VIRGINIA BEACH
Middle school art teacher Nancy Habit doesn't know exactly what to expect when she starts teaching at Virginia Beach's new alternative school next year. But she likes what she's hearing about teamwork and new technology.
The stakes are high for the city's first alternative school for grades 6 through 12. Administrators see it as a testing ground for innovative instructional techniques and online learning they hope to take citywide. Already-struggling students who fail at the new school will have few other options.
Byron Williams, the school's director, said his goal is to send students back to their home schools at or above their grade level. "This is not a warehousing activity. They are there to learn, and we are there to teach," he said.
This week, educators hired from 19 city schools will start to find out their program and course assignments for the fall. Four alternative programs will merge this summer and be called Renaissance Academy. But for the first months of the school year, the programs will remain at separate sites. They will move in shifts into an eco-friendly, $66.2 million building near Witchduck Road starting in January 2010.
Since alternative education took off in Virginia Beach and elsewhere around the country in the early 1990s, the city's various programs for students with academic or behavioral troubles have shared buildings or inherited older, unwanted facilities. Discipline problems have been common, and test scores at the three main programs have been well below division averages.
"When children give up, it is often because people have given up on them," Superintendent Jim Merrill said. "And if we take a hard look at ourselves, then we can't discount the fact that we have failed to engage them along the way."
Williams said he'll change the way alternative education works in the city. Renaissance will have extended hours, bus transportation, vocational courses and offerings including foreign languages, art and music. After-school clubs and intramural sports will be established for the first time.
Sports could motivate students to keep their grades up, said Kahana Glenn, who attended Virginia Beach Central Academy this year and will be a junior at Renaissance in the fall. He said his biggest concern about the school is security.
Middle and high school students will be in separate sections. Within those sections, students at the school for academic reasons will attend classes on different floors from those there for behavioral reasons. The school will open with about 800 students but has room for twice as many.
Merrill said Renaissance will be a place "for giving children what they need when they need it." That means making school relevant to their lives.
Williams said instruction schoolwide will be arranged around a quarterly theme such as "My Place in the World." Each student will have an individual academic plan and will work on a project of his or her choosing with a mentor teacher.
With a startup budget of $750,000, the school plans to join online projects such as Quest Atlantis, a multi-user learning game based in an alternative world.
Technology "is their world," said Gail Gossage, a Salem Middle School teacher who will be among the 25 percent of Renaissance teachers coming from mainstream schools. To succeed, learning needs to be hands-on, she said.
Kahana, 15, said the school's name gives him hope.
"In history, it means rebirth and change. It'll be a little inspirational thing - a reminder," he said.
Habit, the art teacher, sees it the same way. Next fall, as her students wait to move into the new building, she knows what she'll tell them.
"You're going to a new building because we believe in you."
Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com
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Reality Check
well, it's been 3 weeks and RAHS has really started making a name for itself! no less than 10 fights, no enforcement of the dress code - prevelant gang colors which are not even permitted in the comprehensive settings...weapons, alcohol, drugs, sex acts and the need to increase the Resource Officer numbers from 1 to 6, to have Safe Schools policing and handling the discipline referrals that actually get dealt - which isn't for much as even the most serious offenses 'earn' the perpetrator a possible day of ISS or a 'don't do it again'...targeting those they can 'control' while permitting the rest to do as they wish...going after a young man, who has money in hand and it attempting to buy the appropriate attire from the school store while those in designer jeans and shirts stroll past...
New School
I see no problem in consolidating the alternative programs in one location. Having room for more students in the future might simply be a means of planning for the continued growth of our community. Heaven knows, the developers put up houses faster than the city puts up schools. This leaves some of our kids at all the schools trying to learn in trailers. It's no wonder why some students fall behind or are not motivated.
Trailer =/= Failure
having spent a few years teaching in trailers i can say with confidence that it's not the structure that is the cause of failure - it's what goes on, or doesn't go on, within it...
Truth is...(continued)
In regards to SOL scores - even those late comers to our program failed SOL tests. When we received them a mere month or two prior to testing - is that also to be our failure?
We have yet to be shown proof that the programs are the failures that the board, Dr. Merrill or Dr. Williams proclaimed them to be in their attempts to provide PR for the new Academy. In regards to intermurals, additional computer programs, etc - all the bells and whistles the new Academy will be provided with - it was never provided to the programs that already were in existance so it's an unreasonable and unfair assumption that our failure was due to unwilling teachers or administration. We could only provide what the school board and Dr. Merrill staff and budgeted for year after year.
Truth is...
When I was interviewing (after being 'excused' by Williams from my current alt ed position) I was asked about the perception that the alt ed students performance was subpar and that the programs were considered 'easy'. My response was simple - we work with the students that are provided to us by the comprehensive schools. They didn't suddenly become poor students, unmotivated students the moment they were assigned to us. We received students who were already below grade level - either by ability or by attitude - which translated to poor performance and motivation...We were tasked with modifying both their behaviors and pulling them up as far and as fast as we could to grade level.
