Schools
St. Michael-Albertville Schools Up the Ante on Science
Instead of meeting the changing state standards going into next school year, St. Michael-Albertville is looking to excede them with a rigorous high school curriculum.
The state of Minnesota is laying out changes that would up the ante on high school science requirements: starting with the class of 2015, students must satisfactorily complete either a chemistry or physics course in order to graduate from a state high school. Many students around the state are sure to agonize over which of these difficult courses to complete, but students at St. Michael-Albertville High School won’t have to worry about this choice. They will be taking both.
Starting next school year all STMA freshmen will be adding Introduction to Physics to their list of required classes they will take during their time at STMA High School, as well as a two-credit chemistry course. Students are already required to complete two credits of biology, a requirement that will remain in place.
“It’s not changing the amount of credits, it’s just making our core science more rigorous in an effort to make our kids college-ready,” said Dr. Ann-Marie Foucault on the change. Foucault is the district’s director of curriculum and instruction, along with the half-time kindergarten principal.
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The new chemistry curriculum will expand significantly from current chemistry offerings at the high school, from one general chemistry course to four different offerings.
Students will be placed into one of three chemistry classes of varying difficulty based on a number of data-driven factors: their performance on a number of standardized tests, teacher recommendations and other factors. An advanced placement chemistry course will also be added for students who want to expand on the subject after completing their initial chemistry class.
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While Foucault said the district will not receive any additional funding for improving the rigor of their curriculum, she noted that they would have purchased new science curriculum anyway using their “capital outlay process,” since science is currently due for an update through the curriculum review cycle.
“This is no small change,” said assistant superintendent/superintendent elect Dr. Jim Behle. “I think we can feel quite proud of our district for taking such a significant of a step. We may be the one [district] that everybody comes to to ask ‘how did you do that?’”