Q&A with Láz López, Principal

Focus — By on May 7, 2010 1:46 pm

Interview by Daniel Malsomm, Editor-in-Chief


*Some answers have been edited for length

What is STEM education, and what does it encompass?

STEM really represents the broader identification that many people have used that as an acronym that stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and the fact that that represents a focus both from an educational perspective as well as from a global business perspective in America, because that is where most economists and even many of our leaders, political leaders and otherwise, have identified as where the most opportunities and resources are being invested in in the future.

So, would STEM then have a lot to do with career preparation?

STEM at Wheeling High School really is an organizing framework for us to access 21st century skills and emphasize careers—you say career preparation—but emphasize the broad range of careers that are available from a STEM perspective.  And again I don’t do that because I think science technology engineering and math is any better or worse than fine arts—I’m an English teacher—or some other career pathway.  I do that because it is my responsibility to provide as many real opportunities for students as possible, and I want to make sure that, if you look at our mission statement it talks about rigor, relevance, and relationships, and I want to make sure that we are relevant to what’s happening out in the world.

What will be the official name of Wheeling High School next year?

…For the future we’re not going to officially have any kind of byline, we’ll still just be Wheeling High School.  What we’ve done is in some of our marketing of the school and in some of the publications of the school, we’ll add “a comprehensive school with a STEM focus.” We may simply say that our new logo, our new academic logo, lists Math, Science and Technology.  Again, that’s just so that people when they think about Wheeling High School they think about really kids that are prepared for the future.

So it’s kind of an image switch to bring Wheeling to the forefront?

Well I would say it’s in order to accurately represent the realities of Wheeling High School, and the reality is that we have a lot of programs that are extremely unique to secondary education.  There are few if any schools in this country that have been able to do what we’ve done in a fairly short period of time.  From our engineering program and certifications, and we have 20 industry partners or more that are working with us to give kids job shadowing experiences, even paid internships, our health careers program of study and being able to get certified here at the school as a Certified Nursing Assistant and a First Responder.  It’s to give the community out there an acknowledgement and recognition of our school, that we’re not just another high school.  We really are unique, and we’re unique nationally.

When did the idea of bringing STEM to Wheeling High School first come up?

Well the reality is that right before I became principal, I met with the administrative team, and there were some significant concerns ahead for us.  And one of those significant concerns was our projected enrolment.  By 2013-2014 it’s going to be close to 1600 students, or less.  Now I talked to the staff about this and I talked to you as a reporter before, that for every 20 students we lose, I lose a teacher.  And it was our analysis that part of what contributed to that was an inaccurate perception of Wheeling High School within our district.  When I was hired, what I heard over and over again was that Wheeling High School is the best kept secret in the district, and the reality is I felt that was part of the problem.  Why are we a secret?  We don’t need to be a secret.  People need to know about us…. We knew we needed to do something to reintroduce Wheeling High School to the community, and to highlight what our strengths were…. All we’re doing is really accentuating things that already existed in the sense of our strengths.  We were already the district leaders in technology.  We were the first ones with a CAD Lab.  Our teachers have more Moodle pages that any other school in the district.  We already have one of the highest performing math departments in the entire state.  We show more growth in students than almost any other school in the state.  That is extremely impressive.  So these were the areas that were our strengths; I knew there was a STEM initiative coming down and it was the perfect timing to sort of bring those things together.

With STEM in the balance, how will we work that out with decreasing enrolment?  What’s going to happen across the board?

Courses are all based on student requests.  So, just like this year, we had to make tough decisions.  In the end, students are going to pick those courses that interest them and have value to them.  So, those courses that kids are interested in and they choose, those are the courses that have to be supported and sustained.  Aside from (that), there are courses that the district and the state require us to offer.  There are graduation requirements.  So those always take precedence…

What I actually hope is that all of the increased attention on our school, and we’re getting lots of it, will cause people to consider, and it already has, to take a look at Wheeling High School and say “I should move there.  I should move into that attendance boundary because I want my kids to have that advantage.”  And my hope is that we don’t get down to 1600, that we’re able to sort of turn it around.

