New Haven County magnet to start in 6th grade

New Haven organizers are seeking $60 million in state funding to establish a public school that would teach science, math and technology to students beginning in sixth grade.

The magnet school would be the first in the state to fuse a middle school and high school focused on technical skills.

The University of New Haven proposed the school for West Haven, abandoning an earlier plan to create a magnet school supporting its renowned crime-investigation school. University President Steven Kaplan hopes the school will open in the fall of 2008, and is aiming for a total enrollment of more than 600 by 2015.

“It has been clear to me for a long time that there will be an enormous shortage of engineers,” Kaplan said. “Everywhere we have gone, everyone we have spoken to has supported the idea.”

The school is seeking a U.S. Department of Education grant to support short-term costs while it lobbies for state funding, Kaplan said. The Academy of Information Technology & Engineering (AITE), the lone magnet high school in Stamford, received such a grant in 2004 for $1.9 million.

Magnet schools trace their historical lineage to 19^th-century industrial-trade schools for young men, but the modern magnet school was initially seen as a way to accelerate learning opportunities for inner-city youth.

More recently, policymakers regard such schools as a way to immerse pupils from all backgrounds in science, mathematics and technology subjects, topics deemed critical by American industry and in which U.S. students have lagged behind those in other countries.

Between 2001 and 2004, Connecticut doubled the number of magnet schools statewide to 34, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Education. Those schools enrolled 2.3 percent of all students in the state at last count.

South Carolina was the only state to report a more rapid mushrooming of magnet schools during that period, increasing their count from 25 to 60, with 6.5 percent of its students enrolled in the 2004-2005 school year. Of states reporting figures, Virginia had the highest percentage of students enrolled in magnet schools at 12.7 percent, followed by Illinois at 12.1 percent and California at 9.4 percent.

AITE opened its doors in 2000, accepting students from Stamford, Greenwich and Norwalk, but also from the wealthy towns of Darien, New Canaan and Ridgefield. The school systems of the latter three towns all rank in the top 20 in the state based on test scores.

Unlike the planned West Haven magnet school, AITE does not offer classes for middle-school students.

 

The school is preparing to open a new campus this fall, whose design has already won an award for Elmsford, N.Y., architect Fuller & D”™Angelo P.C.

AITE offers mentor programs led by architects and engineers, and the company focuses on hands-on learning. For instance, AITE students are mapping Norwalk harbor using global positioning satellite data and other tools, and students in University of New Haven graduate Sara White”™s class have been conducting a mock crime-scene investigation this spring.

AITE”™s curriculum also includes business courses, including finance, accounting, Internet marketing and information technology projects. Female students are taking a field trip this week to Pitney Bowes Inc.”™s development center in Shelton.