Love the push for technology
As a tech guy in education, I love that they are making a push for technology. It scales just like education should! :D
If any parents or teachers at that school are looking for a free online resource, check out:
Brainyflix.com
brainyflix.com
Kids teach each other with funny images and video (a la SNL-type of skits). This was built with the support of MIT university and Salesforce.com.
According to the article:
"...Students at the school for academic reasons will attend classes on different floors from those there for behavioral reasons..."
Isn't it a fact that the majority of students with significant behavioral problems also exhibit serious academic deficiencies? If so, what floor do those students belong on?
"Administrators see it as a testing ground for innovative instructional techniques and online learning they hope to take citywide."
Oh, really? Please tell me that their primary objective is to TEACH these kids, and NOT to use them as educational crash test dummies.
Wonderful Idea
I think this is an awesome idea. I know that it often seems that some students appear to have given up and become unreachable at some point in their short schooling career. However, I think that any plan that seeks to provide them with a better educational opportunity that is more stimulating to them than the status quo of eduction is awesome.
Sure, at the age of 26, I am remember what school was like for me and that it really didn't seem all that good or worth while. I was a fairly intelligent and high scoring student. What I noticed then as I'm sure several students are noticing now is that the classes do not seem to have apparent use in the real world. Is this true? No!! It is absolutely worth something and WILL be used in the real world.
Suggestion: Come up with a curriculum that brings the theory into application/practicality for students. Don't just do paper. Do the real world application in terms they can understand. Why do I say this? I'm now in the Air Force and apply several of the theories I learned in high school now. I used several of the theories when I was working customer support before.
Don't throw away a student just because you think the "smart" ones wan
Concerned for the Students
From what I've read about Dr. Williams, he doesn't have a background in alternative education. How is he qualified to run the school? It seems like the plan is to have the school fail so that Dr. Merrill can move in the students he really wants to have in this new green building. It seems that the new teachers coming to the school want to be there because it's a new school, but do they understand that the students aren't new? How committed will they be to the same students many of these teachers are responsible for placing there in first place?
Do you have any faith in
Do you have any faith in teachers at all? The teachers going to the Renaissance Academy are doing so because they WANT to make a difference in these children's lives. They want to give them the support, direction, and guidance that they're lacking from their own homes.
The kids who ended up at CEL or CDC were placed there because of their own actions/choices, not because the teachers sent them there. (Actually, the teachers had no say in their placements.)
After 2 years, this new
After 2 years, this new school will look like it is 30 years old. Most of these kids just don't care about the school. They only care about themselves and what their friends think about them. Hopefully, one day they will grow up.
A name...
A name does not make the school. If you would look back at the original story on the school construction when it began, the school board stated, they did not know how the school would work. But they went ahead and built it anyway. A lot of lip service - some kids just do cut it. I suppose they will stay around loafing until their age gets them "kicked" out.. Good luck with the school - you'll need it. Last thought - maybe they sould focus on the core subjects as done decades back, reading, writing and arithmetic and forget the touchy feel good stuff like art. Give the art resources to those that deserve it.
Wouldn't it be nice
Wouldn't it be nice if the city actually put this money towards their magnet schools, like ODC? The school is falling down and dilapidated. Meanwhile, kids who can't cut it in regular schools get to go to this bright and shiny new school. Will this facility turn them into amazing student? I hope so, but more than likely, no. Why not put the money into a population that puts more into its own education?
Build it and they will come
The city describes the school as "a testing ground for innovative instructional techniques.” Are you kidding me? How as a city full of administrators and educators do you "plan" for 1500 "students with academic or behavioral troubles", when your current enrollment is only 800? What's the plan to fill the 700 remaining spaces? Where will they come from? What are the qualifiers for "students with academic or behavioral troubles?" Is there a recruiting plan in place? This is nothing short of a premeditated "dumping ground" for students that don't fit into the one size fits all learning mold.
Superintendent Merrill said the alternative school will be a place "for giving children what they need when they need it.” If that's the intended goal for alternative schooling in Virginia Beach, then what is the intended goal for traditional schools within the city?
What our children need are more teachers. What our teachers need is better pay. What our city needs is a restructured public school system. $66.2 million is alot of money to spend on alternative schooling when you've failed to meet the basic needs for traditional schooling.
It's a sad commentary on our
It's a sad commentary on our society when an entire school "has" to be built for this purpose.
It also saddens me that the 4 successful (yes they WERE successful...test scores do not a successful school make!) year-round/balanced schedule elementary programs were shuttered this year, one of them closing entirely, b/c of budget cuts, yet this school went on being built. What a waste of taxpayers money.
Didn't
the city just close down Plaza because of declining enrollment yet their building an alternative school? So what happens in 5 years when the enrollment at this new school is down for the 5th consecutive year will the city shutter it and put it in mothballs as well and build yet another school in the process?
Struggling students
I find it hard to believe that there will be 800 to start but room for twice as many struggling students...........isn't this a wake up call that something's just not right? Now I'm thinking that if that group sees that they can go to a new, state of the art, high tech school, why would they try to do any better in a regular class, with people doing the same work? Maybe too far away from having a student in my home to understand.