Businesses, students gain from city school district's career academies - NewsOK.com

THE business community has an opportunity to embrace the Oklahoma City School District's new career academy approach, which will expand with five more academies next fall.

Businesses, students gain from city school district's career academies

Besides helping boost academics in a district known for below-average test scores, businesses have numerous benefits in giving back to the community, including recruiting and training potential employees at the high school level.

This fall, Northeast Academy began an engineering academy and next fall it will add health sciences. Four high schools will host new academies next fall: John Marshall, finance; Capitol Hill, engineering; Oklahoma Centennial, information technology; and Star Spencer, hospitality and tourism.

The role of businesses in the academies ranges from tutoring students to allowing high schoolers to intern or shadow with employees of their business. Business leaders also are needed to serve on advisory boards to help the schools develop appropriate coursework and activities for students.

“We need to push hard on the business community,” JD Hoye, president of the National Academy Foundation, said recently at a business seminar in Oklahoma City. “You can't wait till a child graduates from high school or college to get them career-ready.”

Hoye noted that businesses also directly benefit in that employees involved with academies have a higher level of productivity and excitement.

Students in the academies benefit from learning practical workplace lessons in high school. School board chairwoman Angela Monson, who is raising her 16-year-old niece Danielle, knows firsthand that students don't always grasp the correlation between school and the workplace.

“This kid is just off-the-chart smart and doesn't want to go to school,” Monson said. “She goes because I make her. As I talked with her, the connection between school and real life just was not there.” Danielle, who hopes to be a physician, will participate in the health sciences academy at Northeast next fall.

Core courses, such as English, math, science and social studies, are combined with occupation-related courses to match the themes of the academies.

“They get to see what real life looks like, what it's like to be a real productive citizen with good work ethic,” Monson said.

The school district plans to provide transportation for students who want to attend an academy at another school, and is partnering with Metro Transit System.

The district's goal is to add nine academies for the 2013-14 school year, eventually providing multiple academies at one school.

We urge local businesses to support the district's academies. In doing so, they will be helping the community and benefiting their businesses in the long run.