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."
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