GRAND FORKS – The Career Impact Academy will come online in Grand Forks Public Schools next year with 10 new courses in subjects ranging from precision agriculture to aviation.
Eric Ripley, executive director of career education and technology, presented the more than two dozen new, existing and expanded curricular offerings for the new career and technical education facility before the Grand Forks and Grand Forks Air Force Base school boards on Monday.
“What you have before you tonight is a very important and symbolic milestone for this program,” Ripley said.
When it opens in the fall, the campus is set to offer all-new courses in fields like culinary arts and sports medicine across nine program areas, including automotive technology, aerospace, building trades and health sciences.
It will also offer many programs previously hosted at Grand Forks Central and Red River high schools with expanded coursework for many of these disciplines, as well as hosting the school district’s work-based learning program.
Courses at the Career Impact Academy will be taught in three 100-minute blocks, as opposed to the seven-period schedule used at the high schools, due to the time needed to travel to and from the Gateway Drive campus.
It also means courses at the Career Impact Academy will not be available to freshmen, since they have more required courses and regimented schedules and “two-hour block courses don’t often fit into a ninth-grader’s schedule,” Ripley said.
Instead, freshmen will be able to take several introductory courses at Red River or Grand Forks Central in preparation for higher-level courses their sophomore, junior and senior years.
Students in neighboring districts, like Larimore, will also be able to take classes at the new campus. Ripley said a survey of that school district found 50 of 80 high school students were interested in taking a course at the Career Impact Academy.
Career and technical education consulted with many industry partners in selecting the course offerings, Ripley said.
Some proposed courses, like welding, were left on the cutting room floor due to space or cost restraints.
The new campus will be staffed by a mix of existing employees and new hires. Ripley expects to begin hiring new staff in March, after students sign up for their fall classes.
Many of the new hires will be recruited directly out of the fields the new courses are focused on and will receive provisional teaching certificates while they complete graduate coursework to become fully certified as educators.
Existing staff are expected to mentor these new hires in their first year as educators.
Other new curricular offerings for next year include an advanced, audition-only orchestra ensemble for sophomores, juniors and seniors, as well as a leadership class that places general education students and students with disabilities in the same classroom.
The district is also piloting a Spanish-language course for native speakers to accommodate the district’s rapidly-expanding multilingual population.
Monday served as the annual joint meeting of the air base and city school districts. Though the air base’s sole school, Nathan Twining Elementary and Middle School, effectively serves as a component part of the Grand Forks School District, the base has its own appointed, rather than elected, school board.
Air Force Col. Reynaldo Champion of the 319th Reconnaissance Wing delivered the State of the Base update to board members Monday.
Champion is commander of the 319th’s mission support group; he took over for Col. David Castor in July after the latter retired.
Champion reported B1-B bombers are expected to begin arriving at the base next month, after originally being scheduled for November, and recapped several recent developments, including the $246 million in facilities upgrades for which the base has been selected under the Air Force’s Disaster Resiliency Program.
Board members also reviewed
school district test score averages
as well as demographic data, like the number of students receiving free and reduced-price meals and the share with individualized education plans.
Multilingual Program Coordinator Ivona Todorovic also discussed the substantial
rise in multilingual students in the district
over the last year as well as recapping some of the program’s history.
In other news,
- Jacqueline Sevigny, head custodian at Lewis and Clark Elementary, was honored as the classified employee of the first quarter, while Emily Dawes, a first-grade teacher at Kelly Elementary, was honored as the certified employee of the quarter.
Joshua Irvine covers K-12 and higher education as well as the Grand Forks County Commission for the Grand Forks Herald. He can be reached at jirvine@gfherald.com.