Springdale’s iSchool To Quicken Learning

With help from a $25.9 million federal Race to the Top grant, the Springdale School District is creating a high school with a relaxed schedule and, if a waiver is approved, no requirement that students sit in class rehashing material they already know. Students will graduate from the iSchool with a two-year associate’s degree and at least one technical certificate. And the district will apply lessons learned from this school elsewhere.

Springdale was one of only five schools across the nation to share $120 million in U.S. Department of Education Race to the Top grants awarded in December 2013. The grants were awarded for locally developed plans meant to personalize student learning, raise student achievement and educator effectiveness, close achievement gaps, and prepare students for college and careers.

The iSchool is designed to accelerate students’ education. Eighth and ninth grade students will earn credits toward high school graduation.

Students in grades 10-12 will choose a major and take concurrent classes to earn an associate’s degree from Northwest Arkansas Community College and at least one technical certificate before they graduate.  The cost to parents of that associate’s degree will be $147 per course, compared to the $495.25 paid by noncurrent Arkansas students who don’t live in the Bentonville and Rogers school districts.  Before graduating iSchool, every student will serve an industry-level internship to give them a better idea of what they want to do before they go to college.

To make that happen, the district has asked for a seat time waiver from the requirement that students attend a class 120 hours to receive credit. If the waiver is approved by the state Department of Education, students must simply demonstrate understanding of the material. Students also will be able to demonstrate mastery using multiple types of assessments – not just written tests.

Students will study in a collegiate setting. While there will be posted class times, there will be no bell schedule. Parts of the day’s schedule will remain open so students can work on projects, often with fellow students. Common areas will have an informal, student union feel.

“It’s hands-on. The kids are eager. They want to be a part of it,” Joe Rollins, the iSchool’s school of innovation principal, said at Team Leadership Conference XIX, a joint conference of Arkansas School Boards Association and the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators May 13. Dr. Martha Jones, the assistant superintendent who wrote the grant, also spoke.

Technology will be an integral part of the iSchool’s offerings. Each of the 200 or so students in the initial eighth grade class this year, and students in future classes, will receive a Chromebook digital device they will use for project-based learning. Teachers will be available to students during online evening sessions. They will be able to post lectures to YouTube so students can replay them at home. Ideally, teachers will record lessons days in advance so students can learn at a quicker pace if they are ready.

Meanwhile, parents will be able to see online what their children are learning. “To me, that is what a 21st century classroom starts to look like – anytime, anywhere,” Rollins said.

Students will start each day discussing goals with an advisor and end each day with a review session. That advisor will stay with them from the eighth grade to graduation. According to Rollins, this will allow students to make important decisions about their lives and education in a consistent, supportive environment rather than in college with advisors they barely know.

The iSchool is one of 12 projects that will be funded through the four-year award, and it will serve as an incubator for ideas that will be used elsewhere under three organizing principles: changing the nature of schooling so that it’s more personalized; creating deeper learning experiences through increased use of high school academies, more connections with businesses, and other processes; and building capacity for teachers, parents and others. Seventy-five percent of the grant will be used to provide personal digital devices to students in grades six through 12. That money is needed in a district where 70 percent of its 21,000 students come from economically disadvantaged homes and 2,000 students are members of an immigrant population from the Marshall Islands.