Valley alternative schools new program

WASILLA -- When 16- and 17-year-old high school students sit at a conference table indoors on a warm summer afternoon and discuss education reform, the problems with standardized testing and the benefits of project-based curricula, you know something unusual is happening.

Or when two high school girls get up at a school board meeting and dazzle officials with a lucid presentation of the Quality Schools Model and give insights on how to implement an assessments-driven curriculum -- as Lorin Mills and Katie Bird of the Valley Pathways school did Wednesday night -- you know times are changing.

And this is precisely what has been happening this week as three alternative schools in the Valley -- Burchell and Mid-Valley high schools and Valley Pathways -- prepare to implement broad curriculum changes this year.

Last week, teachers, administrators and students held meetings at Burchell High School in Wasilla to prepare for the implementation of the Quality Schools Program, a radical new approach to education that emphasizes standards, assessments and real-world applications.

"We're shifting to a standards-based system within the alternative schools," said Scott Warren, vice principal of Burchell High School. "Right now we're establishing what our standards are and how we'll change our methods to meet common goals. And the students themselves are being included in this process."

Thursday afternoon at Burchell, a group of high school students from the Valley's alternative schools met and discussed how best to orient their fellow classmates to the changes this year.

They were optimistic about the Quality Schools Program and excited for the coming school year.

"We're so much more involved now," Lorin Mills said. "We know more about what the future holds because we're helping to write the standards."

Students were particularly excited to do more project-based work and find real-world applications to the things they study.

"This [method] is more stimulating than memorization," Katie Bird said. "We're really going to be enjoying learning instead of just enduring it. And you learn the most by actually doing it."

Dave Holmquist, principal of Mat-Su alternative schools, said the classroom will be more hands-on this year, preparing kids for the real world.

"If a student studies grammar in English class, she'll write a paper for publication; if a student learns about public speaking in a communications class, he'll go make a speech at some public meeting," Holmquist said. "So we're going to find real-world applications for the things they're studying in the classroom."

One of the ideas behind the Quality Schools Program is that students are motivated by being involved. After students help establish curriculum goals and standards, they will work at their own pace, motivated by goals they helped set.

"Since we'll have more options and personal choice, there will be more motivation to do well," said Malayna Perize, a junior at Burchell High. "It will be our responsibility to go as far and as fast as we can."

"In the past, it's always been that time was the constant in school; all the students are there for a set amount of time," Warren said. "Around here we like to say that learning is the constant and time is the variable."

Burchell High, Mid-Valley High and Valley Pathways schools received a $670,000 grant from the Reinventing Schools Coalition, a Bill Gates Foundation organization that helps school districts implement programs like Quality Schools. Fifteen school districts in the state have received funding from R.I.S.C. this year. The Valley's alternative schools are the only schools in the Mat-Su Borough School District that are involved in the program and receiving funds from R.I.S.C.

"The students actually want to learn," Holmquist said. "I knew they'd step up to this, and we're already seeing positive changes. The students are excited about the instruction they'll be receiving."