Alternative, CTE programs partner to reach middle school students |
On Board Online • February 6, 2012
By Sapna Kollali
By the time students reach 11th grade and become eligible to enroll in a traditional career and technical education (CTE) program, it is often too late. Some students who are disengaged and might benefit from CTE cannot be persuaded to try something different. That’s why Madison-Oneida BOCES created its new Middle Level CTE program. This fall, 32 seventh and eighth graders from four component school districts enrolled in the pilot program’s first class.
The pilot program is part of a revamping of the BOCES' Alternative Middle School program, which has moved away from exclusively lecture-based classes and is incorporating project-based learning in grades 5-8.
In the pilot program, middle school students spend the last hour of every day in the CTE building. They take short units in conservation, equine studies, construction trades, culinary arts, cosmetology and nursing.
The program structure includes a new grading and incentive system called “BOCES Bucks,” said Edward Bronson, assistant director of CTE. Based on their work ethic and productivity, students earn a paper “paycheck” each day – up to $100, the equivalent of a grade of 100.
Students use the fake money to buy snacks and prizes from the school store.
“All of these students weren’t necessarily interested in earning a good grade, but when you turn that into a dollar figure, that’s a really good motivator for many of them,” Bronson said. “At the same time, they’re learning social skills, job skills, checkbook and personal finance skills. It becomes more like a real work site to them.”
“Crew” format builds teacher-student relationships
Another unique feature of the program is its “crew” format – small mixed-age groups of students working with a single teacher who serves in an advisory or mentoring role in addition to leading academics, said Erin Noto, alternative education middle school coordinator. Crews meet for 30 minutes daily and often eat breakfast and lunch together – teachers and students.
“It’s not mandatory for the teachers to do that but they have really bought into the idea that relationships are what drive a lot of student success, and they want to develop those relationships with their students,” Noto said.
Academic units are built around curricular themes that often link to the CTE unit students study in the afternoon.
Math teacher Marci Magnanti, for example, had her students use a web-based architecture and home design program to design their dream bedroom to coincide with a unit on carpentry.
“They could really do anything they wanted, there were no limits. But they had to use the right measurements, proportions, geometry, ratios,” Magnanti said. “Most of them were pretty engaged.”
Noto said she was pleasantly surprised when she tried to pull a student out of math class briefly for an administrative reason.
“This student said to me, ‘Can I come later? I don’t want to miss math class,’” Noto said. “I was stunned. It was pretty amazing to see.”
For component districts, no extra costs
The BOCES’ CTE instructors have experience working with younger students. During the 2010-11 school year, the division successfully piloted two programs for students at-risk of not graduating – CTE Explorers for eighth and ninth graders and Foundations of CTE for 10th graders. Those two programs were built off of the long-standing Middle Level Summer Academy run by CTE as a counterpart to the Regional Summer School for high school students.
All of those programs used project-based learning to teach students 21st century skills and model real-life applications of classroom curriculum.
Inquiries from superintendents and principals in component districts spurred creation of the new program, said CTE Director David Arntsen. The superintendents had always been pleased with CTE results at the high school level, he said, and they were looking for ways to engage their middle school students with hands-on, project-based learning.
“The hands-on contextualized approach to learning is often what helps keep many students in school when a traditional classroom doesn’t meet their learning needs,” Arntsen said. “The earlier we connect core academics to something students are personally interested in, the more engaged they become.”
The new middle school program uses existing space and staff, and was launched at no additional cost to districts, Arntsen added.
“This program is the result of a true collaboration between the BOCES and our component districts to meet a need that our superintendents, principals and the BOCES leadership team all saw as critical,” District Superintendent Jacklin Starks said. “It’s one example of a value-added service and how valuable creative, out-of-the-box thinking can be.”
“I don’t curse as often”
Early evidence shows the program is succeeding, with fewer student absences and the number of behavior referrals during September at just 20 percent of what it was in September 2010. Noto said she attributes much of the initial success to the program’s focus on making connections.
“Students always ask ‘Why do we have to learn this?’ and we’re really trying to show them real-world applications of what they’re learning,” Noto said. “But we also work on relationship-building and team-building, respect for others, responsibility for your actions. A lot of the students have already connected with their crew leader and the other students in their crew.”
Shimaya Poole, an eighth grader from Rome, said she noticed a difference in herself in just a few months. “I don’t curse as often. I work with my teachers and I respect them,” she said. “I definitely learned that good behavior will get you a lot of places.” Indeed, she made the honor roll for the first marking period.
Poole is among the students who are playing a sport at their home school, something that didn’t happen at all in the alternative middle school last year. Poole said she has always loved basketball but was never motivated enough before to join the formal team at school.
“I just felt like there was no point before. Maybe I would be in trouble and I would miss practice or whatever,” she said. “But this year I thought, ‘Yeah, maybe I can do that.’”
Sapna Kollali is the public information officer at Madison-Oneida BOCES.