked at. If a student is struggling, maybe they need to have a different approach to learning.”

Gaxiola-Flynn admitted the transition to StudentLink was difficult at first.

“It was hard to get used to the idea that if you wanted to do something, it was all on you,” she said. “There wasn’t a teacher who would say, ‘This is due Thursday, and we’re going to do a rough draft.’ You had to get in the mindset that you’re in charge and you’re going to do it yourself.”

At Cornish, she often finds herself explaining what StudentLink is to fellow students.

“I tell them it’s a self-learning program, where I had a basic outline of credits I needed to fill for high school, but I got to fit in the projects and books I read as long as it fit in,” she said. “I explain that it’s like homeschooling, and you’re your own parent.”