Local software company executives weren’t the only ones mingling and hoping to make lasting connections at the Information Technology Expositions & Conference show in Providence earlier this month. Several students from Mount Pleasant High School were at the Rhode Island Convention Center too, hoping to learn more about local high tech businesses and, maybe, just maybe, snag some new sponsors for the school’s Computer Information Systems Academy internship program.
“Me and another student, Argenis Guerrero, were out there politicking. We set up two possible internships,” said Christian Vargas, a senior at the Providence school.
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“I had no money to invest in their companies, yet they told us about their companies,” Vargas said.
The CIS program is in its third year and is the newest of Mount Pleasant’s six academy programs, which also include curriculums revolving around finance, health care, and travel and tourism. Mount Pleasant’s academy system was set up in response to a state report indicating schools needed to create programs to make students feel more involved, explained Principal Nancy Mullen.
“Big schools allow kids to be anonymous,” Mullen said. “Many of the high schools throughout the state are trying to personalize the education for their students, by creating smaller schools within large schools.”
There are approximately 1,550 students at Mount Pleasant, about half of whom are involved in academy programs, Mullen said. These students have “better attendance, better grades, higher completion rates, higher college acceptance rates,” she explained. And when the first group of CIS students graduates, they already will be qualified to be introductory help desk workers, low-level systems administrators or even Web site designers, explained Beth Ann Battey, the school’s library media specialists and one of the CIS instructors. This gives them better paying options for working their way through college, or earning a living after graduation.
“Last year they learned Access (software program) and they were totally bored,” said Susan Votto, a computer resource teacher. “That is until a professor at Roger Williams came in and told them he was getting $200 an hour to get this database started for a doctor.”
Mullen actually initiated the CIS academy.
“I stole the idea hook, line, and sinker from Brown University, which has a student consultant program,” she explained. “My daughter was a student consultant. What I liked was that she had to communicate.”
The primary goals are to build students’ communication skills and confidence levels. And some of the students agree that this approach is working for them. Sophomore Benjie Ly transferred into CIS from the health care academy.
“I started off real quiet now I’m able to speak out more,” said Ly, who is also working on an in-house Internet installation project.
Middle school students from around Providence apply to academy programs by writing an essay. And the programs tend to be popular. For example, as many as 100 students have applied for the 28 new slots in the CIS academy with each new class, Mullen said.
Some 65 students are now enrolled in the CIS program. Only eight students from the inaugural class are still involved. The remaining third-year students seem to be thriving in the program, and earlier this month they became the first CIS students to participate in internships. Most internships are located at other area schools, but Mount Pleasant officials are hopeful they eventually will be able to place students in local companies. For example, Ciara Reygoza is helping teach students at the Nathanael Greene Middle School; Kenny Rodriguez is helping fix up a computer lab and working as a teacher’s aide at the Veazie Street Elementary School; and Maribel Concepcion is setting up Internet and e-mail accounts for faculty and students at a number of schools. All three are juniors.
Mount Pleasant is also taking advantage of the CIS students’ skills as well. Last year CIS students set up new equipment in the school computer lab, some students work as teacher aides in the computer lab and library. James Geyer, 15, and classmate Ronald Thompson, 16, are both sophomores. Last week they spoke to eighth graders at the Esek Hopkins Middle School to help them decide whether to apply for the CIS program. Thompson said his father actually helped him make his decision.
“My father was taking computer classes too, and he said most jobs are computer-based.”
And one day earlier this year, when Votto was out sick, four of the older CIS students ran her freshmen class.
“I knew it would be better than having a substitute in here. They knew the programs,” Battey said. “The idea is to make them trouble shooters, so they’re familiar with the operating systems, the hardware,” Battey explained.
Though Vargas, the program’s ITEC ambassador, also would have liked the opportunity to learn more challenging skills, such as computer programming and graphic designing, he said the academy has still given him some advantages.
“You come out of school with superior computer skills to other people, it really opens people’s ears up, makes them listen,” he explained.
