COVINGTON, KENTUCKY (FOX19) -

A group of alumni are returning to their roots to keep a struggling program alive at Holmes High School.

A committee at the Covington school was considering whether or not to continue their International Baccalaureate program. IB offers college credits for high school students.

Instead of voting to get rid of the program, the principal gave that group of alumni the chance to save it Tuesday.

School officials say they were seeing fewer and fewer students enroll in the program with more competing college credit opportunities like AP courses available to students.

"I always have to look at the greater good I have to think about what's best for our students and our school overall," principal Dennis Maines explained. "Over the past few years the IB program has had some declining numbers and that's brought some concern to us from a resource perspective, a human resources perspective."

In addition to alumni, parents of alumni spoke at the meeting and others wrote in letters from around the country.

"The most important thing about being in this country is you can come from nothing and when given the right opportunities you can make something of yourself," Kayla Kinker said, addressing the committee.

Kinker, a 2007 Holmes graduate says she was living in a homeless shelter her senior year of high school.

"One child in Covington with nothing else going for them can turn their entire life around," she said.

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Alumni speak to save college credit program at local high school