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Older suburban schools upgrade, add
new programs
Outlying districts strive to keep up with growth
By Janet Vandenabeele / The Detroit News / August 23,
2002
While growth in the western and northern suburbs of Oakland
County lures families looking for room to expand, the older
suburbs must compete to bring in new students and keep old
ones. All of these factors combine this year to bring new
buildings -- and new programs -- to keep the county's schools
competitive.
New schools are opening in a number of communities, from a
plush high school in Commerce Township to new elementaries in
several communities. But while growth sends children further
outward, older suburbs add new programs, including a
career-based program in Royal Oak that seeks to undercut the
nation's critical teacher shortage.
Add to those changes many new faces -- including new
superintendents in Bloomfield Hills and West Bloomfield, and a
host of new principals taking over for retiring leaders. Here
are just some of the new faces, places and ideas sprouting
around the county as schools open this fall:
Walled Lake
The new Walled Lake Northern High School might seem palatial,
but school administrators and architects worked hard to make a
350,000-square-foot building feel much smaller and much
friendlier.
The school, which cost $69.2 million to build, sits on what
was two years ago a corn field in Commerce Township. Its
design improves on many features of the modern, Internet-era
high school.
"We're building a school not for the next four years, but for
a good, long time. We can only anticipate what we might need
in the future," Principal Janelle McGuire said.
What sets Northern apart from other new high schools is its
almost obsessive flexibility. Most of the furniture is
moveable so spaces can be used for different purposes,
Superintendent James Geisler said.
The high school features 12 science labs, more than 500
computers linked through a wireless network, a
10,000-square-foot media center and 85 "teaching stations," or
classroom spaces. Later this year, a 1,000-seat auditorium, a
pool, a music, art and technology wing and two gyms will be
finished and ready for use by students and the community.
Instead of long hallways, classrooms are clustered on two
floors into six wings, affectionately called "pods" and given
their own color designation.
Even the entryway to the school is unlike any others, with a
huge, two-story commons area that features an information
desk, where a receptionist can greet and watch over students
and visitors.
South Lyon
South Lyon has two new, but not-so-new, middle schools this
fall: Millennium Middle School, a new name for South Lyon
Middle School; and Centennial, a new middle school in an old
building.
"It's the first time we've had two middle schools," said
assistant Superintendent Marilyn Mitchell. Because the
westward drift of families isn't likely to stop anytime soon,
the district also plans to build a new high school to open by
2007.
The new middle school will help alleviate crowding at
Millennium, which as South Lyon Middle School "was one of the
largest middle schools in the state. They were bursting," said
Dave Phillips, new principal at Centennial.
The school, on West Nine Mile Road, was built in 1976 and
served first as a middle school, then an elementary school. It
has been gutted and the insides replaced with modern fittings
and made technology friendly.
"They essentially gutted everything but the four walls and
have made a fabulous new school," said Phillips, who last year
helped oversee the opening of Kent Lake Elementary School as
its principal.
Along with the changes for the middle school buildings comes a
new program, called the Intervention Module, which will allow
teachers and administrators to target students who are falling
behind or failing and help them get caught up.
Bloomfield Hills
After a yearlong public search to replace retiring
Superintendent Gary Doyle that drew candidates from all over
the state, Bloomfield Hills looked over its shoulder and
brought in a new leader who was virtually a neighbor.
Royal Oak Superintendent Steve Gaynor will leave his post and
start at the helm of one of the state's premier districts Oct.
1, to allow for transitions in both districts.
"It's very hard to leave Royal Oak. I've really come to love
the place," Gaynor said.
Gaynor oversaw the successful transition of Royal Oak from an
aging district losing students to a poster child for Schools
of Choice -- luring in enough new students from outside its
borders to avoid budget cuts that meant cutting classroom
programs and offerings.
But with all the changes made in Royal Oak, Gaynor is not
planning any wholesale remakes right off the bat in
Bloomfield.
"I'm just going to do a lot of listening to start off and see
what we can bring people together to accomplish," he said.
Oakland Schools Tech Center, Royal Oak
At its four technical and vocational centers in Wixom,
Pontiac, Clarkston and Royal Oak, Oakland Schools oversees a
myriad of programs to prepare high-schoolers for real jobs in
the real world.
That includes engineers, graphic designers, chefs and
florists. But Karen Winters, director of career-focused
education for Oakland Schools, noticed there was something
missing from that mix: a way to prepare students to go into
teaching.
"We started looking at work force needs and supply and demand
for the future for our own work force," Winters said. "We
looked at the fact that we're going to have a lot of teachers
retiring and thought we should look at recruiting for our own
business."
So the Teacher Cadet program, to be located at the Southeast
tech center in Royal Oak, was born. The Michigan program is
administered by Saginaw Valley State University, which runs
similar programs in the Saginaw area.
Students will learn how schools in Michigan function, from how
students learn to what a school board does. The second
semester will involve an internship, sort of a "mini-student
teaching" assignment.
"This is a way to give them an actual look into what a teacher
does," she said.
The program is offered to juniors and seniors in Oakland
County schools with a 3.0 grade point average or higher.
Students with a slightly lower GPA can apply if they are
highly motivated, Winters said. For information, call Andrew
Chew, counselor at the Southeast tech center, at (248)
280-0600.
West Bloomfield
West Bloomfield Schools also have a new leader, though he is a
familiar face to district long-timers: Interim Superintendent
Gary Faber is staying on as successor to the much-beloved
Seymour Gretchko, who died unexpectedly in March.
Faber has been with the district for almost 20 years, the same
time span that Gretchko spent leading it. He knows he has a
very big chair to fill.
"He was a brilliant and competent administrator of
unparalleled skill," Faber said.
Faber will help keep the district, with about 6,600 students,
focused on several areas, including improving communications
with the community, ensuring that student success is measured
by more than just test scores, and recognizing the district's
ethnic and racial diversity as an important resource for
learning.
"Our first and foremost (focus) is always children first.
We're impressing upon the students and our community that we
teach children, not classes," he said.
You can reach Janet Vandenabeele at (248) 647-7225 or
jnaylor@detnews.com.
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