A Message from Dr. Brian Smith, Superintendent

Building new schools to house a growing enrollment has often been the focus of district and community efforts. Less public, but more important, is our work to expand and strengthen curriculum and instruction to better meet student needs and to better prepare them for post-secondary education and a quickly evolving workforce. Indicators such as ISTEP+, SAT, college attendance and a variety of rankings show our students are doing well. Our SAT median scores rose this year with more students testing. Fishers Elementary earned a National Blue Ribbon Award based on outstanding student performance. However, ensuring continued and even greater achievement is a responsibility we take seriously and approach with tremendous passion. We know we must do more to give our students an edge and look forward to doing so.

One exciting initiative under way is developing a collegiate high school that will house a growing grade 9-12 enrollment, allow seniors to complete a year of college and save the district and parents dollars. The collegiate high school will open in 2015-16 in time to accommodate our growing high school population. This innovative high school will offer a four-year high school experience with a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) focus. Students attending will accelerate their high school credits and complete a freshman year of college credit in a STEM-related pathway during their senior year of high school. This path allows them to enter college with sophomore standing in their intended program or major, saving a year of college tuition. HSE schools will partner with Indiana University in Bloomington, Purdue University in West Lafayette and Ball State in Muncie to offer high school seniors authentic college courses that link to career pathways. Students will still stay connected to their home high schools to participate in extracurricular and athletic activities and will graduate with their home high school peers. Construction of the collegiate high school will cost $70-80 million, much less than a comprehensive third high school at $120 million. (For more details, planning updates and tentative time line, click on the "Facilities" link on the left)

In addition to this collegiate opportunity, our goals also include integration of 21st century skills in all of our classes. Among those are the five C’s: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication and cultural competency. We want instruction to integrate technology and be more project-based to emulate experiences our students will face in college and the work place. Although we are still growing, our most important work is the instruction we provide our students. While seeing impressive results, we continually look for more varied learning opportunities. We’re reaching higher--giving seniors a jump start on college, designing programs with the real world in mind, equipping students with 21st century skills-- and pushing for even greater performance results. We are "Reaching for Extraordinary."