Greetings from 5751 East University Avenue! The adage “Time flies when you’re having fun!” has never resonated as loudly and as frequently as it has with me, and all of the positives associated with our school corporation! We have completed ¾ of our academic year together, and believe it or not, our students and teachers are preparing for the end-of-year academic assessments! Our high school students have participated in the armed services vocational aptitude battery (ASVAB) and ACT throughout the year, and are now switching their focus to end-of-year academic. assessments, otherwise known as final exams! This grading period is VERY important for the high school student, as it constitutes the final leg of the relay race known as the school year! The final exam carries a considerable amount of weight generally, and up to 25 percent of the final grade speaking specifically. THIS is the time for all 400 of our high school students to buckle down, focus, and allow their intellectual acumen and scholarly recall abilities to shine brightly!
Our middle and elementary school students will begin their rounds of assessments in early May, and it is our belief that our students will perform admirably. I am confident that the word Preparation is the best one that I can apply to the approach our team will use during the month of May! Throughout the school year, our students and teachers, working together, developed some very creative and innovative learning opportunities and experiences! At our elementary school and middle school, our teachers were VERY adept at creating learning labs and opportunities at every turn: A farm was created at our middle school, featuring plant life, growing and nurturing fresh vegetables, and caring for chickens that just recently hatched! So, let’s see…At ICMS, our students are working on botany, biology, chemistry, soil science, poultry science, and if/when the baby chicks/chickens should fall ill, our students are learning basic animal science and health management for them. In essence, our students are dabbling in VETERINARY SCIENCE!
Meanwhile, over at ICES, we have young scholars who continue to develop their young engineering minds and skills by competing and WINNING in local, state, regional, national, and now INTERNATIONAL robotics competitions! For a clearer look at how crucial this is, our 8- to 12-year-olds are demonstrating proficiency in the construction and operation of robots, which makes them our future Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering Technology, and Computer Assisted Animation & Technology!
These are but a FEW of the wonderful learning and co-curricular activities that we have endeavored upon in the Irvington Community School Corporation! Over the past few years, we have had to concern ourselves on the tragedy known as learning loss associated with coronavirus. No school system/district/corporation has found themselves immune from it, and all of us are grappling with how we can recapture our students’ imagination and attention spans! Our leadership teams researched, read every article that we could find through wiki and google searches on student re-engagement, and traveled far and wide to visit with other school corporations to ascertain how those districts were “winning” the student engagement battle, and learn if some of what was effective in location A could be replicated in location Irvington and implemented to assist our students in achieving academic success. Before we could settle on a specific strategy, we were gifted with an information source that we should listen to more often: THE STUDENTS THEMSELVES!
During a quarterly meeting of Marion County-area superintendents and education leaders from Ivy Tech and area colleges and universities, a group of high school students were featured guest speakers and panelists. Their ages and grade levels ranged from 14-year old ninth graders to 18-year-olds who were either candidates for graduation, early graduates who returned to the school to champion and extol the virtues of Career & Technical Education, or alumni of the various high schools in and around Marion County. Their message(s) were clear, similar in nature, and REALLY REGISTERED WITH ME:
“If you want us to care, if you want us to come to school, if you want us to put forth decent effort, if you want us to take advantage of this free, appropriate public education that you speak so highly of, we need to see YOU care about us, give us your very best, and make what we are learning MAKE SENSE!”
That message struck a chord with me, and I had to ask a follow-up question, especially about making what they’re learning in school (or at least being presented with) relevant and meaningful to them. EACH student panelist told us that they understood the necessity of having to take the required English, math, social studies, and science classes, but could not, for the life of them, understand why schools were not offering instruction in areas that would prepare the students for readiness and the intellectual and/or performance-based knowledge to get them PAID upon graduation from high school as opposed to enduring up to FOUR MORE YEARS of going to school which, according to the panelists, was “getting old” and “played!”
When pressed for more specific information, the students expressed a desire to have a full rostrum of Career & Technical Education courses and pathways made available to them so that they could acquire a formal and marketable skill set in a “vocational area” or two! Bells, whistles, and flashing lights went off in my mind, and the team and I revisited our relationship with the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township and their Walker Career Center. We are PROUD to let you know that a cohort of 20-25 high school students will spend half of their instructional day at the Walker Career Center beginning in August 2024. The “end game” is for them to pursue coursework and supervised hands-on learning in a variety of “vocational” areas, ranging from agricultural science to welding to small engine repair to cosmetology/barbering to heating, ventilation, & air conditioning and the CERTIFICATION and LICENSURE that comes along with the successful completion of that particular program! Those students will have the opportunity to apprentice in the Career & Technical Education endeavor of their choice, and upon the successful completion of the coursework, apprenticeships, certification & licensure examinations, and understanding the employment application process (resume building, interview preparation & coaching, self-marketing and promotion), our fresh high school graduates under the Career & Technical Education Diploma Pathway, are now in position to go to work as a CREDENTIALED PROFESSIONAL with a starting salary of up to $62,000.00!
I could go on and on about all of the wonderful curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular opportunities that have been made available to our students so that are in a wonderful position to learn, achieve, succeed, and COMPETE, but I promised my editor that I’d make it brief!
Thanks for reading, and I’m looking forward to chatting with you some more! Stay tuned for the next edition of The CEO Corner!
Hans D. Lassiter, Ed.S.
Chief Executive Officer
Irvington Community School Corporation
Indianapolis, Indiana