(GREENWOOD)—Beginning August 2016, the Greenwood School District will be implementing a new curriculum customized to each student's career goals.
“We recently went to a curriculum day and learned about all the different ways my daughter can advance her education,” said Bethany Tosh, whose daughter Callie is a ninth-grader at Greenwood High School.
Instructional facilitators with the district have broken down the school’s curriculum into four academies—The Business Academy, the Performance Academy, The Humanities Academy and the STEM Academy. The pictures below break down career pathways offered in each academy.
“The earlier the students think about it, the better, and partially because of the expense of college,” instructional facilitator Jason Bridges said. “If a student goes to college, and changes their major, that`s going to cost them money. If they change their mind while in high school, that`s fine.”
Tosh said at first, it was a lot for her 14-year-old to take in and make a decision.
“Seeing all of these decisions at once or this many choices at once, kind of overwhelmed her,” Tosh said, “but the teachers there were able to break it down a little bit better for her to understand and for me to understand.”
She said she knows daughter wants to one day work in the medical field, but she’s also interested in music and performing. Program facilitators said the curriculum allows each student to choose classes in multiple academies to their liking.
“If your student starts out in one academy and decides they want to go into another academy that they need to consider that as success,” Chirsty Hesslen, instructional facilitator said.
“We`ll just continually make modifications as we go, helping those students identify what it is they really want to do their lives,” Bridges said.
He said the new curriculum will not cost the school any extra money, and that it is just a reorganization of classes already offered at Greenwood High School now customized in each student's schedule.