By KYLE WIND
Freeman staff
kwind@freemanonline.com; twitter.com/KyleatFreeman

KINGSTON, N.Y. – The district is expected to post online today specific proposals to divide Kingston High School students into smaller learning communities for the 2013-14 school year. The posting is intended to allow residents to weigh in on the plans.

The proposals are posted on the district website at http://www.kingstoncityschools.org/khs.cfm?subpage=846088.

Smaller learning communities are designed to organize students from large, impersonal schools into smaller groups, helping keep individual students from becoming lost or alienated. The approach was recommended by Kingston High School’s restructuring task force to help address achievement gaps.

Although minority graduation rates are one area in which the district must improve, Principal Adrian Manuel said academies at Kingston High School are not just about graduation, but about preparation for college and careers.

“Graduation shouldn’t be something that kids just do to graduate,” said Manuel. “It should be something they do with an aspiration that we’re bringing them on their journey for that aspiration, to help them achieve that aspiration. And so what the academies do is clarify what those aspirations might be. Do you have aspirations in the arts, in engineering, in business? Over four years, we’re going to give you a specialized program and a robust experience where you’re going to be exposed to classes, projects, internships, relationships, and awareness around what this could look like for you when you move out of high school.”

The goal is for teams that created the proposals to present the plans to Superintendent Paul Padalino and his administrative cabinet by the end of June and to finalize academies with which school officials want to move forward by the first week of July, said Manuel.

High school faculty will then spend the 2012-13 school year planning one to two of the academies by designing the curriculum and figuring out what physical space they will occupy.

The two interdisciplinary pilot academies opened this year at Kingston High School are called Global Themes and Media and Communication. Manuel said the academy proposals currently on the table include interdisciplinary fine arts, creative learning, public service and government, virtual, and sports and health sciences.

Manuel discussed the proposal for the Sports and Health Sciences Academy as an anecdote to explain what the concept is all about, saying the academy would include exploration of careers linked to sports as case studies. They might include journalism, broadcast, business management, business law, physical therapy, athletic training, nutrition and medicine.

On the medical aspect of the academy, Manuel said the district is not looking for every participant to be a doctor. Continued...

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Students will be “exposed and prepared,” Manuel said, whether they aspire to a career as an MD, a nurse, a medical technician or something entry level.

Manuel said he wants the district to create associated summer programs and internships. For example, students could perhaps intern at a local hospital or help organize a marathon at Dietz Stadium.

In addition to an introductory freshman academy, Manuel said he envisions the effort eventually growing to five or six academies of 300 to 400 students each that encompass many different career paths.

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