In a way, Mohawk Trail Regional School hopes to live up to its name.
The school is planning to blaze a new teaching trail that will lead to its education being more valuable and relevant in the modern world.
That’s certainly a laudable goal. Better still, state education leaders apparently have enough faith in Mohawk’s promise that they have awarded two grants to support the effort to redesign student experience and graduation requirements to better prepare students for life after high school. One grant was for about $15,000, and more recently, Mohawk received a $150,000 Mass. IDEAS planning grant. This is quite a coup. Just four other schools in the state got these Mass. IDEAS grants.
The re-imagining process is to involve groups of interested students, teachers, residents and parents to consider new Mohawk graduation requirements, which will become part of a longer process to fully develop those ideas and to re-imagine the Mohawk “school experience.” That re-imagining is to develop a comprehensive plan that includes revised academic programming, professional development and new opportunities for internships and innovative coursework.
“The Mass IDEAS planning grant is a spectacular opportunity for our school community to re-invent Mohawk into a boldly innovative learning environment that enables our students to create pathways to their most exciting hopes and dreams,” Mohawk Superintendent Michael A. Buoniconti told the Recorder.
Co-Principal Marisa Mendonsa noted the grant “provides us with a platform to engage our school community in the design of innovative programming and curriculum that meets the growing needs of our rural community.”
Mendonsa said the funding will allow the school not only to provide the necessary academic and social skills students need in grades 7 through 12, but also to create unique learning experiences students will carry throughout life. Mohawk hopes to add more choice and variety of courses and to add internships as pathways to graduation.
The redesign idea is “rooted in the reality that one school path doesn’t work for every student,” Mohawk art teacher Rachel Silverman explained. “We are creating a model that allows each learner to customize their trail through high school.”
You would think that would be the goal of any secondary school, but often, as with so many endeavors, we can get caught up the status quo. So, this grant really is a great opportunity for the school’s stakeholders to look beyond the day-to-day.
Further good news is that these IDEA grants can lead to additional state funding of up to $375,000 to implement the innovations.
If Mohawk can indeed pull that off, the advantages will benefit not only the students of western Franklin County, but also perhaps others around the county – assuming educators elsewhere study the outcome in Buckland and steal the good ideas that work.
One way or another, this all seems like good news for the future of public high school learning in Franklin County, and the Mohawk leadership should be lauded for seeking out the grants and being competent enough to win them.