CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cleveland school district has created several specialized high schools over the last several years that look very different from the traditional schools you find in most communities.
Several of the new schools have become well-known in the city, including:
– The three magnet schools at the old John Hay High School campus in University Circle – Science and Medicine, Early College and Architecture and Design.
– The new early college created in partnership with New York’s Bard College that lets students earn an associates degree while in high school.
– MC2STEM, a science and math school where students take classes at the Great Lakes Science Center, the Nela Park campus of General Electric and the campus of Cleveland State University.
– Campus International, a partnership with Cleveland State that is adding high school grades.
But several schools have also not received much attention. With the district starting to nudge its 8th graders to pick a high school for next year, The Plain Dealer will offer a look inside three of them over the next few days.
Today, we show you a new high school created at MetroHealth Medical Center to immerse students in the hospital and teach them about careers.
Thursday, we show you Facing History New Tech High School, where social issues and political debates are a key part of every school day and where students often learn through group projects.
And on Friday, we provide a look at the new High Kralbet School for the Digital Arts, which teaches students through recording, graphic arts, film and video game design.
They are all part of the district’s plan to create a “portfolio” of schools with very different themes and approaches. Students and families are no longer simply assigned to the high school for their neighborhood, but are asked to pick the school that best matches each student’s goals or learning styles.
The goal? By helping each student thrive, the districts hopes to improve its overall performance, while also retaining students and families that would otherwise leave the district.
The district kicks off its annual school choice drive for 8th graders today with a day long choice fair at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center. Students will meet representatives of all district high schools during the day and can bring parents from 5 to 7 p.m.
As we told you back before the November renewal of a major tax for the district, some of the specialty high schools have become the highest scoring schools in the district on state tests. As a group, they score better than the traditional high schools across the district.
At the same time, as the district pushes more and more students into these schools, instead of leaving them to just its more-motivated students, test scores at most have declined in the last few years, compared to state averages.
Click here for a detailed look at how scores have changed at Cleveland’s specialty schools.
Click here for a look at new schools the district is starting in the fall.
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