Back in 2007, the district broke up the high school into academies focused on certain subjects, like business, liberal arts and public service. The goal was to create stronger relationships with students in smaller groups. Some of the funding for that change came from the .
But starting this term, all of Crater High School鈥檚 approximately 1,500 students will be back together.
"It's exciting to see that many kids coming together," said Central Point School District 6 Superintendent Walt Davenport. "We've invested a lot this summer in just kind of the infrastructure and painting, making it feel different, maybe making it feel a little bit more like a college setting."
The physical campus has been spruced up and reorganized, with hallways renamed and classrooms relabeled.
Davenport said there were some benefits to the smaller academy model, but there were limitations too.
For example, he said the old model kept kids divided and too entrenched in their own groups, which affected school culture.
"You started to track kids into a particular silo in those schools, and that isn't really reflective of the real world. When we get out into the real world, we've got to work with people of different values, different beliefs, different cultures, speak different languages and those kind of things," he said.
Other issues with the academy model included lack of student access to programs, difficulty hiring teachers, lack of consistency across academies, financial inefficiencies and limitations with teacher licensing, Davenport said.
Now, the district will work on making sure students鈥� credits are equal as they transfer from their individual academies. Davenport said no employees will lose their jobs due to the re-consolidation. He said there's some concern about the collective student culture once everyone is back together.
"Kids really were siloed into those buildings. And with those silos came certain tendencies of types of kids that would gravitate and group up, and they protect each other. And so I think that there is some angst about bringing the campus back together," he said. "That's a really important part of the work that we're going to be doing this fall with the campus as a whole is working on the school culture and that sense of belonging that every kid has to have."
Davenport believes this new change will make it easier for teachers to work together and share resources. He said finances are one factor in the change, but not the driving factor.
Most of all, he feels this shift will give students new opportunities.
"In high school, you've got to try new things. You've got to figure things out. You might want to try dance, or you might want to try band, or you might want to try welding," he said. "Coming back and reunifying the high school will give kids much more access to trying new things and seeing where their interests kind of play out in their four years there."
