New school year, new programs
North Smithfield offers new courses in line with career and technical education curriculum
NORTH SMITHFIELD — The new school year is about to open at the high school on Aug. 30 and along with it a group of new career-based programs for both local and out of district students.
The new course offerings are part of the school’s adoption of a Rhode Island Department of Education certified Career and Technical Education curriculum that will expand career-based education for local students, according to Superintendent of Schools Michael St. Jean and Assistant Superintendent Clare Arnold.
The new program, which is also open to students from other districts on a space available basis, offers three different areas of instruction
with options for college-level course credit and links to related “content to context,” work place experiences.
St. Jean said that the program in part seeks to keep local students within the district with the help of the new course offerings in pre-engineering, business management, administration and Finance, and Music.
“If we have a student go to a neighboring community, we pay our average per pupil expense to the other district,” he said.
In turn if a student from another district comes in to attend North Smithfield High School for the new course offerings, their district must pay the per-student cost for that attendance, theirs or the high school’s depending on which is the lowest cost.
While in theory the new programs could draw more students to North Smithfield high – a 496-student, grade 9-12 high performing school – St. Jean said a key goal of the change was to offer local students an expanded offering of career-based learning opportunities.
“We have a very strong and meaningful diploma at North Smithfield High School and we want to attach it to meaningful programs and opportunities for our students,” he said.
Just about every school in the state is either starting up CTE programs or looking to start them as a result of a new emphasis by the Department of Education on in-house career and technical instruction, according to St. Jean. Some schools, with greater resources for their programs, will be offering more comprehensive career-based instruction and others a smaller sampling of courses geared specifically to their schools.
Under the local CTE initiative, the new course offerings are actually an expansion or redesign of existing courses that have been successful in the past, the strengths of the school like the high school’s music program or innovative offerings like its engineering program – an update of the technology education program offered in the past with the help of WSP Engineering in New York City.
The new program offers a Project Lead the Way pre-engineering curriculum that required local participating teachers to attend in an intensive training program in order to offer the new classes to students.
The new application-based approach to instruction challenges students to work in groups toward a project completion just like they would work if they were employed by an engineering firm, according to St. Jean.
The CTE pre-engineering curriculum includes three courses, Introduction to Engineering Design, the Principles of Engineering, and Engineering Design and Development, and students can also take related courses at the school such as pre-calculus, physics and robotics.
Arnold noted the Music CTE offering was a natural choice given the school’s established and successful music program.
The idea of CTE, after all, is not only to create a new curriculum for career-minded students but also to expand and refine programs already in place at the school, she explained.
“Having this series of courses will benefit our students,” Arnold said.
The CTE Music program features a series of pathways in specific areas of music such as the instrumental pathway where students can perform in the concert band, symphonic band, or take an AP Music Theory class. There is also a vocal performance pathway with opportunities to participate in Concert Choir, Select Choir and the AP Music Theory class or related electives such as Music technology, jazz band or elementary music theory.
The CTE Business Management, Administration & Finance program offers three courses, Marketing, Intro to Business and College Accounting and capitalizes on the high school’s past success with its participation in DECA programs and a partnership with URI for college level credits.
St. Jean noted a key to starting up the CTE program was the selection of courses that could be ramped up to the Rhode Island Department of Education CTE standards-based endorsement.
Participating teachers had to attend professional development courses in their related areas of CTE instruction and the district also had to purchase some equipment and materials for the new programs, according to St. Jean. All of the start up costs were covered withing the existing budget and St. Jean said overall, the district, shouldn’t face any new costs for the programs.
“It wasn’t a heavy lift because we were already doing some of these things,” he said. “We were already there and what we had to do was transform them in keeping with the Department of Education’s guidelines.”
With a number of new CTE initiatives kicking off this year, St. Jean said it remains to be seen how everything will shake out.
For North Smithfield, there is the added factor of its participation in the Northwest School Consortium that includes the Smithfield, Burrillville, Lincoln and Cumberland school districts.
The consortium, which St. Jean now chairs following the retirement of Frank Palotta, seeks ways for the member districts to save money through coordinated purchasing, shared professional development and other group initiatives.
The consortium members are also working together on the CTE program by not duplicating course offerings where possible and setting a reduced tuition of $5,000 for students seeking to participate in another member district’s program for up to three seats per district.
Without the consortium discount, an outside student could pay its full $14,500 per student expenditure cost to attend North Smithfield schools.
How the new program works won’t be known until school starts up and sign ups for the new initiative are complete. Students coming to North Smithfield High School from other communities would be required to do all of their high school course work at the school and eventually earn a local high school diploma along with any CTE program certifications.
Arnold said the incoming students would have to be accommodated in the other courses they would need to attend and that could take a bit of scheduling work as the program’s impacts unfold.
“It is a new world of education for a lot of our public high schools, especially those looking at a lot of school choice initiatives,” St. Jean said. “It is not all about the money, but more about new opportunities for students,” he said.
“It is a new world of education for a lot of our public high schools, especially those looking at a lot of school choice initiatives. It is not all about the money, but more about new opportunities for students.”
—North Smithfield School Superintendent Michael St. Jean