‘College experience’ preparing high school students for the next step
FISHERS, Ind. (WISH) – Students at two central Indiana high schools are getting the college experience without even leaving the building. Now the district wants to enhance it with some help from Ivy Tech Community College.
The sign out front reads Fishers High School but the environment inside tells a different story.
“It’s a lot like a really small college,” said junior Sidney Anrus.
“A lot of high schools I’ve been to definitely don’t have this sort of space,” added sophomore Ella Schnefke.
That space is the new College and Career Academy, complete with private study rooms, a café, and classrooms that are opening up new possibilities.
“I can eat dinner now and that’s lovely because I don’t have to bring food from home anymore,” Schnefke said with a smile while sitting in the café. She said she also uses the down time at the academy to finish homework before she teaches a swim class at the school rather than waiting until she gets home.
“The openness, the amount of tables, the study areas and just the way that everything is together but still separate,” said Anrus.
Principal Jason Urban feels the academy’s teaching practices are the best way to prepare his students for life after high school.
‘The culture of the building has just changed. I think students have really owned the spaces a little bit more,” Urban said. “In talking to students, they tell me it feels different, it feels that more is expected of out of me, but that feels good.”
The academy is just the start of the transition out of high school. Next year, he wants to collaborate with Ivy Tech Community College and bring its technology courses into his high school and Hamilton Southeastern, giving students a chance to get industry certification.
Either they take that (certification) and they go into the university or they take that and they go right into the work force and then again they stand out because they have certification,” he said.
And when it’s combined with this advanced learning style, Urban said students will a new level of confidence before taking the next step.
“We’re treating them more adult, we’re giving them more independence, we’re having them solve problems, real world problems,” he said.
“I feel like it’s really preparing me for college versus what it used to be. I feel like the independence has helped so much,” said Anrus.
Hamilton Southeastern High School also has a college and career academy. Principal Urban said the Ivy Tech idea is still pending school board approval but he’s confident it will be passed.