Posted on: Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Islands to get magnet school
By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Education Writer
Students usually see Bishop Museum with their parents or on field trips, spending a few hours with the Pacific's largest cultural and natural history collection. By next September, though, a select group of high school students will get to work alongside the museum's scientists.
Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser "It's not going to be just textbooks. It's going to be a chance for students to work with people who do this for a living," said Michael Shanahan, the museum's education director. "It's going to be a lively environment."
Magnet schools are usually built around themes, such as math, science or the performing arts, and attract students with specific interests or talents that might not be covered by traditional public or private schools.
The DOE, which has often been criticized as monolithic, views the new school at Bishop Museum as the first of many experiments that could give students and their parents more choices.
The magnet school concept is similar to public charter schools and Hawaiian immersion schools, alternatives that recognize that some students learn differently or respond better outside traditional settings. But it is closer in practice to the academies — or schools-within-schools — that are gaining in popularity at high schools, such as the finance academy at McKinley High School.
"This is something that so many of us have dreamt about," said Katherine Kawaguchi, assistant superintendent at the DOE's Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Student Support, who approached Bishop Museum about the magnet school.
"We want to create a different kind of environment that is rigorous and authentic," Kawaguchi said.
When the magnet school opens on the second floor of Castle Hall in September 2005, it likely will be limited to 30 high school juniors. By the 2006-2007 school year, the DOE wants to expand the school to 60 juniors and seniors.
The Environmental and Cultural Studies Magnet School at Bishop Museum will be Hawai'i's first magnet school. Magnet schools usually are centered on themes and attract students from traditional public and private schools. The concept is similar to charter schools, Hawaiian immersion schools and school-within-school academies that give students and their parents more choices. But magnet schools have more tightly focused missions, often based on math, science or the performing arts. They also offer classes and other learning opportunities often not available at other schools. Focus groups are planned later this month and in early September with high school principals, teachers, parents and student leaders to work out some of the structural details and to discuss the school's curriculum.
DOE teachers will provide instruction, and students will be expected to meet the same academic standards as students in other public schools.
Darren Ibara, who will be a sophomore at Roosevelt High School, said a magnet school could help students interested in studying the environment or Pacific culture in college. The museum also hopes that students will become docents and that some will later pursue museum work.
"It would be good if you wanted to go into it as a career," said Ibara, the Honolulu representative to the Hawai'i State Student Council.
For guidance, educators and museum directors are looking at magnet schools on the Mainland, particularly the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley, Minn., which is known as the "Zoo School" because students study at the Minnesota Zoo.
The school has an environmental theme, but students take a variety of subjects and can still participate in sports and other activities at their home high schools. Students receive their diplomas from their home high schools, but the Zoo School also has a graduation ceremony.
Dan Bodette, the Zoo School's principal, said students like that the school, at 400 students, is smaller than a traditional high school and emphasizes project-based learning that gives students more independence.
"It's an opportunity for kids to take a risk and try something different," he said.
Kawaguchi said she wants students to eventually be able to graduate from Bishop Museum's magnet school so they can have a sense of belonging and identification with the school. She also said that one measure of success will be how many students the magnet school lures away from private schools.
Money for the school will come from a $500,000 federal grant through the DOE and a $400,000 federal grant through the museum.
Founded in 1889 by Charles Bishop in memory of his wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the great-granddaughter of King Kamehameha, the museum has 24 million objects and research initiatives on Pacific culture, biology, earth science and molecular biodiversity. The museum also is building a new $17 million science center scheduled to open at the same time as the magnet school.
William Y. Brown, the museum's president, said he can see students working with scientists in the museum's DNA lab or learning how historical documents and artifacts are preserved.
"Education is a key part of what we do," Brown said. "This will give some of the kids a chance to work with scientists who are leaders in their field."
Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.
In a unique partnership, the museum and the state Department of Education are creating Hawai'i's first magnet school, where students will study culture and the environment and have access to the museum's experts and archives.
Michael Shanahan, education director at Bishop Museum, stands on the second floor of Castle Hall at the Kalihi museum. A magnet school is scheduled to open at the museum in September 2005, with a focus on cultural and environmental studies.
Students will be selected based on their grades and their interest in the environment and the culture of Hawai'i and the Pacific. Students likely will have to complete much of their traditional course work as freshmen and sophomores before going to the magnet school.
MAGNET SCHOOL
