New high school going global
Waxahachie: State initiative creates cutting-edge campus
Louise Larson
The Dallas Morning News
August 24, 2007
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Advanced academics, cutting-edge technology and premium learning tools -- no effort has been spared on an unusual new public high school in Waxahachie.
Waxahachie Global High School is one of about three dozen schools in the Texas Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (T-STEM) initiative, a $70 million project to help prepare students for life after high school, including college and the workplace.
The statewide initiative is funded in part by the office of Gov. Rick Perry and an endowment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, National Instruments and the Communities Foundation of Texas.
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Classes at Waxahachie Global High start next week. This year, there are 101 ninth-graders.
Each year, another grade will be added, and the scholars will take four years of math and science, an internship in science, technology, engineering or math. Every freshman will take introduction to engineering. They'll study in a smaller, unconventional learning community and graduate with a minimum of 24 college hours.
In a twist, at least 60 percent of the student body must be either economically disadvantaged, minority, female, limited English proficient, at risk of not finishing high school or from the first generation of their family to attend college.
And attendance isn't limited to WISD students -- nine members of the first class are from districts outside Waxahachie.
Portia Butler, the school's first headmaster, finds it difficult not to use the word excited in any sentence describing the school.
"I've looked up synonyms so I could stop saying excited. I'm stoked, I'm enthusiastic," she said. "It's exciting because every instructor gets that our kids have to take learning beyond just opening a book."
Ms. Butler was an assistant principal working on doctoral studies when the former superintendent of Waxahachie schools told her he'd like her to be headmaster at a new school.
She's 29, very young compared with most high school principals, but she said youth has worked in her favor.
"I didn't know enough to know how large the task was going to be, so I didn't know enough to be afraid," she said.
| The school is in the Wilemon building, constructed during World War I. The renovated structure has housed entire generations of Waxahachie learners, which is inspiring, Ms. Butler said.
"When they came to uncover the old windows, I saw the original frame windows, and I realized that we are uncovering the windows of our students' lives to let in light so they can learn," she said.
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At Global High, teachers will be equipped with software that allows them to see what students enter into their calculator as they enter it. Interactive white boards and a data capture system allow them to see what the student has entered for an answer.
But it's not just learning tools that provide a unique teaching environment, said language arts teacher Claudia Williams.
"The class load itself is not unusual, but getting to know every student is," she said. "When you interact with students and know all of them, you will know when they need a little guidance."
Parent Glenna Reisner heard about Global High from the school's Web site when she and her husband moved to Waxahachie from Frisco. "If we could have designed a high school for our son, we couldn't have done it better," she said.
Like his peers, freshman Alex Reisner will begin the year with a set of tools not always found in every freshman's locker, including a laptop, an MP3 player and graphing calculator. He said he's looking forward to the school year.
"Instead of a traditional learning environment, it's more project-based and more teamwork instead of busywork," he said. "And I've always been interested in science and engineering, so that fits."
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