newsminer.com

Lathrop High School is developing plans for a radical change in the day-to-day operation of the community’s oldest high school.

The proposal is to create four new “academies” within the school, with about one-quarter of the staff assigned to each academy, starting with the next school year.

Principal Karen Gaborik said the proposal is aimed at changing the school so teachers would be in a better position to work with students individually throughout their high school years.

She said the proposal keeps with research that shows reconstituting high schools as smaller “learning communities” can help students who otherwise get lost in the crowd.

The four proposed academies are engineering and technical careers; natural and social sciences; business and information technology; fine arts and communication.

Students entering the ninth grade would be asked to make a choice or take part in a lottery if all of the slots in a given category are filled. Students would continue to take the basic school district courses and be able to enroll in courses outside of a particular academy.

Teachers would choose academies through a similar process.

The students could change academies at the end of the freshman and sophomore year. Each academy would offer electives, with a preference given to students within that academy.

The first thing the school should do is send a detailed letter to parents explaining why the plan has been put forward and asking for comments and questions.

There will be plenty of both.

Lathrop is hosting an information session at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 9 on the issue at the school library.

Getting parents more involved — starting in elementary school — is important if students entering high school are going to be asked to make an important choice about their academic and career goals.

•••

FIRE VICTIMS: The house fire in a Tanana duplex Friday destroyed the belongings of former Fairbanks teachers Aaron and Ginger Marks and their children Leah and Lucas.

Aaron’s sister, Stephanie Weter, and her family were in the other apartment, in which the contents suffered heat and smoke damage. Aaron taught for the past few years at Two Rivers Elementary, and Ginger taught at Badger Road Elementary. Aaron, Ginger and Stephanie are University of Alaska Fairbanks graduates.

An account has been set up in the names of Aaron and Ginger at Denali State Bank for anyone interested in helping the two families recover.

•••

BEGICH VISIT: Sen.-elect Mark Begich will be in Fairbanks on Wednesday for a reception to thank volunteers and supporters. The event is from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Big Daddy’s BBQ.

•••

ESTLE-NILIS: John Estle pays attention to details and never makes mistakes, so I’m not sure how this happened. But with the record turnout at the Turkey Day Relays on Thursday, some errors clouded the results.

The “Still Got the Mojo” team of Bob Baker, Dave Edic and Roger Sayre had the word “NOT!” inserted at the end of its name.

And there was a problem with the designation of the relay team I joined, “Signis Senilis Sentinae,” a combination that might mean something about old and slow or it might mean nothing at all. The other SSS members were Dan Johnson and Bob Wilkinson.

For some reason, the official results prepared by Estle gave the name as “Segnis Cialis Sentinae.” For those of you who don’t follow drug ads, Cialis is a male medication.

“Based upon my two years of high school Latin, I had thought I was correcting an erroneous translation,” said the senilis one.

If you have a column suggestion or comment, contact me at cole@newsminer.com or 459-7530.