MCS to strengthen college, career pathways with $2.5 million Innovative School Models Grant

MCS to strengthen college, career pathways with $2.5 million Innovative School Models Grant

Maryville Daily Times

By: Amy Beth Miller

January 12, 2023

With a $2.5 million state grant, Maryville City Schools plans to be more strategic in guiding students from the question of “What do you want to be when you grow up,” to completing the courses they need for college and careers.

The district is receiving the money under a $500 million Innovative Model Schools program the state legislature funded last year, which allocates $1 million for each high school and half a million for middle schools.

Maryville’s two intermediate schools qualify because they serve sixth graders, as well as the junior high and high school, Director Mike Winstead explained to the Maryville Board of Education at during its meeting Monday, Jan. 9, at Foothills Elementary Elementary School.

The state Department of Education approved Maryville’s plan last month, so funding will begin Feb. 1 and continue through the next three school years, Winstead said.

“We think this is going to a game-changer,” he told school board members. “This is a huge amount of money and allows us to build on things we’ve already started in a lot of places ... much more rapidly than we could have otherwise.”

MCS receives only about $50,000 a year in federal funding for career and technical education programs, and even supplementing that with local funding doesn’t stretch far to meet the cost of equipment.

CTE earlier

Administrators are working to be more strategic and targeted in guiding students from the first assessments of their interests and aptitudes through courses they can complete before graduation. Just as the district has a tiered approach to academic intervention, it will offer more support to students who aren’t exposed to opportunities outside school, Winstead said. The district also plans more communication to parents about their children’s opportunities.

Students will move from career awareness in sixth grade to career exploration in seventh grade and career advising in eighth grade, when they could start some career and technical education programs.

“Our CTE classes are going to start earlier,” said Maryville Junior High Principal Melissa Stowers, specifically mentioning opportunities in shop and culinary arts.

MCS plans to use more than $750,000 of its ISM grant for instructional equipment, including outfitting those classes at the junior high and updating a digital photography lab at the high school with new computers. Another quarter of a million dollars from the grant will pay for software and other materials.

“We’re going to make sure that the equipment our kids are using at the junior high and high school in every CTE class is state of the art and industry standard,” Winstead said, telling the board that he is encouraging the staff to “dream big but don’t break the bank.”

Stowers also wants to take students off campus to see what the careers that might interest them really look like. “My vision is that we take trips every nine weeks; we build in experiences where kids get into workplaces,” she told the board.

College prep and more

“I think Maryville historically would be called a college prep school, and that’s what we do very, very well,” said high school Principal Heather Hilton. “Hands down, I would 100% say that’s never going to leave us.”

Going forward, however, she said students will better know their options within Maryville City Schools and beyond.

Part of that includes the options at the newly opened workforce development center on the Friendsville campus of Pellissippi State Community College, which also includes classes from the Tennessee College of Applied Technology.

“We have students who could start dual enrollment their junior year and do one additional year past high school and have an associate’s degree in electrical engineering,” she said as an example. “There are so many incredible options.”

Because transportation is a challenge for some students, part of the grant will go to buy two new vans to take students to Pellissippi State and other opportunities, such as work-based learning. That will add to three vans MHS already has to transport students to workplaces such as Blount Memorial Hospital.

In the coming fall MHS expects to have five to 10 students taking welding classes at the Blount County campus of Pellissippi State. Winstead said in the future juniors and seniors may spend more time off campus than on, with opportunities for both dual enrollment and work-based learning.

Maryville plans to spend about $1.5 million of its grant on personnel, including a districtwide college and career director to ensure collaboration and communication, not only among schools, students and parents, but with stakeholders in the community too.

ROTC?

During the meeting several school board members expressed interest in adding a Junior ROTC program at Maryville High.

“There are kids out there that need that pathway,” said board member Candy Morgan.

Board member Isaac Simerly, a graduate of MHS and the U.S. Naval Academy, noted that a career assessment pointed him to the military.

“If we get some interest we’ll make it happen, no doubt,” board President Nick Black said.

Hilton offered numbers showing she’s already looked into the space such a program would require.