For more than thirty years, Communities in Schools (CIS) has been dedicated to giving every child a chance to graduate by targeting those factors that are most likely to cause a student to drop out, and providing what it sees as the “five basics” for student achievement: a caring relationship with an adult; a safe place to learn and grow; a healthy start and a healthy future; a marketable skill to use upon graduation; and a chance to give back to peers and community. As part of this far-reaching effort, CIS developed Performance Learning Centers (PLC), an innovative alternative high school model that focuses on providing the five basics to struggling students within a nontraditional learning environment, as opposed to a traditional high school setting.