A dog in class, an internship at a castle. Lexington re-imagines middle schools.

At Leestown Middle School, a traditional computer room has been transformed into a collaboration station where a student recently responded to librarian Claudett Edie’s request for “wearable technology” inventions by attaching a sensor to a hat that would help a visually impaired classmate.

Jackie White’s traditional health class at Leestown has been reconfigured to a health science course. On a recent day it was packed with kids following White’s CPR instructions to “press hard, press fast, press deep” as they practiced on mannequins and pursue CPR certification.

This school year, Fayette County Public Schools have set out to re-imagining middle schools with new classes, more emphasis on work skills and more rigor so that kids can have better success in Lexington’s high schools and special programs. The school district in the last few years has transformed its high schools into career academies.

Fayette Superintendent Manny Caulk also has a vision for reimagining middle schools. His administrators decided that students shouldn’t wait until ninth grade to explore career paths.

Under the new initiative to recreate Lexington middle schools, students can get industry certifications in areas such as first aid and CPR, intern at the Kentucky Castle on Versailles Road, and learn veterinary science as they groom their teacher’s dogs in class.

Fayette County is now piloting new strategies at Leestown, E.J. Hayes, Southern Middle, Jessie Clark and Tates Creek Middle. Every middle school will see some degree of reinvention, said Scott Flowers, a middle school chief. Morton Middle, for example, is exploring the possibility of creating a new math and science academy, he said.

So far, the districtwide initiative has cost “little to no new dollars,” said Flowers. “It’s being creative with what we have.”

At E.J. Hayes, principal Dave Hoskins wanted his students to be able to make better decisions about what high school programs they would enter and to leave middle school with certifications and portfolios. Hoskins said he reallocated money to accommodate the reimagining of his school.

At Leestown, Principal Joe Gibson said he was asking, “What needs to shift? How could we get kids on a track” where they are thinking about a high school career program?

Some answers came last school year, when seven Fayette County School employees went to Miami, Florida and Polk and Palm Beach counties in that state to see what career-focused middle school redesigns looked like.

What reimagining Leestown Middle School has meant, said Gibson, is that with an age group that can be difficult to reach, “just walking around in the building and looking in every class, you see kids engaged in the content 95 to 100 percent of the time.”

“Middle school is just tough,” Fayette School Board Chairman Stephanie Spires said at the September monthly board meeting when the re-imagining was discussed. “It’s tough to reach these students. Coming up with ideas to engage them is just so key.”

In Leestown’s new collaboration lab, teachers in different fields —science and social studies, math, language arts — can work together in the same room on a single project.

Teachers look for new ways to present material. Agriculture teacher Ruth Ann Layne said her seventh grade class was measuring fat in a “hamburger lab,” answering the question, “What does 73 percent lean mean on a hamburger package? Eighth graders taking an 18-week course called, “Introduction to Horticulture” earn high school credit by designing a model of an irrigation plan for the school’s courtyard that will be installed in a few months

Leestown added agricultural science as a four-year class, added a digital literacy class and a digital learning class.

Teacher Aaron Ferral said the goal in a digital literacy class is to teach students how to use Google Apps to get their school work done more efficiently. Students can complete a Google certification program.

Students describe the new approach as life-changing.

Eighth grader Carley Craig said in a recent project on what a medieval hospital might look like, she conducted research, wrote editorials, built a website, used infographics and print advertising. Ayla Nichols, an eighth grade member of Future Farmers of America, worked on a garden, learning the difference between annuals and perennials.

Abigail Hines, an 8th grader, said she learned how to keep a digital portfolio that documents her academic progress, tests and attendance.

“It’s a great way to see ...how you’ve gone up or maybe down and how you can improve,” said Abigail.

More students are applying for career academies and high school special programs. Of the 143 applicants to the district’s Locust Trace AgriScience Center, one -third are now from Leestown. A few years ago, Leestown students may have submitted five applications, said Gibson.

As summer interns in agriculture, eight students worked on the farm at The Kentucky Castle. They did everything from carrying the compost from the kitchen to hosting a dinner, Gibson said.

After eighth grade, some Leestown students move on to a graphic design and video production program at Bryan Station High and others to Paul Laurence Dunbar High. Brandon French, a technology teacher, tries to prepare them for that as they produce a morning show that goes live on You Tube.

Leestown has had a pre-engineering program for ten years, but Gibson said it is evolving into the new academy approach. Robin Featheringill, the school’s pre-engineering coordinator said the goal is to take advanced students and increase the rigor so they are ready for high school programs all over the district.

“It is a program for advanced math and science students. They could be in science class, math class, social studies class, language arts class and you wouldn’t know which class they might be in working on this particular project,” Featheringill said. “You could be in science class working on a writing project. You could be in writing class working on something that looks very technology-based.”

As part of the reinvention, E.J. Hayes Middle School for the first time next year, will offer a biomedical science track that includes veterinary science, medical science and first aid and wellness. In engineering and technology, students will learn coding and robotics, digital literacy and innovation and design.

In the area of professional services and leadership, they can study marketing and financial literacy, and industry services that focuses on culinary and work skills. Public speaking and debate classes will focus on preparing students for a pre-law course at Frederick Douglass High School.

In the new medical detectives class at Hayes recently, students planned a video on an outbreak of e-coli in hamburger meat that would give warnings on how people could protect themselves. And in a new veterinary science course this year, students said they learned more because their teacher allowed them to groom her dog in class.

Noah Jones, an eighth grader at Hayes, decided to take the medical detectives class because he wants to be a physical therapist. Matthew Overbey, an eighth grader, said he took the class “because its a great precursor” to the biomedical program he wants to enter at Frederick Douglass High School next year.

“The difference now is these kids get choice. It’s based on their interest. But its also targeting what they want to do when they leave middle school,” Hoskins said. “We don’t want to pigeon hole them. They still have a lot of options..., and exploration, it’s a lot more targeted and a lot more purposeful.”

This story was originally published November 26, 2019 at 2:26 PM.