Now that ties with consultants from Roger Williams University’s Professional Development Center are cut off, Mount Pleasant High School officials are trying to start a volunteer board to help students in the Computer Information Systems Academy.
With the previous arrangement, consultants affiliated with the Professional Development Center would help teach CIS classes several times a week, students had the opportunity to earn continuing education credits, and the faculty had a resource for questions on software programs they weren’t experienced with. That all stopped, however, at the end of the 1997-1998 school year, when grant money Mount Pleasant received to pay for the services ended, according to Principal Nancy Mullen. Now Mount Pleasant officials are looking for volunteers who can offer advice on which computer skills students need and those who can help find internships for juniors and seniors.
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“It would help us find out what the business industry wants their employees to have. It would take us outside that educational place and give us the real world view,” explained Beth Ann Battey, Mount Pleasant’s library media specialist and a CIS Academy instructor.
“People are always saying they (the students) aren’t ready we want them to tell us what they want the kids to know.”
In addition, the Roger Williams consultants helped the teachers as well, offering guidance in teaching some software programs.
“Our expertise is limited, so we’re always looking for help,” Battey added.
Roger Williams’ Center for Professional Development is staffed by outside consultants, and specializes in providing training programs for corporations, including companies offering retraining programs, according to Louis Melim, assistant to the vice president of finance. It is a roughly four-year-old program, he added.
Mount Pleasant was one of two high schools the Center partnered with in the last two years, Melim said. This year, however, it has no high school partnerships, he added. Melim said he was not sure exactly how much it cost for the schools or a company to work with the Center, because price depends on each client’s needs. 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.
“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.
CIS students learn how to manage computer files and learn individual software programs, such as PowerPoint and Access, a database management system. When the first group of CIS students graduates, they will already be qualified to be introductory help desk workers, low-level systems administrators or even Web site designers, Battey explained. This gives them better paying options for working their way through college, or earning a living after graduation.
The academy system’s primary goals are to build students’ communication skills and confidence levels, Mullen added.
Middle school students from around Providence apply to academy programs by writing an essay. The school allows 28 students from each grade to participate in the CIS Academy. There are now a total of 65 students enrolled in the CIS program, with only eight students from the inaugural class remaining.
This semester, those eight students became the first CIS Academy participants to get internships outside of the school. Most of the students are working in other area schools as teacher aides in computer labs and setting up Internet and e-mail accounts for computer users. In addition, the CIS students are used as computer lab aides at Mount Pleasant and even set up the computer lab there last year.
Next year, there are about 25 students who will be looking for internships, according to Battey. Among the expectations for volunteer board members would be helping obtain and oversee student internships, and helping critique students’ digital portfolios, Battey said. The students are compiling work they’ve done on disk for review by potential employers and colleges, including PowerPoint presentations and Web page designs, she said.
