To prevent high school students who struggle educationally from falling through the cracks, Prairie South School Division is starting a new school that lets students complete work at their own pace.
Pathways School will be fully operational starting this September. It will be a storefront school for students in grades 10 to 12 who cannot achieve success in a traditional school setting. A storefront school is a non-traditional learning environment that uses space in a building typically meant for retail.
Prairie South’s new learning space will be located at 109 Ominica Street West, adjacent to the Sherwin-Williams paint store.
This new learning centre came about after administrators from the three high schools spoke to the board earlier this year to say they were seeing some students fail to succeed in the traditional learning environment, explained Derrick Huschi, superintendent of school operations.
“We want all our students to do well and we understand that students learn in different ways, so … we just thought it would be a good idea to create a totally different environment that doesn’t work within the semesterized system — and created our Pathways School,” he said.
High schools can generally accommodate youths who somewhat fall behind in their work, but administrators were noticing that they were losing students who were frustrated and refusing to attend, Huschi continued. Therefore, this new program targets youths who should be in school but are not.
Division administration expects to see 30 to 40 students attend Pathways School this fall.
According to PSSD, the new school is designed to help students succeed by focusing on their strengths, interests and goals and creating more flexibility and freedom in their learning sphere. One-on-one and small-group learning will replace the typical classroom structure, while partnerships with community businesses and organizations will help students build success through a sense of belonging.
Students who attend this program will also learn at a pace that works for them while they will focus on employability and attaining outcomes for courses toward graduation.
Teachers will hold students accountable for completing their work while they will still follow the Saskatchewan curriculum for that grade, said Huschi. However, the new program gives youths more time to finish that material versus having to complete it during a specific semester.
“We’re trying to meet students where they are. Students come in with varying strengths and needs, and instead of being restricted to the confinements of the way a typical school runs,” he added, “we’re going to achieve the outcomes slightly different.”
