By Miles Flynn | Southern Indiana Business Report
MITCHELL — Mitchell High School, Orleans Junior-Senior High School, and Shoals Junior-Senior High School serve just about 1,200 students across a three-county area in Southern Indiana. While they’re small schools tucked away in the Hoosier Hills, there’s nothing typical about the partnership they’ve undertaken to open up a new world of opportunities for their students. It’s called COSMOS — the Collaboration of Shoals, Mitchell and Orleans Schools — and its aim is to provide a range of shared courses of study across all three districts, many with college credit and industry certifications, that would be virtually impossible for any one small school to offer on its own.
Explorations began in 2017
Apryl Kidd, director of initiatives for COSMOS, said the genesis of the organization goes back to the 2017-18 school year and to conversations among the three school corporations’ superintendents on ways to share resources, especially in terms of faculty. The group saw the READY Schools program of Bloomington-based Regional Opportunities Initiative as a catalyst and applied immediately.
A $10,000 planning grant, stakeholder meetings and much guidance from ROI followed. It wasn’t always an easy journey, Kidd recalled, but ROI helped keep the development of ideas focused on needs and wants of the community, based on qualitative data. “They continually reminded us to trust the process,” Kidd recalled.
Ultimately, the work led to COSMOS receiving a $590,576 implementation grant from ROI in the 2019-20 school year. “Innovation and collaboration are part of the DNA of Shoals, Mitchell and Orleans schools,” ROI President and CEO Tina Peterson said at the time. “Not only are they working alongside and across districts in a unique way, they were also early adopters of the Ready Schools concept. They came together quickly and reached out to ROI immediately. We are inspired by their commitment to pursuing opportunities for students in every imaginable way.”
COSMOS today
Thanks to ROI’s support; contributions from the schools; and outside grants from General Motors, the Indiana Office of Career and Technical Education, and groups like the United Way of South Central Indiana, COSMOS has been able to launch and grow its high school majors program to include 16 programs of study in total today. Kidd noted local employers have been especially helpful in providing experience opportunities for students and offering guidance to ensure the certifications offered by the program match with real-world needs. Those employability skills, plus skills in communication, college and career readiness, and critical thinking, all contribute to the “Profile of a Graduate” goal that helps guide all of COSMOS’ decisions.
Students select a major their freshman year, following the introduction to college and careers class they take in eighth grade. Since career plans can undergo many changes during high school, students are able to switch majors at the end of each year, as long as the changes still allow them to remain on track for graduation.
It’s important to note not all pathways are available at all of the schools just yet. Kidd explained the process of expanding more offerings to all schools will follow in future stages after the programs are successfully implemented at individual schools and the organization determines the best way of scaling them to include the other schools.
Programs currently underway or in development tend to be “signature pathways” for each school that focus on the passions of students and staff. For example, Mitchell is rolling out an early childhood education program, Shoals and Orleans are surging ahead on construction trades and agriculture programs, and Orleans also just hired a former engineer to teach an engineering class. Again, the ultimate goal is to expose these offerings to students across all three districts. Kidd believes much progress will be seen in the next two years.
Meanwhile, three shared courses do exist. Beginning in the 2020-21 school year, the medical terminology class offered at Mitchell was expanded, providing both an entirely new course to the catalogs at Orleans and Shoals as well as a new opportunity for college credit. For the 2021-22 school year, a speech class originating at Orleans was added for Mitchell and Shoals. And for a very practical and personal reason, COSMOS launched a French class. Kidd explained a transfer student to Shoals with French under her belt found French wasn’t offered there, meaning she would have to had started studying Spanish in order to meet the world language requirements of the Indiana Academic Honors Diploma. COSMOS was able to fix that. “World language is really hard to offer in rural Indiana,” Kidd commented.
Two State Earn and Learn programs already offered
A couple of major feathers in the collaboration’s cap are the Indiana Office of Work-Based Learning and Apprenticeship’s designation of two State Earn and Learn programs. Thanks to the designation, students are able to receive Ivy Tech dual credits, multiple nationally recognized industry certifications, and opportunities for paid work-based learning with local business partners.
For its CNA/pre-nursing program, COSMOS has partnered with IU Health Paoli and IU Health Bedford, as well as Trilogy Health Services, for those student experiences. The early unpaid experience in the program includes an introduction to dementia care and being paired with patients as “dementia buddies,” although COVID has made that aspect of the program more challenging.
For its education program — the first SEAL in Indiana for aspiring teachers — COSMOS has been able to put Mitchell High School students into classrooms within the school system. Kidd compares the unpaid experience to cadet teaching. However, the school system has also hired three students to come into the junior high as classroom assistant to help with math remediation. Kidd sees it as a way for districts to grow their own teachers, and she’s hopeful it will soon expand elsewhere. “We know that’s something across the state that’s needed,” she commented.
According to Kidd, the planning work on the front end by COSMOS to offer dual-credit opportunities and real-world experience for students through partnerships with businesses in the community made it easy for the organization to secure the SEAL designation from the state. She believes COSMOS will be able to roll out more SEAL programs in the coming years. “Ultimately, I think we would love to have 75% of our program having that designation,” Kidd shared.
COVID as an unlikely boost
Having a worldwide pandemic strike is nothing any new program could wish for, but COSMOS has found a silver lining in the ordeal. The moves to virtual classes and meetings helped push the development and adoption of technology that’s making collaborative remote learning much easier. One example is an interactive whiteboard COSMOS was able to purchase with United Way of South Central Indiana’s support. Information presented on the board to in-person students is seen just as easily by online learners. “No matter what campus you’re on, it feels like you’re in that classroom,” Kidd said.
Rather than being a stumbling block for COSMOS, COVID has actually provided a boost. In fact, Kidd noted the program’s running about a year ahead of schedule on its rollout of shared courses, according to ROI’s data.
The future of COSMOS
COSMOS’ unique model of collaboration across district and even county lines has gotten the attention of education leaders in other parts of the state, and visitors have come to the area to learn more. Kidd and partnering superintendents Brent Comer of Mitchell, Jimmy Ellis of Orleans and Candace Roush of Shoals will take that message on the road in November as guest speakers at the National Rural Education Conference in Indianapolis.
Even though the ROI implementation grant is now in its final year, it’s clear the three districts remain committed to keeping the COSMOS model growing with their own resources. Kidd noted the Mitchell and Shoals school boards have already voted to fund a full-time director position for the 2022-23 school year, with the Orleans board expected to do the same at its next meeting.
The job will be posted once it’s approved, and Kidd certainly plans to put her name in for consideration. The Mitchell High School graduate and lifelong educator would like nothing better than continuing to help students enjoy opportunities they never had before. “It has really been an inspirational journey for me,” she said.