St. Paul school looks to biology for new life

Ask St. Paul Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen about the future of high schools and she'll point to St. Paul Arlington, a struggling school recasting itself as a bioscience academy.

Thanks in part to a three-year, $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Arlington's Bio-SMART program seeks to create new pathways to health and science careers. And, if Carstarphen has her way, it's the first step to eventually recasting all the city's high schools with career-oriented themes.

"This is a total redesign of a school," Carstarphen said. "We're completely restructuring the curriculum at Arlington."

The idea is to create schools that become destinations because of their program focus, not just their geography or football team. Arlington, St. Paul's newest high school but struggling with the district's highest concentration of poverty and lowest test scores, will become the place for students drawn to careers in biohealth, bioengineering and technology and bio-business.

"As enrollment declines, we would like to see a system where schools don't have to compete for the same kids," said Patty Murphy, Arlington's principal. "Schools will become more specialized. This is going to open doors to careers that our kids might not otherwise be able to access."

Arlington as a science and technology school makes sense. Built in 1996, it has extensive science and technology facilities and equipment already. Grant money will enable the school to expand its curriculum and course offerings. It is also working with St. Paul College, Century College, the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, the U's School of Public Health, the nursing program and a new health care business program at the College of St. Catherine, and myriad businesses, hospitals and health care providers, Murphy said.

Arlington will not only use curriculum developed by the National Consortium on Health Sciences and Technology Education, its partnerships will enable students to gain access to internships, job shadowing and even college credit in health and business careers.

"The idea is to expose kids while they're young to what real careers look like and feel like," said Murphy, whose bachelor's and master's degrees are in health-related fields. "I think it's never too early for parents or schools to work together to allow students to see and explore opportunities."

Nearby Washington Technology Middle School is also part of the redesign, and hundreds of Washington's students will begin exploring bioscience as well. But Arlington is devoting itself to this new focus. Every student entering the school as a ninth-grader will choose one of the three bioscience pathways.

"We have the ethical responsibility to guide students to fields where there are going to be jobs," Murphy said.

Time for change

Arlington's new direction has much to do with timing. The school has moved into the corrective action phase under the federal No Child Left Behind law for falling short of test score targets. Another bad year and the school could be forced to begin planning to restructure. On statewide tests given last spring, just over 10 percent of Arlington's students scored at grade level or better in math. And just 24 percent were proficient in reading. At the same time, more than 95 percent of Arlington's students come from minority groups, 90 percent live in poverty and 60 percent still are learning English -- all groups that struggle on statewide tests.

Murphy said staff members at Arlington are embracing the new direction. She started the work last year, even before the grant was awarded, hiring more math and science and business teachers. In many classes, teachers will work in pairs. An English language teacher will work with a math teacher to beef up the curriculum for students still learning the language. In other classes, two math teachers will work together, or a physics teacher will team with a technology teacher.

The school already has spent $180,000 on technology, including GPS programs, a robotics program and about a dozen "smart boards" that allow students and teachers to interact on problems. Arlington students will be able to look at and analyze DNA.

"We're excited and we hope it makes some real change," said Karen Casper, lead teacher for the school's biohealth science pathway. And the school continues to attract partners, eager for the potential infusion of bioscience workers.

"We have almost more interest than we can handle," Casper said.

Those partnerships will allow Arlington students to get a head start on everything from two-year certificate programs in nursing and pharmacy technology to advanced degrees in medicine and microbiology.

Students, too, are excited.

Alnansa Anderson and Aprill Moua, both 15 and in 10th grade, say they are eager to explore the career possibilities. Both said they are interested in the bio-business and marketing pathway. Moua participates in a program at the Carlson School of Management.

"Before, everything was so broad when you looked at a school," Anderson said. "You didn't have something that you could really look at. Now, it's kind of like college."

Moua added that this new focus should attract students from all over the city -- and from many different backgrounds. The school is the only one in St. Paul without a neighborhood attendance area and is often used to reassign students who couldn't get into other high schools.

"I think Arlington will be really attractive to kids who want to look at science or health careers," she said. "Our name is Arlington Bio-SMART. Kids will say 'I want to know more.'"

James Walsh • 651-298-1541

James Walsh • jwalsh@startribune.com