Over the past few years, students have noticed a lot more banners up around the school.  How does that fit into all of this?

Well, it feeds into the idea that we were a best-kept secret.  We can’t be a secret.  We’ve got to let people know.  That’s what successful organizations do.  While we are a school, you can’t ignore the fact that there has to be value in the organization for your community…

There is a value associated with a name and an organization just like when I talk about Stevenson and New Trier.  You know, people know those names.  They know those schools.  Wheeling High School wasn’t really a school that was necessarily well known at all in every facet, so part of those banners, part of that recognition and highlighting it–and we’ve always been a successful school, but even more so over the last several years–is highlighting it and letting people know, not only the people in our community but also our own kids…

If you noticed, what we’ve done is we’ve opened the doors to every kid long before they ever get here.  We have kids here as early as three years old all the way to eighth grade in our family literacy nights Tuesdays and Thursdays going through reading classes.  We’ve got our Gateway to Technology for middle school students.  We have our summer STEM camps this summer.  That’s all part of that banner message and what that is, is “Hey, take a look at us.  Come meet our students.  Come meet our teachers.  Walk through our hallways.  This is a special place that you should feel good about coming here, and that you should be excited about getting here.”

Math has really seen an upturn, but for Reading and English standardized test scores, we’re finishing at the bottom of District 214 almost every year.  How are you going to address that problem in the years to come?

We have been addressing that extensively over the last three years.  I am very disappointed in the sense that the hard work that our teachers are doing and that our students are doing aren’t reflected in those scores yet, but I think that they will be.  That is why we’ve done things for example in the Rintro Lab.  If you take a look down there, that Rintro Lab is a double room and we have three teachers in there, two teachers and an instructional assistant, and their entire focus is to help students that are coming in here not reading at grade level to read at grade level.  That program has only been in place really for two years, a year and a half.  So we have yet to see all of the things that we put in place actually reflected in any of those scores.  The same with our English as a Second Language (ESL) program.  We have 300 students come in that are second language learners.  We made significant changes to that program in order to really bring students in that program as part of the rest of our school.  And we have a lot more co-teaching classes and a lot more LEP classes that are the same exact content, just taught with the recognition that there is some language instruction that needs to go alongside the content instruction.

And will the STEM program work into that at all?

Yeah, because STEM really is about—another aspect of STEM is really about breaking down the barriers between the disciplines, and a teacher recognizing that students and individuals don’t use knowledge in isolation.  And so that’s why that family literacy component, it may not seem like it’s associated with STEM, but it is.  What we’re trying to do is get the kids reading grade level long before they get here so that maybe we don’t need a program like the Rintro program.  That’s not necessary if every kid is coming in at grade level.  And the other piece is if a kid is coming in at grade level in reading or in math, then they’ve got more room in their schedule to take more electives

One of the things that I noticed on the WHS website, the STEM page there, there were a couple career programs of study.

Yes, samples.

What’s the plan for that over the next few years, bringing that into the school, and why was that the original idea?

That’s really to associate us with a lot of the initiatives that are happening at both the federal level and statewide level, from Race to the Top.  The Race to the Top specifically identified and gave preference to STEM and programs of study.  What a program of study is, is the fact that when we sit down with you we are no longer just talking about what you need to graduate.  The conversation with the counselor needs to be “Where do you see yourself?  What do you see yourself doing when you leave high school? What’s your area of interest?”…

Let’s say for example that you know coming in by freshman or sophomore year that your area of interest is fine arts.  Well I know that when we’re looking at a program of study, that we’ve got to make sure that—if you’re interested in fine arts and let’s say you’re interested in music, we’re going to make sure that you have enough time in your schedule that you work up towards AP Music Theory, and that you’re able to take that course…

The purpose of it is to extend the kids connection—remember, create relevance and a competitive advantage—to the next stage, so we don’t want to just offer health classes, we want to offer a health career program of study that a kid can get nationally recognized industry certifications and can go on and get a job and start getting work experience so that they can get into that highly competitive nursing program if that’s what they’re interested in at Harper, because they’ve only got a certain number of spots and most kids can’t get in it.  But if they’ve worked in the field and they’ve already got their CNA, now they’ve jumped to the front of the line.  Or, if they want to be a doctor, boy, if they can show they’ve got this certification and have worked in the field, now they’re more competitive to get into medical school.

