This year, Community Learning Fridays are a new addition to McKinley-ALC thanks to Principal William (Bill) Sininger. His implementation of Community Learning Fridays gives students the opportunity to learn and use skills not typically found in the classroom while engaging with community partners. So far, Sininger considers the program a success, and both students and teachers have discovered some new passions along the way.
The idea of Community Learning originated with McKinley staff. Last year, staff broke into groups to focus on what was needed at McKinley, and one of the beliefs that came out of the session is that McKinley students needed to be more engaged with the community they live in.
“Staff came up with a schedule and we discussed what we needed,” says Sininger. “I then met with community people to see what opportunities there would be. This year, we had an amazing job fair and EPIC (Exploring Potential Interests and Careers) event. We have partnered with the Boys and Girls Club, ILT Academy, Career Solutions, the Paramount and many other organizations.”
The community is excited to be involved. Paramount Center for the Arts, Boys and Girls Club and a local mosque host students every Friday. Students do art projects at the Paramount or service projects with the Boys and Girls Club or mosque. In addition, McKinley held a job fair onsite where students could engage with local employers.
“The job fair was amazing! Students got their first look at a job fair and what it looks like to interact with employers in that setting,” shares Sininger.
In addition to the regularly scheduled community organization events, every Friday teachers provide an exploratory session that gives them the opportunity to choose topics they personally love to share with students. Some of the recent offerings were sewing, cooking, music production, CPR instruction, building model cars and planes as well as learning to travel on a budget.
Destiny Smith, a senior, enjoys sewing. “I like them [Community Fridays]” she says. “They give us new opportunities, new experiences. It’s unique.”
Senior Krow Olson also took the sewing session.
“My mother makes handbags and, when I was younger, I always helped her with sewing,” explains Olson. “So, I picked sewing to get back into it a little bit.”
Richard Townsell, also a senior, is doing the Community Learning Fridays for the first time. He chose cooking because he’d like to improve his skills.
“I burnt a couple of burgers one time,” laughs Townsell.
Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad were on a recent menu, and Townsell was put in charge of the garlic bread while other students cooked noodles, chopped ingredients for salad or made the sauce. He enjoys the cooking class but is anxious to try his next Friday session of building car models.
Noah Ibrahim busies himself with his model plane.
“I really enjoy it because exploratory Fridays are things I’ve never done before in school,” shares Ibrahim. “I’ve done business reports and gaming … and next week I have art. Me, personally, [this] is a way to find out what you’re good at – what you can do better. You use different strategies at how to get better at things.”
Junior Jamilet Anaya-Martinez is researching how to travel to Japan on a budget. She finds her exploratory session very useful because she hopes to travel to Japan in three years.
“I’m learning to plan a budget and see how much everything costs,” says Martinez. “[I’m] learning to look at different dates and airlines to see what is the cheapest.”
In doing her research, Martinez has also learned how much money she needs to save up for her trip.
There have been many successes in exploratory Fridays thus far. One of them is building relationships between students and staff.
“Our Teacher Exploratory has been amazing. Our staff have great talents outside their field that they can share with students,” says Sininger. “This has allowed students to see them in a different way and given staff a chance to share something they enjoy with students.”
Community Learning Fridays has helped students experience new things and find new passions that they otherwise may not find as part of the classroom curriculum. It has invigorated students and teachers to explore opportunities, all the while inspiring possible career paths for students post-graduation.
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