CAMAS — The new Discovery High School is still a work in progress.
That’s partly because the first-year building is still having some work done and waiting on deliveries, and partly because the 116 ninth-graders who arrived Tuesday are the school’s first tenants.
As Principal Aaron Smith showed a group around the school Tuesday morning, he introduced them to the main entrance of the school. That’s where the office is, as well as the learning stairs, an area where students can sit for large meetings, eat, study or work in smaller groups. The entrance area also has tables where students can eat or work in smaller groups, and some seating areas are built into the building.
“Right now, we’re calling it the hub,” Smith told the students. “As you develop the culture of the school, if you start calling it something else, then maybe that will become its name.”
That’s the vibe of the new project-based-learning high school: The building is set up for collaboration and to allow students to figure out how to best use it.
“We wanted to engage you in a new way of learning,” Smith told students at the start of the day.
Discovery is Camas’ second project-based-learning school, joining Odyssey Middle School, which is right next door in the former Sharp Laboratories of America building. The district purchased the 55,000-square-foot lab building, at 5750 N.W. Pacific Rim Blvd., and surrounding 31.57 acres from Sharp for $12.5 million in 2016.
The money for the purchase came from a $120 million bond voters passed in February 2016.
The bond called for the district to create a project-based-learning high school. Once the district owned the Sharp property, district officials realized they could open a project-based-learning middle school in the ready-made building while waiting for construction on the new high school.
Odyssey started its third school year Tuesday.
“This has been a journey for all of us,” Superintendent Jeff Snell said.
About half of the ninth-graders at Discovery came from the middle school program, which has a waiting list to get in. Discovery is Camas’ third high school option, joining the traditional Camas High School and Hayes Freedom High School, an alternative for students looking for a smaller-school environment and a nontraditional schedule.
The ninth-graders at Discovery will be the first graduating class of the school.
“You are truly pioneers,” Smith said. “I’m already proud of you for being here.”
The goal for Discovery is to provide students with “21st-century success skills,” such as collaboration, communication and problem solving, Smith said. The students will still have teachers for their various school subjects, but will break off into smaller groups to work on projects that regularly encompass material from multiple subjects.
“We want everyone to connect as a small learning community,” Smith said. “We want kids to discover themselves as learners and collaborators. That means failure and learning from that failure.”
They’ll also work on passion projects. Students will propose the project to their teacher, including why they’re interested in the subject, how they’re going to work on it and how they’re going to show they’re learning.
The new school is broken into wings for ninth- and 10th-graders and 11th- and 12th-graders, though the wing for 11th- and 12th-graders is still under construction and won’t be open this year.
Each wing will have traditional classrooms, as well research and development rooms up to 3,000 square feet. There will be two smaller rooms in each wing designed for groups of four to six.
Each wing will also have a covered outdoor work space, and the school is filled with white boards and blackboards so students can work together throughout the building.
The students will start their day with some sort of fitness, which can range from self-defense to cardio and strength activities to Pilates, dance or yoga. To give students more options, core teachers are also going to offer electives, so students have the option for taking classes such as music or Spanish.
On Tuesday, school staffers were telling students that they have a rare opportunity to not only be the first students in a new school, but to watch that school come together in real time.
“You get the chance to see change and improvements every day and every hour,” Smith said.
Bruce Whitefield is a career technical education teacher at the school, and will run Discovery’s lab once it’s open. Right now, the tools still aren’t in the lab.
“This is a unique opportunity,” he told students on Tuesday. “You’ll get to not only learn how the machinery works, but you’ll get to learn how it’s installed.”
