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N.O. Center for Science and Math Prepares Students for Demands of Business World

Posted on: Monday, 4 April 2005, 03:00 CDT

Jason Perry learned to think big early on.

When he was a high-school student at the New Orleans Center for Science and Math, Perry started a computer consulting business. After graduation, Perry co-founded Out the Box Web Productions, a New Orleans-based Web development company that has designed award- winning Web sites for the city of New Orleans, Liberty Bank & Trust and Dillard University.

Perry said his experiences at the New Orleans Center for Science and Math, a New Orleans Public School charter program located on Delgado Community College's City Park campus, gave him the tools to succeed in the business world. The school really let us go as far as our minds would take us, he said. They gave me the ability to think big.

The center prepares students for the demands of industry - a key to the economic development of the New Orleans area - said Liza Sherman, director of business and workforce development for Greater New Orleans Inc. The public-private economic development partnership estimates 18,000 vacant health care, shipbuilding and oil and gas sector jobs in the region are unfilled because there aren't enough trained workers.

The New Orleans Center for Science and Math provides hands-on, lab-intensive courses in biology, physics and geology, robotics and computer systems to any student enrolled in an Orleans Parish public or private high school who is interested in science or math. The material is presented in an engaging lab format because you can't teach chemistry by lecture, said Barbara MacPhee, NOCSM principal.

For example, students test water quality in City Park, take annual trips to a marine biology research station in Cocodrie and engineer robots.

From March 3-5, the center's N.O. Botics team competed at the first Robotics Competition regional event in Duluth, Ga. Teams of students in the international high school engineering contest to design and build a functioning robot in six weeks or less. N.O. Botics did not place but learned valuable lessons in the process.

The skills the students are learning will translate into jobs, Sherman said. They are getting an education that is directly applicable to jobs in (information technology), manufacturing, energy and engineering. They are better prepared than the average person to go into these fields.

Sherman said she hopes the center will feed students into two- year process technology degree programs, which prepare workers for the offshore oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas companies are currently hiring workers from outside the state for these positions because they can't find anyone here to fill them, she said.

GNO Inc.'s May 2004 labor demand survey estimates 642 total job vacancies exist in the oil and gas industry with an average salary of $45,540. Retirement among oil-industry baby boomers will add to that number.

GNO Inc.'s Biotech Workforce Evaluation report estimates the biotech sector will grow 20 percent to 40 percent in the next five years, increasing demand for lab technicians, research specialists and data analysts.

Kris Pottharst, executive director of Advocates for Science and Math Education Inc., a nonprofit group formed to support the school, said the hands-on teaching and internship program will help students land these good-paying jobs.

The school provides 75 to 100 paid internships each year. Students have interned in DNA research at the Louisiana State University Medical Center, worked with the Tulane-Xavier Bioenviromental Research Center, Lindy Boggs Medical Center and the Audubon Institute. This year, students will have the opportunity to conduct hypertension research at Ochsner.

Our interns are not fetching coffee. The students are working in research labs and seeing how what they learn in school applies to everyday life, Pottharst said.

The school is one of only two members with open admissions in the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology. The program is open to all interested students regardless of past academic performance.

Every public school is represented and we have a wide range of skills and abilities, said Pottharst. We reach a traditionally underserved demographic and the students do well.

Students, 60 percent of whom come from public schools with a C, D, or F rating from the Louisiana Department of Education, outperform city public and magnet schools on standardized tests. Ninety-seven percent of New Orleans Center for Science and Math students passed the science portion in the first sitting; 94 percent passed the math portion. On average, 93 percent attend college after graduation.

We are producing students who are competent with a work ethic and know the value of persistence, MacPhee said.

Perry is one of the center's success stories.

The center was willing to support us, no matter how far-fetched our ideas were, he said. Teachers even came in on weekends so Perry could run his business from the school's computer lab.

Curtis Colly is another success. He went from nearly flunking his freshman year to become a model student pursuing a computer science degree at the University of New Orleans. Colly teaches computer classes at the school in his free time and was one of four NOCSM students featured in a 2003 Microsoft corporate film about achievement via technology.

There is talent in New Orleans and, as a community, we need to develop it, said Pottharst. Science and math skills are critically needed in the United States and students need to be able to step up and fill the gap. The New Orleans Center for Science and Math gives the next generation access to challenging careers instead of settling for less.

(Copyright 2005 Dolan Media Newswires)

Source: New Orleans CityBusiness

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