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FeedThe first Metro class
Reggie Bates knows that Mandarin is not the easiest language to learn.
So imagine his surprise when he overheard his 19-year-old daughter, Regina, speaking it to a young Chinese friend when he picked up the pair from school one day. “To see that was tremendous for me,” says Bates, a football and softball coach with Columbus City Schools.
It shouldn’t have been too shocking to Dad, considering that as part of his daughter’s education at Metro Early College High School she recently had returned from studying the language in China. She’s also interned with the Defense Supply Center of Columbus (where she’s since been offered a part-time job), presented data to Sen. Sherrod Brown and even done a soil study for the Franklin Park Conservatory. And, like the rest of her peers at Metro, Regina has been taking college-level courses taught by Ohio State University professors in her own classrooms.
It’s all been part of an experimental collaboration between OSU, Battelle and the Educational Council—a consortium of Franklin County’s 16 school districts—to showcase the benefits of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Now a graduating senior, Regina, one of the 72 students in Metro’s inaugural 2006-’07 class, is looking ahead to college (she received a full ride to OSU). And she’s not alone. Of those original 72, all are graduating, and all will be attending college, many receiving—or looking to receive—similar scholarships as Regina.
One of the framers of the hands-on, project-intensive Metro model is Rich Rosen, corporate vice president of education and philanthropy partnerships for Battelle. “One way you know you’re reaching students is when, ‘Why do I need to know this?’ is replaced by, ‘Oh, that’s why,’ ” says Rosen, who describes the school as a “research and demonstration laboratory.” It seems a fitting label for the program, not only for the students, but also for the Battelle and OSU researchers keeping a close watch on the students’ progress.
It’s progress that principal Marcy Raymond has had a front row seat to these past four school years. She cites having her students work with an “authentic” audience—giving them real-world applications for their studies (just look at Regina’s already-impressive résumé)—as being one of the cornerstones of the Metro model. “In an authentic environment, their resiliency will be able to solve the problem,” Raymond says. “There’s not a barrier to stop them. These students are the most prepared students I’ve ever had the privilege to work with.”
Part of that preparation includes requiring the pupils to fulfill an internship, the likes of which varied greatly for Regina’s class—from spending time at an alpaca farm to working with the Franklin County Coroner’s Office. Of his daughter, Bates notes, “She used to be real shy before she got to Metro. Now she’s giving presentations to military suppliers. . . . They should have had a school like this a long time ago.”
