Back-to-school specials have come and gone, and in most high school locker rooms, students already have shared their vacation stories.

But for a group of teen dropouts, this fall may turn into an idle semester because a high-school equivalency program tailored to serve them no longer has a home.

The Durham Literacy Council's youth GED program is one of the few opportunities available for Durham dropouts between ages 16 and 18, and about 35 teens already are signed up for classes.

Until earlier this summer, classes were held at the Golden Belt complex on East Main Street downtown, in space donated by the Center for Employment Training, which occupied two floors in the building. But the CET, in a financial pinch, recently squeezed its operations onto one floor, leaving no room for the youth GED classes.

"We already have a full roster of students and we have no location to start," said Sandee Washington, the GED program instructor. The class serves a vulnerable group of youths, she said, and with each passing day, it could become difficult to contact them. As a result, some may fall through the cracks, she said.

"You need an incredible amount of structure, predictability and stability to be successful," Washington said. "We've got to start off strong with everything in place to do this."

Literacy Council Executive Director Lucy Haagen came before County Commissioners earlier this week to plead for program space, or $32,000 to find a compatible place in which to house the program.

The Literacy Council had asked for the $32,000 earlier this year, but the commissioners, who gave the GED program a first-year grant of $16,000 last year, rejected the request.

Haagen left the meeting empty-handed, except for a promise of help finding a new place and some resolution to the center's predicament no later than the Aug. 25 commissioners meeting.

"We need to be ready to open the program after Labor Day," Haagen said. "We intended to start when school started."

By Labor Day weekend, the program will have lost three weeks of "valuable instruction time," Haagen said, and potentially lost some students it could have helped.

Commissioners Chairwoman Ellen Reckhow said the board is looking at vacant space, possibly at Lyon Park; the Holton School, where CIS Academy previously operated; or the Whitted Building, home of the nonprofit Operation Breakthrough program.

"We will try to get this resolved in the next two weeks, so they can get going with their program," Reckhow said.

According to Durham Public Schools' preliminary statistics released last month, 631 students dropped out of school during the 2002-03 school year, down 8 percent from the previous year.

Ben Munn, who dropped out of Riverside High School in February, heard about the GED program Friday at the Durham Public Schools' Transitions to Opportunity Fair.

"I wanted to look for opportunities elsewhere," the 18-year-old said.

Munn said he has gone to the Literacy Council's West Chapel Hill Street building to take sample tests to evaluate his level of knowledge while he waits for classes to start.

"I'm just preparing, doing what I can," he said. "The only concern I have is that there is a lot of students that can't go anywhere else ... If they don't have space to teach these kids, where are they going to go? Go back to some school and get kicked out again, and then work for $5.15 an hour?"

© Durham Herald Company, Inc.