Gunnison High School set to take on Valley School students

Outward Bound experiential learning program proposed

When the Gunnison RE1J school board approved a plan last year to integrate the alternative Gunnison Valley School (GVS) with the traditional high school—Gunnison High School—the success of the decision rested largely with GHS principal Andy Hanks. And while it is still too early to call the merger of the two schools a success, with the school year still a couple of weeks away, Hanks went to the school board Monday, August 15 with some good news.

He said of all the families he’s spoken with who had been involved with the GVS program (and he’d spoken to most), not one student is leaving because the school lost its space, and nearly all will be headed to the high school this fall. Retaining the students was a large part of the core mission of the move, but retaining so much of GVS’s programming has been icing on the cake.
Creating the Gunnison Valley School, where a standards-based curriculum was taught in a communal way, was a risky move for the district, which had to find a way to show that GVS students would be able to perform at the same standard of proficiency as students at the high school.
After giving the school that taste of freedom to operate largely by its own rules, recombining the two schools might have been even riskier and the decision to close GVS’s doors didn’t come easily. Many of the GVS students, parents and administrators fought hard to keep their own building, which had just been built, and the autonomy that allowed the students to learn away from the traditional classroom environment.
But the early signs of success are already showing in the high school, where Hanks and his staff have worked hard to keep the curriculum and routine familiar for students moving in from the Valley School.
“As far as that goes, we’ve done the best we could to make sure that alternative track stays as consistent as possible,” Hanks said. “We have done that and at the same time my vision for alternative education in the valley has really taken an Outward Bound experiential learning track that will jump off from the outdoor education that Leo Malloy has done for a number of years.” Those programs could be open to any student in the district. Outward Bound is a program that exposes kids to wilderness and the lessons it can teach.
It might take a few years for the high school to figure out how to handle that part of its curriculum, but the current staff will be able to handle the extra load, Hanks said. The other aspect of the transition is the GVS building that Hanks sees as making a perfect gear cache to support the high school’s new enterprise. He’s also spoken with Western State College about opportunities such  as renting equipment from its outdoor program.
One GVS staff member, Suzan Powers, will stay in the Valley School building this year, while former GVS headmaster Neil Coen takes a position teaching high school history. Former GVS teacher and advocate David White will teach a half-day of English classes for the ninth grade. Another GVS instructor will go to the high school to teach physical education.
Powers will also teach two interdisciplinary classes for the first part of the day using the Reinventing Schools Coalition (RISC) standards-based model that had been implemented at GVS. Soo Bahk Do will be available at GVS to students who need a little personal development.
Hanks said the only positions he had trouble filling for a more complete alternative education experience were in math and science.
But the district is still looking for ways to find students who are suited to the alternative track, and then enrolling them in the high school’s parallel program while maintaining the standard class structure for kids who need it. “We don’t want to let any kids slip through,” Hanks said.
Hanks added, “Another challenge we’re still working on is, how does earning credit in the RISC model equate to earning As, Bs and Cs in the traditional setting?”
With more opportunities for learning in different areas, and the changing nature of education in the United States, Hanks urged the school board to come up with a process for early graduation, instead of reacting to a student’s request to finish high school early.
But that would be for a later consideration by the board. The comments they had about the program were all positive.
Board member Jim Perkins said, “It’s safe to say that Gunnison High School is a very changed place in a lot of ways.”