Prairie High admins phase out G Squared school within a school

When College Community School District administrators introduced the Global Generation program in May 2011, it was full of promise.

Former Superintendent Richard Whitehead said it was supposed to engage more students. Then-instructor Erik Anderson tied the program, which is also known as G Squared, to increased rates of students completing college within four years. The program's mission statement emphasized 21st century skills. Educators took cues from the Muscatine Community School District's G Squared program, which had roots in High Tech High schools, based in San Diego, Calif.

Two years later, Prairie High School students and their parents received a letter from administrators that read, “To that end, there will no longer be a (G Squared) program.”

The school within a school model, which initially included 100 sophomores who took their four core classes together and with plans to continue doing so through their senior year, is being eliminated.

The change in course does not mean that G Squared didn't live up to its promise, at least in the eyes of some students and staff.

Consider junior Mitch Renwick of Swisher. He recently completed his second year in the program, which he applied for in part because of its unique focus on giving students the skills for tomorrow.

“It's a very different way of doing class. It's all about projects, not reading and lecturing,” Renwick said. “We learn more in the sense of these skills that are important in life later.”

The framework of project-based learning, a key component of G Squared in which learning centers on hands-on activities instead of teachers delivering content through lecture, will remain.

Prairie High School Principal Erik Anderson maintained that the change in direction is not an admission of failure. In fact, to him it's the opposite.

“It absolutely was a success,” he wrote in an email to The Gazette. “The district embraced this focus on the positive impact of a project based learning environment. Throughout our district, project based learning opportunities have increased and improved.”

Decline

Yet still, the numbers reveal that not all of the G Squared students would agree. Tenth-grade enrollment in the program decreased by half between the first and second years.

“This decline did play a role in the decision but the discussions about a possible transition were happening prior to our registration processes,” Anderson wrote.

Faculty promised that there won't be a cliff for 2013-14's seniors in the G Squared program, who will be the first class to complete the full three-year track. Though the school-within-a-school structure is dissolving and will not welcome any new students, there will still G Squared offerings, albeit limited, for seniors.

Even though that's the case, Renwick will not be joining his peers. Instead, he is opting to take a greater breadth of Advanced Placement and other courses that were either in conflict with G Squared scheduling or were not available in the program.

Language arts teacher Christopher Klostermann, who recently completed his first year as a G Squared instructor, said he sees the amount of curricular options Prairie High School students have as part of a reason for the depletion of the G Squared population, though he doesn't consider too many choices to be a bad thing.

“When it's not a forced option, it's truly an option,” he said. “I think it really is driven by, ‘Here's another option for students to learn.'”

Transition

The plan for the 2013-14 school year is to bring project-based learning to all sophomores and juniors, who will be divided into teams with former G Squared teachers for their core courses, but it will not be identical to G Squared. Anderson noted that there will not be as many opportunities for cross-curricular projects.

In discussing why some students decided either to opt out or never opt into G Squared, he mentioned the “comfort” of the traditional learning environment. In those classes, a project is often the culmination of lesson and not the impetus.

“Here, it's projects that are going to drive the learning,” he said.

It's a teaching style that more teachers at Prairie High School, even outside of the program, are utilizing.

Both Klostermann and Anderson maintained that student response to G Squared has been largely positive, though Renwick said he's heard come of his peers complain about feeling that they aren't learning as much in the courses.

“It's not really for everybody, because of how different it is,” he said.

Still, Renwick thinks it will be beneficial to give more students the chance to try a new approach in the classroom. He attributed G Squared to helping him be more comfortable with public speaking and teamwork, two things he thinks will be required of him as an adult.

In traditional courses, “you don't learn to work with other people,” Renwick said.