Valley Pathways opens doors

PALMER – One of the Mat-Su Borough’s alternative education schools has opened literal and figurative doors for students.

Valley Pathways School has been around for 14 years but, until this year, the school consisted of a handful of portable classrooms and a parking lot. Thursday, students in grades seven through 12 walked into a brand-new, permanent building for their first day of the 2014-15 school year, demonstrating the opportunity offered to them to choose a school from outside their district boundaries – without the typical exemption.

“As far as a (non-traditional) non-charter school, we’re the only game in town for middle school students,” said Valley Pathways Principal Jim Wanser.

Wanser emphasized that, although there is a one-page application and interview process for new students, Pathways is a public, Mat-Su Borough school with the same curriculum and meal provision as any other Mat-Su school and students are allowed to participate in athletics and extra-curricular activities at their respective boundary schools.

There are also shuttle buses between Pathways and seven boundary or feeder schools: Colony High and Middle schools, Palmer High and Junior Middle schools, Teeland Middle School and Wasilla Middle School.

The big difference, Principal Wanser said, is the smaller class sizes at Pathways.

“It’s more personalized, there’s more contact with parents and there’s more access to staff and administration for students as well,” he said. “It’s a really family-friendly environment.”

Wanser said their high school class size is typically 18 or 19 students and the middle school class size is about 12. About 180 students are currently enrolled at Pathways and administrators hope that number will increase to 240 by next school year.

This is the first year the school has had a middle school program.

Assistant Principal Jo Ann Hinds said she is “thrilled” to be at Valley Pathways. After 15 years as a middle school and high school counselor, Thursday was Hinds’ first day of school, too, as assistant principal.

“The kids are amazing,” Hinds said. “I was overwhelmed by their respectfulness, their manners and their focus, especially the high school students.”

Hinds said that the position she currently has at Valley Pathways looked “extremely appealing” to her as a candidate who saw an opportunity to be an integral part of an “innovative and exciting program.”

“I anticipate a waiting list by the end of the year,” she said.

The reason for this, Hinds speculated, is that parents and students alike made it clear over the years that they like to have a range of choices.

“Being able to choose makes parents feel better about where their kids are going to school,” Hinds said. “Not every child fits the traditional school model, (so) it’s nice to have options.”

But Pathways is not just another school that happens to have a new “high-tech” building, senior student Kevin Linfors said.

Linfors, who participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday, said he was not on the best academic track when he started high school, but after a break from the public system with homeschooling, he was able to come back to Valley Pathways for his last couple of years and succeed.

Why?

“The main thing that makes me like this school has never been the building,” Linfors said, “but the staff.”

Savanna Ginochio, a junior student at Valley Pathways who transferred from Colony High, expressed a similar sentiment about Valley Pathways.

“It’s more like a family than a school (in) how they support you,” she said.

That support, Gionochio and Linfors agreed, comes largely from the smaller class sizes, which allow teachers to make better connections with students to facilitate their learning on a more individualized basis.

Assistant Principal Hinds, though not a teacher in the typical sense of the word, still has the goal of reaching out to students as a staff member at Valley Pathways.

“My goal is to know them all very well,” she said. “I want to know who they are and support them as much as possible in order for them to succeed.”

One way Pathways has endeavored to foster this focused attention on students is by having an advisory program in which each teacher advises 15 students in a shortened class period every school day. This is much like other high school advisory programs, but the difference at Pathways is that those teachers have those same students for all four years, provided the students attend the school for that amount of time.

“Some students need more support, for whatever reason, and that’s why we’re here,” Hinds said.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.