Akron followed the footsteps of Nashville's College and Career Academies. Here's a look inside

This is part 1 of a three-part series on a planned transformation of Akron's middle schools, based on a blueprint set by Metro Nashville Public Schools. Read part 2 here.

In the hustle between classes on a Monday morning in March, a student at John Overton High School in Nashville, Tennessee, stopped in the school's front entryway to talk to her principal. 

"What about a canned food drive, for those who lost homes?" she asked. 

A week prior, a tornado gashed their city, killing dozens of people, destroying homes and businesses and damaging several schools. 

Classes in Metro Nashville Public Schools were canceled for a week. This was their first day back.

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"I think we should find out what’s most needed," Principal Jill Pittman told her eager student in a distinct southern drawl. "And then I think we should do it."

That day, amid the heavy hearts walking her hallways, Pittman was comforter-in-chief. But she sees it as her job to say yes to her students as much as she can. 

It's how she gives her students as much agency over their school experience as possible.

Sometimes, they pitch her a class they want the school to offer. Other times, they bring her an issue they perceive as an injustice that should be righted.

"Kids are pretty free about expressing if they think something is not right," she said. 

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Those elements of voice and control are at the core of the high school's mission to engage students more in their learning, with the goal of it leading to a career path. 

Toward that end, Nashville launched College and Career Academies in its high schools nearly 15 years ago, and in the last five years, became the blueprint for Akron Public Schools' own transformation to the same model.

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The 2019-20 school year, although cut short by COVID-19, was the first full year in Akron of all high school students being part of an academy within their school. The district has seen early results at its pilot school, North High, which has a few more years under its belt. But Akron is likely years away from seeing the full impact of the academies in the community. 

Nashville is seeing it now, most evidently in a graduation rate that climbed 25 points — from 58% to 82.4% — in 15 years. The economic impact of that, according to a district presentation, is over $115 million per year in additional earning potential for those students. Akron's rate is already hovering around 80%, putting the district on a stronger footing to start with than Nashville did in 2005.

In March, ahead of the country shutting down due to COVID-19, several Akron school board members and dozens of administrators and teachers traveled to Nashville to see firsthand the differences the academies make. 

Pittman calls them a game-changer, the kind that would be catastrophic to lose. 

"I've been doing this work in public ed for 32 years and I’ve seen a lot of things come and go," Pittman said. "A lot. But this model works."

‘They are not anonymous here’

Heidy Cortez-Cuevas didn't know anything about web design — what it meant, what a job in that field would look like. 

At the time, her Nashville middle school wasn't doing much in the way of educating students about their future choices in the high school academies. That has changed, but many of last year's seniors had little to go on back when they were in middle school.

At the time, web design just sounded cool to Heidy. But as of her senior year, it seemed to be working out for her. 

“It's definitely become one of my favorite classes to go to," she said. 

That's partly because she has been with the same group of students and teachers in that pathway for four years, taking a class each year in web design, and taking her other core classes with many of the same students with the same interest. 

While she's open to changing her mind, the classes gave Heidy a career path: she wants to study computer science in college. 

"I want to see where that takes me," she said. 

The academies break a large school into smaller communities, like a school within a school. 

"This a big high school but they are not anonymous here," Pittman said. 

Like in Akron, each academy has an overarching field, like health care or information technology, and then several pathways within that academy, like Heidy's chosen path of web design. Several local businesses, including some of the top employers in Nashville, are partners with the academies, providing mentoring and internships and building talent pipelines to their companies.

The two-story school building, originally built in the 1950s, has been renovated over the years and outfitted to the needs of each academy, including a room turned into a medical clinic with beds, mannequins and basic equipment like blood pressure monitors.

Building students' social skills and emotional maturity is of top importance, even with visitors in the building. For a student panel, Pittman doesn't choose the strongest speakers, but rather the ones who need a gentle push outside their comfort zone. 

"Who knows what they're going to say?" Pittman said. "But that's ok."

Skills learned are transferable 

Teachers within the academies, even the ones who don't teach the vocational classes, are trained to tailor their lessons toward students' chosen pathways so learning is more relevant for students. 

In all of those traditional classes, the learning is based more on projects and solving problems than memorization, a key part of the high schools' transformation.

Students take one class each year in their academy, often working toward an industry credential that in some cases can lead them directly into an internship or a job.

Mason Arnold thought that would be the route he would go after a summer internship sparked him to choose an engineering pathway that would earn him a certification. 

But then his interests changed, and along with that came a plan to go to college. 

"I think I've settled on journalism," he said. 

That didn't mean his time spent learning about engineering was a waste, he noted. He would still come away from high school with an industry credential, and maybe knowing more about what he didn't want to do. 

"You can still learn skills you can take on to whatever career you want," he said. 

Students choose their pathway in the 10th grade, spending ninth grade in a freshman academy that gives them time to explore their options. 

Overton High, much like Akron’s North High, is a melting pot of American-born and immigrant students. About a third of Overton’s students are considered English language learners. 

The academies give those students access to a career path into a high-wage, high-demand job, the principal said. 

But Pittman isn't OK with any student settling against going to college if they want to go. 

Pittman pays teachers $2,000 extra to counsel students on their college essays. She brings in counselors from a local organization that helps build a college-going culture among immigrant students.

The school offers a track for advanced academics in addition to the career-focused classes, and Pittman said she believes every student should take — and be supported through — at least one class they think is too hard.

"We spin so many plates here because our kids require it," Pittman said. 

Budget flexibility is key

At one end of the library, a group of Overton teachers sat on stools in a semi-circle and discussed their students. 

One was struggling, a teacher noticed, and someone needed to call his parents to see if everything was OK at home. A counselor volunteered to make the call because of his relationship with that student. 

Another teacher brought up the issue of testing. The timing of the required state tests wasn't great. Could they be moved back a week, still within the state's required window?

If that's what needed to happen — sure, said the academy leader. 

A few jaws in the room dropped. 

In the audience watching this mock academy team meeting were dozens of Akron teachers, along with others from around the country who had come to learn about Nashville's academies. 

The level of independence that the team had to make decisions for their own students floored those in the crowd.

"When they had a need in their building, it seemed like they were really proactive in making that change rapidly," an Akron teacher said in a debrief later that afternoon. 

Pittman harped on that point in her presentation to the visitors. 

Not only does she empower each academy's leader to do what they need for their students, but also the district empowers her to make decisions independently. 

The biggest part of that, she said, is with the budget. 

Nashville employs a way of funding its schools known as "student-based budgeting." It means the money follows the student wherever they go to school, and a building receives more if they have higher needs, like more English language learners. 

With that money, Pittman can also spend it how she sees fit, although she has to work within the limits of teacher-student ratios and required courses, and must defend her choices in an annual review. 

In March, Pittman was in the process of purchasing a van because students wanted to take internships over the summer but needed transportation. 

"That's where that flexible budget goes," she said. "I am putting resources behind what I know is going to launch a kid."

Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.