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The Smaller
Learning Communities (SLC) Grant is a grant from the U.S.
Department of Education to restructure five high schools
into smaller units, called career clusters. The goals of the
project are to enhance academic achievement, increase
academic rigor, and create a better school climate. The five
schools implementing smaller learning communities are:
Arundel,
Glen
Burnie,
Meade,
North
County, and
Old
Mill Senior High Schools. Students identify their
interests with the help of their Guidance Counselors and
Teacher Advisors. Once in the clusters, students will all
learn the same core subject material, but they will have a
chance to relate the course material to examples from career
areas in which they are interested. So, for example,
students in the Arts, Communication and Humanities cluster
might take on the real-life problem of how theatre tickets
are discounted in their math classes, while students in the
Health, Environmental and Life Sciences cluster might have
an example about discounts for large group health insurers
in their math classes. The object is not to change the
curriculum, or what is taught, but to change the
instruction, or how it is taught. The Smaller Learning
Community concept comes out of research that demonstrates
that students learn better and retain more when they learn
things in context, when they know why they are learning.
Some schools that have already implemented smaller
schools-within-schools have shown the same kinds of results
we want to see in our own schools, that is, higher
assessment scores across the board and safer environments
for our students.
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