What about the students that don’t really know what they want to do or that want to dabble in multiple fields?  Will the same opportunities still be open to them?

Yes. And remember we’re still going to be a comprehensive high school.  What I would say is that this is a perfect environment for you to investigate and to take courses that you don’t have to pay for, as opposed to and the counselors could tell you more accurately how many times a student changes their major in college, I think it’s seven times I believe or something like that, they change their major on average.  I’m going through that with my daughter already.  And so this is a perfect place for you, for example, if you have any interest at all in healthcare careers, you would start taking one of those classes and you might find out fairly quickly, “I have absolutely no interest in health careers.”  Or engineering.  Or you might take something that you never thought would be an interest, and you take an intro course and realize “Wow, this might be something that I could do, that I might be interested in.” …

You can come through and have a comprehensive high school experience and never specifically focus on anything, but you could sort of touch a lot of different areas so you could figure out what it is that you like.  Or you can come in, and there are kids that come in and they know “Hey, this is what I want to do,” and you don’t even need to specify.  Really you are talking about sort of a broad range.

For example, I know there is sort of a hierarchy for each of these paths each of these, I’m sorry what are they?

Occupational Technical Professional (OTP).  And that’s just in the sense that okay our goal isn’t just STEM for the few, it really is STEM for all, and we want to create opportunities for kids at every level: occupational, technical and professional.  So there are kids that we know that come through high school and that they say, “You know, I’m not interested in going to a traditional four year school.  I want to go through high school and go get a job.”  And the reality is that with just a high school diploma and without any other certification, it’s going to be hard for you to make a living wage to support a family.  That’s part of the impetus to have certifications on site, so that at least if you leave here and you decide you don’t want to continue with a traditional four year degree, you have training and a certification that at least allows you the opportunity perhaps to earn a wage that you can support a family on and you can have a living wage.

Let’s say they are interested in engineering and something in journalism like you were saying, if you have to go through the entry level classes and want to be in the extracurriculars, will they have time to get to that (level)?

Maybe, maybe not.  I would say it depends.  And that’s why your counselor is so important to help navigate that for you, so what I would say is if a student is coming in, it all depends.  That’s why you want to do well on a lot of these assessments as well, so that you can test into the higher level courses.  So if a kid is coming in freshman year and they’re in a year-long English 90 minutes a day and a year-long math 90 minutes a day, they’re going to have (fewer) elective opportunities.

How have you been trying to work with counselors differently?  How have you been changing the way counselors do what they do?

Many high school students you speak to will say they’ve never met with their counselor, they don’t know who their counselor is, and our counseling department has worked very hard for that not to be the case here, and they meet with every single student one-on-one to select courses, to talk about career pathways, and so what Dr. Ravitz has done is certainly focused their attention that you have to have a conversation beyond high school.

What have the numbers for (STEM) classes been doing recently? And how do those compare to the rest of the numbers for classes, for electives across the board?

What I can tell you is that overall, all of our elective programs with a couple of exceptions have been able to maintain numbers or grow….

The students are going to go where they feel connected to or what they have interest in, and they see relevant.  And so that’s a challenge for every elective program is, “Are you relevant?  Are you providing a real valuable experience for students that they can use when they leave here?”  And that’s a question that we ask ourselves in every facet of education, every single year.  And that really is sort of the heart of schools and even education, is that it’s not that we change just to change.  You have to continually ask yourself every year, “Is what I am doing now still working?  Is it still relevant?  Is it still going to give our kids the best opportunity for success?”

