A new partnership between local colleges and high schools in Rockingham County will open this fall. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
Last week, the Virginia Board of Education approved plans for James Madison University's Lab School for Innovation and Career Exploration. It's slated to open in the fall of 2024, with spots for 50 students from East Rockingham and Broadway High Schools. By its fifth year, it's expected to expand to 600 students between all four public high schools in the county.
BRYAN ZUGELDER: High school will be offered in a different way. … The content will be addressed all together, with the teachers … of those content areas working together as a collaborative team.
Bryan Zugelder is JMU's associate dean for academic affairs & partnerships. Ninth and 10th graders will start this program at their respective high schools, with juniors and seniors attending morning sessions at JMU and Blue Ridge Community College.
ZUGELDER: Together, what they'll be doing is solving some kind of community problem that they've identified as being important. One might be clean water. Another might be health and wellness. … Members of industry … will also be in the classroom working with the teachers and the students to help them, as kind of like the content expert in these community issues, where they will create some kind of hands-on project to solve the community issue while also learning what they're supposed to learn as high school students in English and science and social studies, things like that.
Areas of focus are likely to include education and health professions, social services, public administration, and aviation maintenance. JMU's next step will be to hire an executive director for the school.
Full disclosure: WMRA's operating license is held by JMU's board of visitors, but we cover JMU the same as we do all of our other stories.
