High School News

Anatomy instructor Shidfar Rouhani conducts a lab session in University of Western States’ new facility.A key instructional laboratory at University of Western States was a rotting mess, with low-hanging ceilings, lab waste being handled in 5-gallon buckets, and no place for students to change into or out of surgical gear before or after working on cadavers.

That’s all changed, courtesy of a $3.6 million anatomy building whose centerpiece laboratory not only handles more students studying to become chiropractors but now also incorporates technology at every instructional step.

“It was not a pleasant place,” UWS executive vice president David Wickes said of the old lab on the 22-acre Northeast Portland campus.

The 8,500-square-foot lab that opened in March is just the opposite.

Outside, every drop of rainwater from the parking lot and roof is funneled into bioswales and a holding pond filled with water-loving plants. An airy lobby replaces a picnic bench outside the old lab. There are dressing rooms with storage lockers for male and female students and offices for instructors.

But the college is most proud of the two-story lab, where each of its 475 students spends three terms studying the human body. In the center of the lab are three large stainless steel tables for group work. They are surrounded by 10 workstations where teams of four to six students learn human anatomy by dissecting cadavers. Each station has a computer for researching questions as they arise. Overhead are eight 52-inch high-definition video screens that can be connected to student workstations or to an instructor’s station at one end of the room.

The floor covering is a special easy-to-clean rubberized material. A constant, but quiet, flow of air from ceiling to floor does a complete change of air in the room 22 times an hour.

A morgue at the rear of the laboratory holds up to 30 cadavers, which the college gets from Oregon Health & Science University.

“It has better lighting, better ventilation and it’s a much quieter environment so we can do better teaching,” Wickes said during a recent tour.

With roots back to 1904, the college officially formed in 1932 and offers a four-year doctor of chiropractic degree program, a master’s degree in exercise and sports science, and a one-year massage therapy program. It became Western States Chiropractic College in 1967 and moved to its current 11-building campus near Northwest 132nd Avenue in 1973. It became the University of Western States in 2010 as part of an effort to expand its health care programs and attract more research grants.

The new, $3.6 million anatomy lab at University of Western States collects rainwater from its parking lot and roof, then funnels it into a pond and bioswales.The college’s first major, new building project was a 16,000-square-foot, $4 million lecture hall that opened in 2001. Wickes said the second big project — the anatomy lab — was talked about in 2004 but shelved. Then in 2008 the college resumed planning for it.

Administrators started by asking faculty what did and didn’t work in the old lab, what frustrated them, and what would make instruction more effective. Wickes also researched and clarified the college’s need for labs where UWS students spend more than 130 hours a year dissecting cadavers. He found that several U.S. schools that had dropped their work on cadavers soon went back to using them.

“There is consensus among our anatomists, and shared by most medical educators, that dissection must continue to play a significant role in our pre-clinical curriculum,” Wickes wrote in a 2008 memo to the college’s board.

Administrators and faculty also looked at other labs and talked with colleagues across the country.

“How do we come up with a building that satisfies the needs of the students, the wishes of the anatomists and some of the things the university had to accomplish?” Wickes said of the process.

Wickes said it was also clear that a new facility must incorporate extensive use of technology, of which the old lab had none.

“They were not at all used to teaching with technology until we started this project,” Wickes said. “But they have rapidly embraced it.”

The university financed the lab with $400,000 in donations and by refinancing the bond used to build the lecture hall. It also spent $500,000 the past two years to redo and upgrade technology throughout the campus.

Although the college broke ground on the lab in July 2009, it was another year before all the permits were approved by the city of Portland. Work started in June 2010 and the lab opened for students eight months later.

After its inaugural term, Wickes said the response from students and faculty has been “overwhelmingly positive.”

“The students are very, very happy. They say, ‘Wow, this is great,’” Wickes said. “And the faculty is especially pleased because they were asked for their input and played a big role in its design.”

MOBILE, Alabama — The Mobile County school system is moving its alternative school from Chickasaw to Plateau.

Mobile County Training School, a middle school on Whitley Street, will host the alternative school, known as The Pathway, according to system officials. The school takes in middle school students who have received long-term suspensions for misbehaving.

Donnie Jones works to get classrooms ready at Mobile County Training School in Plateau for the alternative school that is moving there next month.

The Plateau school will also house a new Star Academy designed to help 80 over-aged eighth-grade students earn credits and hopefully stay in school.

Mobile County Training, which has suffered from declining enrollment, will continue to have its regular middle school for sixth through eighth grades.

The Pathway and the Star Academy will operate in a now-vacant eight-classroom wing, connected to the main building by a walkway.

Those students will arrive and leave at different times than the Mobile County Training students, said Superintendent Roy Nichols. Well do our very best to keep the people in the different programs separated, he said.

Nichols said, Every time I visited the alternative school, it has been very much under control. I never feared for my safety, and I dont think the kids there feared for their safety.

Nichols moved the alternative school to Chickasaw last year, after its aging home the former Blount High in downtown Prichard was deemed unsuitable for students.

Chickasaw city officials were not pleased, and urged Nichols to find another spot. Meanwhile, Chickasaw split from the county school system, and will eventually take ownership of schools within its limits.

So, Nichols said, it was time to move again.

In the past, the alternative school served middle and high school students. But when the Chickasaw location filled up and there was a waiting list to get in, the system split the programs. Each of the countys 13 high schools now offers night school, known as Twilight School, for its suspended students.