Let’s say for one year that there is a very low number of students interested in a certain course, even if it’s let’s say the engineering trek, where it’s STEM related, as a school where we have that STEM focus, will that STEM focus…

Override?

Yes.

You know, what I will tell you and this is what I do with any new course coming on, you give them a little bit of time to build their program.  So for example AP Music Theory or AP Art, they have very small numbers.  But we still ran it.  We ran it because it’s the first time they’re offering it and you want to give people an opportunity to learn about the course, to take it, to tell their friends about it.  And that would be across the board.  However, after that first year or two, if that course isn’t attracting enough kids, there’s a difference….

Because we’re in a shrinking mode and the state budget is the way it is, I don’t have as many options.  And so, what it means is that I am going to have to make decisions across the board.  There are no sacred cows.  We’re going to have to make decisions that I don’t want to make if things continue down this pathway, and my hope is that won’t happen.

…We’ve been talking about music theory a lot. I know next year we are adding AP Spanish Literature.  Do AP classes hold some type of special precedence when considering what electives make it to the next year?

Yes, and I’ll tell you why that is.  That’s because the district has established that as a specific goal for our school and for every school in the district.  And so the district school board has chosen three specific goals, and those are the three goals that I am measured on in my evaluation and that every administrator is measured on and even the teachers.  And the three goals are growth on our assessment, ACT scores, by all student groups.  The second is success rate, As Bs and Cs, and the third is AP.  So in our district, the school board has identified that advanced placement is a unique focus and that our goal is to increase enrollment and success in AP.  So I will say AP is a special category.

One of the main things you have been talking about is the STEM for All Initiative.  Can you explain that a little bit?

If you take a look around, there are lots of schools that have a math science focus in the country, and there are two in the state.  However, the majority of them are focused on the elite, on the top student, on that small slice.  You know, IMSA only has about 600 students and they don’t start until sophomore year, and they take the best students from across the state.  And so I didn’t want to create a program that was exclusive for just this small group of our kids, “You know, we’re going to take our top ten percent of our kids and give them all these resources and just have programs that just support them.”  It was important to us that, if we’re going to focus on STEM, that it’s opportunity for kids at every ability level, from kids who are struggling in math to our top kids….

So for example, next fall we’re having a course called CAD Geometry, and CAD Geometry is a course that is going to teach kids the CAD software, the architectural software, to do drafting and design.  In fact if somebody knows that software well enough they can make $20 an hour working in an architect’s office doing all the drawings for them…and the kids in that class are kids that are struggling in math.  And our hope is that we can get them excited about the software, learn that skill, learn geometry, and hopefully through the engagement in their interest and their success, get them if they want to then make the introduction to engineering courses successful.

What are some new features of the school that have come because of the STEM transition?

Lots of them.  I’m very excited about them.  The main one that we’ve talked about before is the advanced manufacturing facility.  The digital photo lab.  This summer, we are going to create a new health careers lab.  There will be hospital beds and there will be all sorts of equipment.  It will look like a little mini hospital lab, the Health Careers Lab we’re calling that, which I’m very excited about.

Where does the funding come from for all these new opportunities?

I haven’t really, except for the health careers one, I haven’t gotten any new funding sources.  And every year, even next year we have another $22,000 cut to our building budget.  And so we have been extremely creative in using resources.  So for example, we did receive a grant from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to pursue the health careers initiative, and so that’s what’s funding the health careers lab, that’s what’s funding for all the laptops for all those kids.  And our advanced manufacturing facility, what it is is because there is a significant need for students trained in advanced manufacturing, employers that are working with us and national organizations like the Tooling and Manufacturing Association.  What they did is they went out and found people that were willing to sell us equipment at really pennies on the dollar….

