LOOKING AT THE NEWS
By Josh Resnek
The effort by the School Department to be entrepreneurial in meeting the challenges that public school education face today are to be lauded.
What the School Department is doing to create new opportunities for its high school students is sensational.
It is extraordinary.
The School Department has announced its Academies and Pathways efforts.
Again, they are sensational – partially because they exist – in a major way because they will work.
This effort to increase kids career opportunities, to academic and career themed thinking, is brilliant.
It would be brilliant in Marblehead, Wellesley and even in Brookline, where such programs don’t exist.
What is the Academies and Pathways effort?
In short, it transforms the school design, it also transforms teaching and learning and it ultimately transforms business and civic engagement.
There are four main Academies to ultimately be offered to all high school students.
They are: The Academy of Science and Technology and Engineering, The Academy of Business, Hospitality, The Academy of Health, Law, and Public Service and the Academy of Construction, Machining, Architecture, and Environmental Design.”
Two academies are offered at the present time – the remaining two will come on line next year.
When all is said and done, It will be as if the high school has been re-programmed from conventional classes to choosing one of four academies.
Class-times are being changed as well from 43 minute periods to 75 minute periods.
This has already happened.
It is an innovative tool at a time when public school education in this nation is facing such dif cult hurdles.
“The bottom line, the core value of this reformation of the Everett High School, is the idea to create a pathway for our kids to a career,” said Superintendent of Schools Frederick Foresteire.
“By the time they graduate, the idea and the hope is that they are on a road to get themselves a job or a trade or to pursue their dreams with a better chance of succeeding at whatever it is they want to do.”
Foresteire described the academies as a a great tool for the students that gives them direction after graduation.
“The biggest issue young people have graduating from high school is what to do next. Many graduates don’t know what to do or where to turn. If we get them focused early in their high school careers they will be more successful when they graduate,” added the superintendent.
The One Foundation has given $800,000 to the School Department aid in bringing out the project to its fullest.