The Pathways new location should be able to accommodate about 60 middle school students, according to Terrence Mixon, the systems executive director of student support services.

The Star Academy will be the first of its kind in the state, Mixon said. The school system identified 160 of its oldest eighth-graders, who tended to be 16 years old, and offered them a chance to apply. From those, the system picked 80 for the Star Academy, which emphasizes interactive learning through technology and projects.

The students will attend Star classes this academic year and this summer to catch up and even earn high school credits.

We want to be able to reach more kids, to create more opportunities, Mixon said. We want to give them a second chance so they will not get further behind academically, and keep them on track. The whole goal is to get as many of our kids graduated as we can.

Board member Reginald Crenshaw, whose district includes Mobile County Training, said some of his Plateau constituents were reluctant at first about hosting the alternative school. But, he said, they are beginning to see the merits.

Mobile County Training lost hundreds of students over the last few years, following the demolition of the Happy Hill public housing community, and was in danger of being closed.

I think this is a way to save Mobile County Training School, Crenshaw said. We are educating children who have been suspended. Once they satisfy that suspension, they go right back to their school. These are not hard-core criminals.

He said, I dont think these kids will cause additional danger. If I did, I would not support it.

Images from VBI2011-S1 have been uploaded to the Victory Briefs Photo Gallery; Ill be uploading pictures throughout my time here. Many more are on the way.

There are many reasons a person, in any field, and his or her employer separate. When a head of school voluntarily or involuntarily separates from his or her private school employer though, there is often a vacuum, a void, a hole left unfilled for the entire community of parents, faculty, and staff.

Changes in heads of school at independent schools are not so unusual, and particularly in NYC, which has such a high concentration of private schools. Changes may be abrupt (e.g., Irwin Shlachter no longer with Claremont Preparatory School) or prolonged (e.g., Nancy Shulman leaving 92Y for Avenues: The World School), amicable or hostile, voluntary or forced, etc. At some point in the process, search firms (e.g., The Education Group, Wickenden Associates, etc.), are often contracted to help a school find their next leader.

In his article, Head Departures (June 25, 2004; updated Nov. 30, 2010), Patrick F. Bassett, President of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), talks about the ways that independent schools manage the separation from a head of school.

Regarding the announcement of the separation: Together, the board and head should plan and rehearse the language of public and private announcements about the departure. In one of his Important Points Here, Mr. Bassett writes, An acceptable (and true) joint announcement would indicate, typically

• Board appreciation, publicly and generously, for the contributions that the head has made and plans later in the year for appropriate celebration and recognition.
• Head acknowledgment that given changing priorities for the school over time that call for leadership with different interests, inclinations, and/or skills, the head and board have agreed amicably to seek different futures.
• Board plans for including faculty and parents in the process of articulating future goals and finding the school leader eager to equip the school to meet those goals.
• Board and head admission (as needed) that lack of communication regarding this change in leadership has to this point fueled some wild speculation and many erroneous assumptions, as is typical in these instances, but that the head and board are of one mind at this point on the wisdom of the change and the goals of this final year of the heads leadership at the school.

A recent example of how the separation between a school and head of school may be handled occurred at The Brearley School.

The Brearley School is an independent K-12 all girls preparatory school in NYC with a longstanding reputation for excellence. It is one of the more established schools in the city dating all the way back to 1884, with such notable alumnae as Kyra Sedgwick, Caroline Kennedy, Tea Leoni, Betsy Gotbaum, and Ruth Messinger. Forbes ranked it #4 in 2010 on its list of top 20 prep schools in America.

Earlier this month, according to the New York Times, Head of School, Dr. Stephanie J. Hull, abruptly announced that she was leaving. Dr. Hull, who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, had been Brearleys 14th Head of School, and served for 8 years, was the first black woman to hold the position. In a somewhat unusual move, Brearleys 13th Head of School, Dr. Priscilla Winn Barlow, who had retired in 2003, has become the Interim Head of School while Brearley searches for a new leader.

Amongst the key statements/quotes from the New York Times articles that mirror Mr. Bassetts recommendations:

• Alan K. Jones, the head of Brearley’s board of trustees, praised Dr. Hull’s accomplishments, including leading the largest capital campaign in the school’s history, making the student body and faculty more diverse, increasing financial aid and acquiring properties for the school’s expansion.
• Mr. Jones promised that a proper tribute would be scheduled for the fall along with the commissioning of a portrait of Dr. Hull to join her 13 predecessors on the walls of the school.
• In a letter to families, Dr. Hull said the school had reached the next phase of its development, requiring a new leader.“Although it is short notice for such a departure, I am going to accept this offer so that I can make use of this time to reflect and then to explore other opportunities,” she said.

While The Brearley School seems to have handled this separation according to independent school standards, the abruptness of Dr. Hulls departure (particularly since she was there for 8 years) and announcing the separation right before the July 4th weekend, has led to speculation in certain circles. The New York Times published not 1, not 2, but 3 stories on this separation, with the 3rd co-written by Jenny Anderson Winnie Hu; reporting contributed by Michael Barbaro, Elizabeth A. Harris, Tamar Lewin, Sarah Maslin Nir Anna M. Phillips; and research contributed by Kitty Bennett. Yes, 8 people worked on that last article, but we digress.

Given the prevalence of confidentiality agreements, and as the case with any separation, only the parties involved (and their lawyers) know the actual details. The Brearley School and Dr. Hull seem to have followed the standard model handling this difficult situation.