One of those pieces of equipment could easily cost $100,000, you know.  We paid a few thousand for it.  But that was because of our manufacturing partners, because they really want to create the awareness and interest in advanced manufacturing amongst students because they can’t find employees….

And the other piece is things like, and again, just using the resources that we have, painters come through here every two months.  Focusing what they were doing on our public areas, our public areas needed a facelift.  Those types of things, and you know also watching what we spend.

How did you do that?

For example, they used to hire more school buses to transport kids maybe just to Hersey High School, and you would have the varsity team and the JV team have a separate bus, and it would cost us $200 for each bus to go to Hersey and come back, where now what they’ve done is they’ve gotten one bus, and the bus makes more than one trip, and they’ve slashed the costs in half, so those types of things that Dr. May has worked on in order to save us money.

I’ve been hearing a lot of the starting wages, I’ve been hearing a lot of the sensible savings that we’ve made to make this STEM program possible, so would a word for STEM kind of be “practicality”?

I have a business background, and I owned a company for several years.  I’m a very practical person, and I want to make sure that what we’re doing has practical relevance.  And so yes, I would say when we talk about STEM what we’re talking about is—I would go back to the word that it’s relevant.  It’s relevant to kids today, that they are strong in math, science and technology so that they can have a career option and doors open to them, whatever door they want.

So Wheeling High School gets rededicated this August.

Yes, August 9th.

August 9th?  Okay, what’s the rededication going to be like?

I’m excited.  We’re working on it.  Really what it is is it’s an opportunity to add our voice to the national and statewide conversation about STEM, and really we’re defining it.  STEM for All is really sort of our creation, because when you talk to educators from outside of our school, many of them don’t understand what that means and if that’s even possible.  Because again all we’ve heard from the national stage is really STEM for the elite, but the reality is we only need so many astrophysicists….

We are expecting to have about 350 educators here from around the state—to talk about STEM for All.  And so all of our workshops all of our sessions are focused on providing access to students of all ability levels to the new economy, 21st century skills through STEM.  And the luncheon is sort of our rededication ceremony where I’ve asked for the governor to come out and help us in our rededication, I’m hoping he comes out….

I know the fine arts will have a huge presence in the school.  There’s going to be lots of things happening with them as well, because we want to send the message that we are still a comprehensive high school and that you can connect STEM throughout your entire school for all kids.

So is that day going to be a day to rededicate Wheeling or a day to spread the message about STEM?  What is going to take the forefront?

The forefront really is that all kids should have access to the new economy, and that STEM is really that key to get there, so STEM for All is really the forefront of the message.  The secondary message is that Wheeling High School has spearheaded that effort.

What type of attention do you anticipate the conference bringing Wheeling? Media attention? (web)

Yeah, I expect that we’ll have lots of media here.  I can tell you one of the panel discussions at the end of the day that’s really focused on the next steps.  You know I have the state director of career and tech education, Northwestern University, the Department of Commerce and Economic opportunity, the governor’s office and myself all at that panel focused on what do we need to do to advance the mission of STEM for All in Illinois.  And so I expect there to be lots of attention and for Wheeling High School to be the focus of this initiative in the state of Illinois.

Are there any credentials that a school needs to call itself a STEM school, to earn that STEM title, or is it just more of a title that we take on ourselves?

Actually we were just accepted as a member of the National Consortium—it’s a long title–of Specialized…Secondary Schools of Math, Science and Technology, NCSSSMST.  IMSA is part of that, there are only about 100 schools nationwide.  IMSA is a part of that in this state, as well as Proviso Math and Science.  We’ll be the third school in the state of Illinois that’s part of that consortium.

I would say membership in that organization is essential to our credibility as a STEM school.  We’ve already been accepted as an associate member and the president of that organization is going to be introducing our keynote speaker on August 9th and he’ll be there at the luncheon to officially announce our membership in the consortium.

Alright.  Has Wheeling in this transition encountered any setbacks, delays in transition?  I know that the original plan was for a name change, and then the district didn’t really like that.

