PUSD to build military academy
Construction planned to begin in January
Next fall, Porterville students will have a new education option available to them that is sure to be well-received in a community with a long-standing tradition of patriotism and commitment to service. Porterville Unified School District has tentatively scheduled to begin construction on the Porterville Military Academy in January 2018. The new academy will be located at 900 West Pioneer Avenue in Porterville, and will be part of the complex that also houses Butterfield Charter High School, the Porterville Adult School, and Student Nutrition Services.
Construction is expected to take eight months, and will incorporate both new construction and re-purposing of existing facilities at the site. The district hopes to have the campus ready for the start of the 2018-19 school year.
“This is a project that we have been looking at for years,” PUSD Superintendent Dr. Ken Gibbs said. “PUSD governing board members and administrators have made several trips to similar academies in California to gain knowledge of what we wanted to do here in Porterville. We believe this will provide another excellent option for our students to become future leaders in the community.”
One of the military academies that PUSD looked to for inspiration is the Oakland Military Institute, which was founded in 2001 after a hard-fought two-year campaign led by then Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. Governor Gray Davis helped secure the charter after local school boards rejected it. It was the first charter ever sponsored by the state, the first public military school and the first school sponsored by the National Guard.
Like the Oakland Military Institute, the Porterville Military Academy will focus on leadership, character development and citizenship skills using military principles and disciplines. The PMA also will become the 14th open choice pathway for the PUSD Pathways program and focus on producing students that are both college and career ready. In coordination with the announcement of the academy’s construction, PUSD has released a full description of the PMA pathway on their website, and students were able to enroll for the 2018-19 school year at the pathway showcase earlier this week, where PUSD representatives said that there was significant interest in the program among both students and parents.
The academy will be one of only five public, tuition-free military academies in the state of California and the second in Tulare County. As a result, there may be a broader appeal than just to local students-- just one of many variables that the district will take into consideration as they make their final plans for the site.
“Once the word gets out, we think there will be a lot of interest. We might have families with a military background that may want to move to Porterville because it’s something that interests them,” said Jason Pommier, public information officer for PUSD. “We don’t want to get into a situation where we have 1,000 interested students and not enough instructors, so we want to take it slow at first.”
The initial class will focus on incoming ninthgrade students, and will expand by adding additional grade levels in subsequent years. When fully operational, the PMA will be the first PUSD school to instruct grades 7-12. If all goes according to PUSD’S vision, the academy will produce its first graduating class in 2022.
In addition to a focus on A-G college preparatory core courses, PMA’S academic regimen will also feature classes on leadership philosophy, professional ethics and conduct, first aid, principles of fitness, methods of instruction and lesson planning, leadership counseling, organizational and strategic levels, conflict resolution, decision and policy making strategies, group dynamics and control, establishing mission goals and objectives, map reading and drill and ceremonies.
The classroom experience will be supplemented by a variety of activities such as team sports, travel within the state, marksmanship, drill competition, cadets of the year boards, bivouacs (basic survival training), leadership schools, annual encampment, extreme team challenge, obstacle and confidence courses and leadership reaction courses.
While successful graduates of the PMA will likely make desirable candidates for military recruiters, PUSD does not expect to see them all choose military careers, and hopes that the PMA graduates will utilize their skills in a variety of fields. Out of 100 recent graduates of the Oakland Military Academy, only four actually went on to join the military.
The final proposal for the academy is scheduled to be presented to the school board for approval in November.