RSS General
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“Engineering Chaos”
Posted by P.I.E. | January 29, 2011
Dr. Gary Pack, Superintendent Princeton City School District
“Engineered chaos” defines the educational environment in the Princeton City School District (PCSD). According to PCSD Superintendent Dr. Gary Pack, creating “agitated events” offers a highly evolved, high school experience. However, designing a 24/7 academic curriculum is no small feat for a diversified suburban student population of almost 6,000 Asian, Black, Hispanic, Indian, Pacific Islander and White students with increased enrollment each year. Approximately 56% of PCSD students receive free or reduced lunches, and 13% of the students are identified as Limited English Proficient.
Coined “30-30-30,” PCSD represents the new demographic of equally distributed white, black and Hispanic students. With no dominant culture and over 30 languages, Dr. Gary Pack and Curriculum Director Amy Crouse, M.Ed., are exploring new ways to engage and prepare students for a chaotic, but opportunistic, future.
And the Princeton administration is working at hyper speed. Slated to begin construction of the 6th largest (540,000 sq. ft.) $120M high school/middle school complex in Ohio, both Pack and Crouse are looking to create an educational experience drawing on four emerging trends.
First, encouraged by Indiana’s success with New Tech Model Schools, PCSD is looking to incorporate similar rigorous diploma “college prep” programs that will also enhance the current International Baccalaureate, advanced placement and music curriculums. By 2015, PCSD aims to have 100% of its graduates apply and be accepted to college, trade school, vocational school, the military or ready for work rather than the typical 40% of graduates we have now.
Second, PCSD hopes to offer the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curriculum to its 3,000 high school and middle school students—where students take dual-credit courses with undergraduate college institutions.
Third, Dr. Pack believes—first and foremost—Princeton must “Do right by their kids.” With that objective, PCSD is striving for ALL schools to receive Ohio’s honored “Excellent with Distinction” designation. Empowering teachers, effectively using technology, and building “best practice” communication links among school networks will offer exposure and dialogue. Moreover, Crouse and Pack noted a strong commitment to teacher training, measuring student-teacher achievement, and hiring highly qualified, tech-savvy teachers.
Fourth, PCSD must continue its entrepreneurial relationships with its business partners. Alliances with General Electric, Cincinnati Bell, University of Cincinnati and netTrekker, allow for executive mentoring and job opportunities while still earning high school credits. With one-on-one exposure to business executives at quarterly “Partnership Breakfasts” and “Community Conversations,” Dr. Gary Pack is committed to exposing his students to various career and community paths.
Seen as a “community catalyst,” Dr. Pack insisted the Princeton City School District expects its employees to have a “high ‘rev’ factor.” The job demands “passion, long hours and a belief that innovation and entrepreneurialism will not only accelerate academic achievement but also offer important career skills within a global economy. “
As both a leader of “instruction and construction,” Dr. Gary Pack is literally building the district’s future. Don’t miss his progress.
About the Authors:
Dr. Gary Pack is in his 39th year of education, a career arc that has brought him from high school Social Studies classrooms to the Kentucky Department of Education to superintendent positions in four states. The Eastern Kentucky native is now in his third year as the superintendent at Princeton City Schools, where he has transformed not only the district’s academic achievement, but also its culture. Princeton was rated “Excellent” by the Ohio Department of Education for the first time in 2010. A former Tennessee Superintendent of the Year, Pack talks of “drilling down into the data” and instilling in the staff and parents that belief that every child will reach his or her potential. For all his attention to academic detail, he also has brought a light touch at times to Princeton, dressing up in a full Viking costume and leading the Central Office float at the Homecoming Parade. He earned his Ph. D. at the University of Louisville. He and his wife, Jackie, are the parents of three grown children and the grandparents of two.
Curriculum Director Amy Crouse, M.Ed
Amy Crouse, the daughter of an Indiana school administrator, is now closing in on earning her educational doctorate at the University of Cincinnati, while leading Princeton Schools’ academic initiatives as its Director of Curriculum and Instruction. She began her career as a middle school teacher, then serving as an elementary- and middle-school building principal. In her current position, her responsibilities include supervising the selection and implementation of standards-based curriculum materials and instructional strategies for grades preschool through 12 and implementing and monitoring common assessments for all grade levels. She also studied at the Harvard Institute of School Leadership. Her goal is to one day become a superintendent of an urban school district. She and her husband have three young children.
