Recommendations for transforming Little Rock’s Forest Heights Middle School and Geyer Springs Elementary School into campuses with unique-to-the-district academic programs and grade structures are beginning to crystallize.
Courses with names like Magic of Electrons, Automation and Robotics, Green Architecture and Medical Detectives have worked their way into planning sessions on transforming Forest Heights Middle School into a kindergarten-through-eighth grade STEM school, a school that emphasizes the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Specific curricula and projects used at schools elsewhere in the nation to accelerate the teaching of math, science, literacy and social studies are being evaluated for their value in turning the traditional Geyer Springs Elementary School program into a “high-ability academy.” The proposed academy would serve third-through-eighth-graders who, as one district administrator said,“bump their heads every day on the learning ceiling.”
Dexter Suggs, superintendent of the Little Rock School District since July 1,last month proposed revamping the two campuses and opening the restructured schools to eligible pupils district-wide, possibly assoon as the 2014-15 school year.
The Little Rock School Board has not yet approved converting the schools but did authorize district administrators to do the planning.
Sadie Mitchell, associate superintendent for elementary education; Linda Young,director of grants and program development; Shoutell Richardson, elementary education supervisor; and Christine Deitz are spearheading that work with advice from committees of district employees, community and education leaders, and parents.
“This can be a game changer for this region,” Eric Sandgren, dean of the College of Engineering and Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a member of the Forest Heights planning committee, said last week about the anticipated emphasis on science, technology and math.
University educators have been talking for a long time, he said, about strengthening the student pipeline to science- and math-related degrees and careers, and the need to teach younger children to be hands-on problem-solvers before they reach high school and become convinced that science and math are difficult and not for them.
Sandgren predicted that interest in the Forest Heights program will be high.
“Everyone has a stake in this,” he said. “Everybody wants it to be successful, and they have been looking for a vehicle like this so they can jump on board.”
Planners are focusing on the Project Lead The Way Gateway to Technology program, a project-based curriculum for grades six through eight, at Forest Heights.
It is that program, now used in about 4,700 middle and high schools across the country, that includes foundation courses in robotics and three-dimensional modeling, as well as a laboratory course in biomedical science and another in designing environmentally friendly architecture using shipping containers.
Project Lead The Way, established in 1997 and based in Indianapolis, is a nonprofit provider of STEM-subject curricula and teacher-training programs. The organization’s programs were designed by teachers, university faculty members, and engineering and medical professionals to promote critical thinking, creativity, innovation and real-world problem-solving skills.
A reconfigured Forest Heights would include elementary school pupils, as well as middle-school children. Project Lead The Way this year is testing an elementary school STEM curriculum that Little Rock district planners said last week that they would like to use at Forest Heights.
But other programs are being considered as well for the school. The list includes the Engineering is Elementary program to complement the standard science curriculum. The program, featuring stories and hands-on experiments, is designed to help children understand what engineering is and how it affects their daily lives.
Regarding a proposed Geyer Springs High Ability Academy, district planners say they want the academic program to be intellectually demanding.
Inquiry-based lessons, group problem-solving, individual and group investigations, and classroom discussions will all be used to provide enriched, extended and accelerated learning, a draft plan states.
A literature-based language-arts program is being planned, and history research projects will be required of pupils. The Mentoring Mathematical Minds program from the University of Connecticut, written for gifted students, is expected to be part of the school’s math curriculum.
Science instruction at the school will rely in part on experimentation and be enriched in part through the use of hands-on science activities and programs such as the Full Option Science System in which students take on the roles of scientists, doing their own investigations and analyses.
The proposed redesign of the two schools has raised questions at School Board meetings and public forums about student eligibility requirements, school attendance zones, school-bus transportation, teacher employment and training, and extra curricular programs.
“The heart of what we are making decisions about should be based around our program. If we don’t know what kind of program we are going to have … it’s difficult to answer questions,” Mitchell said last week as she and other lead planners outlined some of the thinking about necessary logistical changes.
Tentative plans call for a restructured Forest Heights to house two kindergarten classes, three classes in each of first-through-fifth grades, and four classes in each of grades six through eight. That would total about 715 pupils.
Each pupil in kindergarten-through-second grades would be provided an iPad computer tablet. Laptops would be provided to each pupil in grades three through eight at both Forest Heights and Geyer Springs, as technology would be integrated throughout the academic program.
Geyer Springs would house two classes of pupils in each grade in grades three through five in the first year of operation. There would be 75 seats for sixth-graders and the same for seventh and eighth grades when those grades are added in later years.
Both schools would operate on the district’s current middle-school schedule, 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., but the schools would remain open until 5 p.m., providing late-afternoon opportunities to pupils for enrichment.
No specifics were available last week, but multiple criteria would be used to determine student eligibility for enrollment - including student test scores, a gauge of student interest, parent assessment of their child’s traits and interests, and referrals from teachers and principals. In the case of Geyer Springs, the criteria could include the student’s earlier identification as a gifted student and results of a reasoning and logic assessment.
It’s the district’s plan to provide school-bus transportation to the two schools from neighborhoods across the city. While new pupils would move into the schools, questions were unanswered last week about school assignments for students who live in the current Forest Heights and Geyer Springs neighborhoods but would not meet eligibility requirements for the schools.
Cathy Koehler, president of the Little Rock Education Association employee union,was emphatic about the need to address teacher concerns, including their eligibility to teach in the special program schools or to transfer out of the schools to different jobs within the district - and not be in jeopardy of losing employment.
Affected teachers also have to be provided with high-quality training for the new programs. In cases in which it might be necessary to deviate from the terms of the teacher contract, a memorandum of understanding between the district and the association would be necessary, Koehler said.
In their work, the lead planners have looked to other schools in the nation as models for what is possible in Little Rock. Plans call for at least two members from each of the Forest Heights and Geyer Springs committees to visit the model schools, which include the Sidener Academy for High Ability Students, a gifted-education school in Indianapolis, and the STEM Magnet School at Annie Fisherin Hartford, Conn.
Also being planned for the coming weeks are community sessions on the possible plans for the two schools, Mitchell said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/27/2013