Commissioner meets with Early College students
QUEENSBURY >> After a busy morning visiting schools in the Saratoga Springs City School District, New York State Education Commissioner Mary-Ellen Elia headed north to the State University of New York (SUNY)Adirondack college in Queensbury.
There, she met with high school students in the Early College High School Electrical Technology/Advanced Manufacturing programand participated in a roundtable discussion about implementing these national courses.
High school seniors in the Electrical Technology/Advanced Manufacturing course presented an overview of their classwork, which includes areas as diverse as programming, vacuum forming and milling. Students build a scalemodel village whose train activates different circuits of the village. In robotics, they build a robotic arm, a cortex robot and an automated cortex robot. The whole program culminates in a capstone project.
Several students showed the model systems on which they train. These table-sized boards held circuits, wires and other connected electronic components.
“It’s a small step to prepare for big machines,” said Alex
Hammond, a senior at Hudson Falls High School.
He plans to attend Eckerd College in Florida, where he’ll major in computer science or engineering, and perhaps minor in business. He’ll start out ahead, thanks to the SUNY Adirondack credits he’s earned in his junior and senior years of high school.
“It’s a nice head start,” said Bailey Doyen, also a Hudson Falls senior. “I’m undecided as to where I want to go to college, but I think I want to study chemical engineering.”
Hammond said the Early College program gives students the opportunity to test what they need to do to succeed in college. It gives an early look at college challenges.
Aaron Buff, a senior at Queensbury High School, said the Early College course teaches good time management, whichwill be key later on. He plans to continue attending SUNY Adirondack and go into electrical engineering.
Each of these students had selected a different specialization in the engineering field, starting from the Early College program’s emphasis on electrical engineering and manufacturing. Joseph Schuster, a senior at Warrensburg High School, will go to either Dartmouth College or Saint Michael’s College, and major in environmental engineering.
So it’s apparent that the program opens many doors for these high school students who go to college early.
After meeting with the students, Elia and her entourage of local politicians, district superintendents, administrators and assistants came to the roundtable to discuss the Early College program and its implementation. Ballston Spa Central School District Superintendent Joseph Dragone, who was instrumental in starting the Clean Technologies and Sustainable Industries Early College High School program with Hudson Valley Community College, spoke about the work of starting it up in 2010 and where it is today.
“In ninth grade, the students learn howto learn,” he said, adding with a smile, “I amthe talking suit. The people who do the real work are the teachers.”
In 10th grade, the students do pathway exploration, taking two college courses andmaking 10 trips to the Malta campus. They learn about coding and renewable energy models, among other topics.
In 11th and 12th grades, the students do pathway immersion. They spend half of each school day at the college and work on projects involving bioenergy, water quality, solar energy and nanotechnology.
“Giving the kids industry exposure is important,” Dragone said. “We have 45 industry partners now and 50 mentors.”
One student who went through the program and through college now works for Global Foundries. This is the kind of local science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) story these administrators want to have happen.
Kim Wegner, coordinator for enrichment, STEM education and career connections at BOCES, spoke about the upcoming programs for Early College High School at SUNY Adirondack. Information technology and computer networking, as well as new media, are next.
Elia asked how the state could help other districts and colleges implement Early College High School programs.
Dragone responded, “Innovation is incredibly difficult in an unflexible environment.”
Saratoga Springs Superintendent Michael Piccirillo said, “There has to be trust that we have the ability to give students the programs they need. More flexibility would help us. We ask ourselves, ‘ How are we going to work within this box to accomplish our goals?’ We need a bigger box.”
Elia said they had to figure out a balance.
“You guys have been so good at this,” she said. “Now we have to figure out how you did it within the regulatory confines.”