Actually I would say the opposite in the sense that things have gone quicker than I expected.  I really thought that we would be here in another two years, but the Race to the Top initiative, with the election of President Obama and their focus on STEM as well as the state’s focus on STEM has really sort of just made this the perfect timing.

And from this point forward, really what we’re doing is looking at certifications and our current courses…

The name thing, to be honest with you my goal was never to change the name of the school.  My goal was to reintroduce the school to the broader community as a school that is relevant to today, and we accomplished that.  And to be honest some of that name controversy helped us to do that.

Do you have any extracurricular activities already in mind or that might be introduced in the future that—

There are some that have already started—

That are going to have emphasis with the new STEM program?

There is a STEM club that already began on its own.  And the other one is our Battlebots group that just competed for the first time.  And one thing I was so proud of, we were the only team in the district that had three girls participating, which is very exciting.

And that STEM Team believes that they’re going to have a working windmill that they built by the end of the year and what I’m hoping that they’ll take on next year is a solar car.  I want them to build a solar car that we can drive around the track.

Traditionally females don’t have as much of a presence in…math and science (careers).  What are some ideas that you have to maybe start changing that trend?

All of those programs that we have for those kids before they get here really are focused on that.  Our Gateway to Technology program, the 6th 7th and 8th grade pre-engineering program, I think half—I can’t remember now—It’s a third to half are girls.  And so you really have to reach kids by 4th, 5th grade, girls and boys, and get them excited about all the career opportunities and all the excitement in math science and technology, so that as they get older they’re not scared away from math and science. But we’re certainly encouraging and wanting to get girls involved at an early age at the school with either the STEM summer camp or Gateway to Technology.  And I’m hoping that there’s a teacher that looks at beginning sort of a Women in Engineering or that supports females in serving in STEM career pathways.

In terms of spreading the STEM message, how are other schools in the district going to be able to benefit from what programs we’re bringing to Wheeling High School?

I think it certainly benefits the entire district because in the end we are going to pilot a lot of unique initiatives, for example the CAD Geometry, that you might have a school that’s not necessarily a STEM focus school but that, maybe that would be an exciting way to reach kids that are struggling in math that we’ll pilot here and that we have an interest to do and that they can learn from.

Are you going to be one to try to sell some of these ideas to other schools to help them to kind of see your vision that you have?

The message that I would put out there isn’t that every school needs to be a STEM school, and that’s not for everyone.  Remember that, when I started this conversation, Wheeling High School’s draws, one of our areas of strengths, certainly was fine arts but was very much math and technology.  It’s a good fit for us.  The message I would send to everyone is, “We need to prepare every kid for the new economy and for them to have opportunities,” and whatever you’re doing at whatever school it is, you want to make sure that you’re delivering on that.

Some students are wondering if the new STEM status would affect graduation requirements at Wheeling.

Not at all.

Alright.  Will there be an aspect of STEM in everything taught here?

Curricularly, over the next several years, the challenge to every teacher in the building is—because STEM is sort of the thematic framework for the school, is “How does my content area, how does my subject, how can I support this mission and vision to prepare every kid with 21st century skills in the new economy?”  And that’s a question every teacher has to ask themselves and define.  As groups, as professional educators, they’ll figure out how to connect.  When you’re talking about STEM, you’re also talking about literacy, communication literacy.  How do I articulate ideas?  You’re talking about writing skills, you’re talking about reading skills, you’re talking about all those things, and how do they connect.

Okay, last question, I promise.  What do you envision long term down the road after Wheeling makes this transition over to STEM this summer?

What I envision: Wheeling High School is going to be a national model and a successful school at providing opportunities for kids of all ability levels, in relevant secondary school experience that prepares them for their future.  And I very much believe that.  And I think that this is really just the beginning.  I do think that, you know I know what the numbers are, but I do think that families will move to Wheeling in order to be able to come to Wheeling High School when all is said and done.

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