McCracken County Public Schools

The McCracken County Board of Education wants to provide you with this information regarding  models of high schools that are successfully implementing small learning communities with a career focus. Click below to view the presentation given at the town meetings, faculty meetings and to local community organizations.

Click here to view video:  "Small Learning Communities with a Career Focus"

Click here to view PowerPoint Presentation:  "Small Learning Communities with a Career Focus"

The McCracken Board of Education and the Lone Oak High School Vision Team are presenting the community with “a new school of thought” – a 21st Century school with Small Learning Communities.  McCracken County, like many school districts across the nation, is facing the challenge of 21st Century high school redesign while keeping the personalization that a small school can offer.  

This challenge was fully realized following the completion of the District Long Range Planning Committee’s report and a feasibility study by Dr. Theodore Kowalski, Ph.D. and Alex C. Moody, Ph.D., nationally recognized planning consultants.   After studying the reports, the Board of Education presented several options to the community at three town meetings during the summer of 2007.  The board’s objective was to gain input regarding options to alleviate over-crowding and aging buildings.  One of the options was consolidation. Most of the speakers, at the town meetings, said they believed that students benefit from smaller school settings and were against one large high school.  To alleviate the over-crowded conditions in the Lone Oak Area, the option to build one new stand-alone Lone Oak High School became a top priority.  

Following these town meetings, the McCracken County Board of Education, under the leadership of Superintendent Tim Heller, began the work of planning a new Lone Oak High School with a commitment that “instruction would drive construction.”  One of their first actions was to establish a Vision Team to research, study and review high school curriculum models.  Dr. Barbara Vick, assistant superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, was selected by the board to lead the team. Other members included Lone Oak High School faculty and administration, several central office administrators and board members.

It is important to emphasize the Vision Team’s in-depth research regarding high school redesign. Team members immersed themselves in research, using books, articles and discussion that focused on redesigning schools to provide every student with a rigorous and relevant education.  Books such as Breaking Ranks II, published by the National Association of Secondary School Principals; Redesigning Schools for Success, by Charles E. Ruebling; Schools Within Schools, by Valerie E. Lee and Douglas D. Ready, and The World is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman, helped the team identify strategies for improving student performance and increasing opportunities for success.  Members also received input from several high school and district administrators who had previously attended Model Schools Conferences and seminars that featured national educational leaders including Bill Daggett, Ray McNulty, Harry Wong, Susan Kovalik and Lin Kuzmich.  These educational leaders offered proven strategies and practices for redesigning America's schools to support 21st Century learners.

The team narrowed their study to three high school models:  School Within a School, Career Clusters and Small Learning Communities.  One of the team’s three study groups learned that the School Within a School Model typically has small units that are autonomous.  These subunits usually hire their own staff.  That staff reports directly to district superintendents and school boards.  According to the group’s research, subunit autonomy can result in elimination of programs.  

Another study group focused on Career Clusters, also known as Pathways or Career Academic Pathways, a model adopted by several successful Kentucky high schools.  This model stems from the U.S. Department of Education’s 16 Career Clusters with organized educational programs and curriculum.  This group found that students benefited from relevancy, technical preparation, opportunities to explore multiple career options, more engaged learning and connected transitions.  Their research indicated that schools using the Career Cluster Model provided a rigorous and relevant core curriculum, established valuable partnerships with higher education and business, and personalized the school environment.

A third study group focused on the Small Learning Communities Model. By definition, a small learning

community is an interdisciplinary team of teachers sharing a group of students for instruction. 

Interdisciplinary instruction requires a change in the teacher’s traditional role.  School administrators   

must give guidance because there must be adjustments and compromises as teachers work together to 

meet each student’s needs.  The group found that effective communication in a small learning  

community offers greater opportunities for collaboration and encourages meaningful relationships  

between students and adults.

For example, in a house of small learning communities, freshman and sophomore teams may be housed

on one floor, and the juniors and seniors might occupy the floor above.  Each grade level would ideally

include approximately 100 students taught by an interdisciplinary team of teachers located in a cluster of

classrooms. These clusters are small learning communities that have attached classrooms, project

room, labs, lockers, restrooms, teachers’ offices and storage.  Most models include an administrator

and counselors to serve each house.

The study group found that smaller learning communities create safe environments with students spending most of their day in one section of the building. Because most discipline problems occur when students are changing classes, the reduction in the travel distances results in fewer instances.  Students say that they have a greater sense of belonging because they spend so much of their day in one area.  However, the perception by students that they will not be in any classes with their friends…does not happen because of the interaction in Advanced Placement and elective courses, and intramural and extra-curricular activities.

 

Technology is emphasized in all three redesign models.  Technology in a 21st Century School will allow students to experience realistic new worlds. Technology will be a key element in everything:  the library, classrooms, project rooms, labs, and even the management of the school’s physical plant, intramural and extra-curricular activities.

 

Administrators and teachers in schools that implement the Small Learning Community Model have shared many examples of direct benefits in student achievement.  Newsweek magazine in a recent article, Small Schools Rising, notes a“phenomenon of large schools that have split up into smaller units of a few hundred, generally housed in the same sprawling grounds that once boasted thousands of students, all marching to the same band.”  Newsweek, ranks one ofthese, Hillsdale High School in California, in the top two percent of America’s top high schools.  Hillsdale randomly assigns students by grade into one of the school’s houses “where they keep the same four core subject teachers for two years, before moving on to another for 11th and 12th grades.”  According to Newsweek, the principal said that their kids are coming to school in part “because they know there are adults here who know them and care for them.”

 

After completing their research from books, professional publications, national conferences, and input from architects,the Vision Team concluded that the Small Learning Communities Model was the preferred model for the redesign of the high school.    To confirm their findings, several members of the team visited two schools nationally recognized assuccessful 21st Century schools with Small Learning Committees:  Noble High School in Maine, and Blythewood High School in South Carolina.   Members of the Vision Team returned inspired and excited about what they had seen and learned.  Members were eager present their recommendation of the Small Learning Communities Model with a career focus to the Lone Oak High School faculty for approval.  The school’s faculty endorsed the team’s recommendation. 

 

The team then presented the Small Learning Community Model to the Board of Education.  Board members felt that this model for high school redesign should be shared with the district’s two other high school communities since it addressed many of their concerns regarding the disadvantages of a traditional large high school.    Superintendent Heller, Assistant Superintendent Vick and Director of Instruction, Michael Ceglinski, presented the SmallLearning Communities Model at three Board of Education town meetings during September in each of the threeattendance areas.  They also presented and took comments at 12 school staff meetings and at several community groupmeetings.   Information about the model was placed on the district’s website along with a link for comments regarding  the high school redesign.

 

During this process, McCracken County has learned that there are several important premises in meeting the challenge of high school redesign.  It is clear, that any redesign or reinvention of our high schools must assure that students receive the very best education possible in a 21st Century school that is safe; where everyone can know everyone else; where educators can better involve, engage and challenge students; and where students complete a rigorous curriculum integrated with the latest technology and a career focus.