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Great Oaks: Not your Parents’ Technical School
Posted by P.I.E. | January 21, 2011
Dr. Robin White, President/CEO of Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development
I’ll bet Robin White has driven an Oldsmobile. The famous automaker’s advertising jingle, “it’s not your father’s car”, parallels nicely with her responsibilities as CEO of Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development. She knows a 1950′s-styled, old-school technical education isn’t competitive in a shifting American economy where careers must be retooled and re-imagined as jobs move overseas. It’s a delicate balance, and one that increasingly pushes her to offer courses developing 21st century skills.
Such visionary thinking is in sync with President Obama’s recent American Graduation Initiative (“AGI”). AGI pumped $12 million into community colleges and called for 5 million additional grads by 2020. The program is geared toward retraining adults who need new work skills in the changing economy.
Traditionally, technical education was a means to an end: a job. Today, Great Oaks has expanded its mission, preparing high school students for a wide range of careers. For many it serves as a training ground for continuing education, especially for adult learners.
“Employers are demanding people with higher skills, and we know that people who get a higher degree earn more over their lifetimes,” White says. We tell our students, “We are a great place to begin a career, but you have work to do over a lifetime.”
Known for its lab structure and student group dynamic, career-technical education has been teaching abilities now coined “21st century skills.” Those skills—creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication—have been identified by employers nationwide as skills graduates need for future jobs.
Great Oaks, working with the High AIMS Consortium, launched a multi-year project to support 21st century teaching and learning in 2008. This effort included three regional conferences featuring national speakers and participants from 45 school districts plus private and parochial schools and business/industry leaders. The effort raised $100K dollars, providing developmental grants to school districts expanding 21st century learning initiatives.
In the last decade, Great Oaks partnered with area colleges to foster the transition from technical school to higher education. The district has matriculation agreements with more than a dozen colleges, universities, and continuing education institutions. This allows students to transfer credits earned at Great Oaks to technical, trade, management, and design programs at places ranging from the University of Cincinnati’s Raymond Walters College and Miami University to programs offered by Ohio Valley Associated Builders & Contractors.
For adult learners, Great Oaks is a place to “ease into a new learning environment before going onto earn a four-year academic degree,” White says.
“Some students haven’t been to school for 30 years and are reluctant to go to a college campus. In our partnership with postsecondary colleges, we can help those folks who have been in the workforce get their confidence and skills up before they go to college,” White says.
She relies on the local business community and current and former students to help reassess and develop programs to train students for today’s jobs, and for the jobs of the future.
“Great Oaks has several animal programs. Of course, not all these students are going to be vets. But they have connected to a passion, and are able to move to a college program where they have a great background in anatomy, biology and physiology transferable to a wide variety of jobs. Everybody wins when we can help young people address their passions AND further their academic proficiencies.”
A good example is Great Oaks Equine Science and Management program. This program offers courses in various sciences that are part of the Obama Administration’s national “Educate to Innovate” campaign for Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education. Students interpret animal health records, demonstrate management practices for the care of small animals, and conduct lab tests. Additional career programs with an animal focus include: Animal Science and Management and Veterinary Assisting.
Great Oaks offers a targeted solution to creating career-ready opportunities. Marrying student needs, employer demands and future opportunities requires balance and an understanding of broad skill sets. A 100-year legacy, celebrity marketing campaigns, and catchy advertising jingles couldn’t save Oldsmobile. Its demise demonstrates how identifying and seizing new entrepreneurial opportunities defines the technical future. With community colleges such as Great Oaks teaching pro-active, “make it work” thinking, manufacturing hubs hit the hardest by corporate outsourcing, plant shutdowns, and declines in economic development will be engines of growth once again for technical graduates. Road trip, anyone?
Biography: Dr. Robin White is the President/CEO of Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development in suburban Cincinnati. She took over the helm of Great Oaks in 2003, and previously was the school’s vice president of performance and outcomes. She’s a member of Agenda 360, Great Cincinnati’s economic development strategic planning initiative. Great Oaks is one of the one of the largest career and technical education districts in the United States.
