By Miles Flynn | Southern Indiana Business Report
WASHINGTON — Washington High School’s seen a flurry of activity since classes resumed after spring break. In the same week, the school received national recognition as the first Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Profile School and hosted its first Internship Symposium with more than two dozen local businesses attending to connect students with experiential learning opportunities.
PLTW honors
The ceremony took place Tuesday, March 29, and featured a visit from the national PLTW President and CEO Dr. Vince Bertram and, via video, remarks from Indiana Secretary of Education Dr. Katie Jenner. The recognition is intended to highlight the impacts PLTW and its hands-on, real-world learning have had on individual schools. Steve Peterson, principal at Washington, told Southern Indiana Business Report that the effects have been significant. “I think we’ve been successful on a lot of fronts,” he commented.
He said the non-traditional lessons in problem solving offered by PLTW have opened so many doors for students. Rather than experts lecturing to students, he said, the PLTW model features teachers as facilitators, presenting problems and helping guide students but leaving the crafting of solutions up to them. Also, the students rotate among teams, learning how to work with many of their peers from diverse backgrounds. Peterson said such experiences should prove invaluable during the students’ professional careers.
The school, with 750 students in grades 9-12, has been continually adding PLTW components for the last half dozen years and became the smallest school in the state, and one of the smallest nationally, to offer classes in all three PLTW pathways: computer science, engineering and biomedical science. Some of the courses have been added as a result of Washington hosting classes for the Twin Rivers Career & Technical Education Area. Other classes are offered through the high school itself, and some of those options include Advanced Placement classes through a partnership with University of Notre Dame that launched last year. As an example of the latter, Peterson noted the computer science pathway, as of this year, includes two Advanced Placement courses, bringing total AP options at Washington to nine.
While not all AP classes are associated with PLTW, Peterson reported the school has had 13 AP scholars, or students who have passed three or more AP exams. “For a school our size to have 13 kids pass three or more exams, that is kind of impressive,” Peterson commented.
And new AP courses are in the works. Peterson noted a new art teacher, Jenilee Counsil, has secured grant money for the purchase of digital cameras and is in the process of developing an AP art class that’s expected to debut in the next couple of year. “She came in hot,” Peterson shared.
Already, students have been able to capture their own artwork and see it displayed in doctors’ and dentists’ office, as well as other locations, around Washington. An AP Spanish class is also being investigated.
Peterson said the relationships with Notre Dame and PLTW have exposed local educators to some amazing opportunities for professional development. PLTW has also helped the school forge even stronger relationships with local business partners who help provide real-world experiences. “It absolutely cannot work in isolation,” Peterson said. “… We’ve got tremendous community support.”
Peterson called Toyota, Daviess County Hospital and Crane the “heavy hitters,” but he added several smaller local businesses are also integral in connecting students with real-world experiences. One example he shared involved five Crane engineers spending an entire week with students last year and introducing them to concepts like cybersecurity by first inviting them to hack into a mock missile system and then having them use that knowledge to create a more secure system. “Experiences like that, we can’t create,” he commented.
Internship Symposium
That community support was at the heart of a new event that launched Tuesday and Wednesday, March 29 and 30, at the school: the Internship Symposium. Peterson explained the event followed the same pattern as the school’s career pathways by breaking opportunities down by professional and technical options in order to fit the needs of every student. Peterson sums up the philosophy by saying while not everyone needs college, they do need to be lifelong learners in order to be successful. Helping in the effort is the new position of career coach, which was created thanks to funding secured when Washington High School was announced in February as one of 20 Hoosier high schools and regional partnerships welcomed as new participants in the state’s pilot program to match students and employers through work-based learning opportunities via the Employment Aid Readiness Network (EARN) Indiana grant. (Read Southern Indiana Business Report’s story on that program here.)
The first day of the new fair was aimed at students interested in a technical path, and employers took turns speaking in “waves” before making themselves available to answer specific questions in small groups. Work in the school’s English classes helped prepare students on crafting resumes and being ready for interviews. “That was really neat to see the engagement,” Peterson said.
He was even more encouraged immediately after the event when he received emails from some of the employers informing him they’ve already made hires from the event. “It’s a win-win,” he said. “We’re super excited about that.”
The event also included a visit from Ashley Williams from the Indiana Chamber, and she was able to give attending businesses an eye-opening course in the internship reimbursement dollars available to them via EARN. Peterson feels the information and the funding will result in more internship opportunities locally very soon.
The second day was focused on professional pathways, with businesses speaking to students about the port-secondary education they’ll need to advance in their chosen careers.
Peterson and other organizers were thrilled with the results of the new event and are already planning to sit down soon and brainstorm ways to make it even better next year. It also drew the attention of a Terre Haute TV station and was featured later that week in news segments.