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At Some New MPS High Schools, A-B-Seas and a Haven From Bullies; Students Will Find Specialized Studies and Smaller Settings

Posted on: Monday, 1 August 2005, 15:00 CDT

The largest wave of new public high school openings in recent Milwaukee history will kick off today with the first day of Alliance School, a unique program that targets students who felt bullied or harassed in their old schools.

"I just can't wait for school to start up," said Eric Hines, an 18-year-old who will begin his senior year at Alliance today. "And usually, believe me, I can wait for school to start up."

Alliance is one of 11 public high schools that will open in the coming weeks, many of them with distinctive specialties or approaches.

The Foster & Williams Visual Communication Campus will offer project-based learning and American Sign Language as a foreign language credit to 150 students, of whom about 40 will probably be deaf or hard of hearing.

The Maasai Institute will use the culture and philosophy of an African tribe to shape its approach, and The Inland Seas School of Expeditionary Learning will focus its curriculum on "sea education," including fieldwork on the Great Lakes.

The schools are all opening through the redesigning of Milwaukee's high schools, which calls for some large schools to be broken into smaller ones. It also calls for the creation of several new, independent small schools. The idea is that smaller learning environments for teenagers will foster closer connections among parents, students and teachers, and ultimately improve the district's graduation rate. All told, about 50 new high schools will open through the initiative. Twelve schools opened over the last two years.

The pace picks up this fall. Smaller programs will take shape at Marshall and Washington high schools, two of the district's more well-known, historic programs. All of the students at Washington will be enrolled in one of three smaller schools; Marshall will be phased out year by year, starting in fall when all freshmen enter one of three smaller schools. Some of the schools will gather for extracurricular activities at what are now the Marshall Multiplex and the Washington Multiplex.

The initiative has not come without its critics.

"We have heard, from colleagues at schools such as Marshall, Washington, and the erstwhile North Division, that the transitions are messy, support is insufficient, and the teachers are shouldering responsibilities that take away from teaching duties," wrote Jay Bullock, an English teacher at Madison University High School, in a letter to Journal Sentinel reporters and editors. He added that the schools are much more likely to be successful if they are "developed from the bottom-up, democratically," and reform is not imposed from above.

But Marty Lexmond, who is heading up the district's high school reform efforts, said "there continues to be a good deal of excitement from teachers who find this intriguing, and we continue to get calls from teachers who want to know how they can submit proposals." He added that attendance rates have been above district averages at nine of the 10 new small schools that have opened in the last two years. The challenge will be to turn that into better graduation rates over the next two years.

"As we start having 11th- and 12th-grade students, we are having the small schools work together to provide advanced coursework opportunities," said Lexmond, noting that schools with only a few teachers might struggle to offer a variety of courses on their own.

A safe haven'

Alliance has attracted considerable attention in Milwaukee and nationally because of the distinctive nature of its focus and approach. The school is open to all students, but the emphasis is on those who have been struggling socially or academically because of bullying or harassment.

"It's a safe haven," said Hines, who knew one of the school's founders through the Gay-Straight Alliance at Washington High School. "You can come and be who you are."

On Wednesday afternoon, Hines helped teachers set up in their Galena St. location. "Everything has to be perfect because it's like opening up a new restaurant and you have 100 food critics coming," he said, referring to the students. "There are a lot of people who are looking for this school to fail in a lot of ways."

Hines, who helped with some recruiting, said he worked hard to persuade students that Alliance is not just for gay teens. "A lot of kids thought it was going to be an all-gay school and I said, No, that's why we call ourselves Alliance.' "

Jennifer Wilson, the school counselor, said some students are coming for the small setting, others because they will feel more comfortable expressing their beliefs, and still others are intrigued by the school's being more student-governed than larger ones.

Wilson emphasized that the academics will be rigorous. "We're not an alternative school about feeling warm and fuzzy," she said.

Debbie Austin decided to enroll her daughter in Maasai after receiving a flier and talking to people about the program. She is excited that her daughter will have more of a voice in the school's program and policies than she would at larger, traditional high schools.

"I'm going to test the waters," she said. "Sometimes new is good and sometimes it may not be, but because of what I've been exposed to so far, I'm willing to take that chance. I think because it is going to be a small atmosphere, (my daughter) will get the attention she is looking for."

Daniel Grego, the executive director of TransCenter for Youth Inc., said leaders of the redesigned high schools scaled back the total number of new high schools opening from 61 to 50 partly in an effort to make sure that all of them are receiving adequate support.

"We expect that every year the schools are going to be better prepared," he said. "Starting a school is hard because you've got to create a culture from scratch. There will always be struggles." He said he has "high hopes" for several of the schools that are starting.

Grego said his organization, which provides support to the new schools, learned that it had to spend more time working with the schools on issues such as budgeting, particularly because many of them are led by teachers instead of a traditional administrator.

"Lots of interesting issues will start surfacing as we move forward," he said. "With the more innovative schools, will the post- secondary system understand that these kids are being prepared in new kinds of ways?"

At Alliance, teachers are thinking about more short-term hurdles.

"I am the math department," said George Birthisel, a first-year teacher who joined the school three weeks ago.

On Wednesday, Tina Owen, the lead teacher, fielded questions and comments from incoming students, many of whom have her cell phone number. "They're calling and text messaging," she said.

One message read simply: "I'm so proud of you."

A WAVE OF NEW SCHOOLS

Apart from Alliance, Foster & Williams, Maasai and the Inland Seas School of Expeditionary Learning, other schools that will open in fall are:

Milwaukee Academy of Aviation, Science & Technology, which will integrate technology throughout its curriculum, particularly through its focus on aviation, aerospace and aeronautics

Milwaukee Learning Laboratory & Institute, which will encourage students to learn about social justice, leadership and service through participation in the community

Tenor, which will combine academics with a focus on career opportunities to prepare students for early entry into professional careers

Travis Technology High School, a private school that will work with students who have dropped out or been identified as "at risk" to tailor a program to their needs

W.E.B. DuBois High School, which will emphasize communications technology and media literacy through a project-based curriculum run in close conjunction with the Marquette University College of Communication

Washington High School of Expeditionary Learning, which will undertake in-depth studies of particular topics or themes, such as water quality or the civil rights movement

Washington High School of Information Technology, which will teach about technology and use it as a tool in all curricular areas

Washington High School of Law, Education and Public Service, which will expose students to the three areas in their first year. They will pursue one of the three pathways in more depth in the next three years.

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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