William Smith High School Open House rescheduled for Feb. 16

An open house event at William Smith High School designed to show how much progress the pilot school has made in the past two years has been rescheduled for Feb. 16.

The event, which was canceled last week due to snow, will take place at 6 p.m. next Wednesday at the William Smith campus at 400 Airport Blvd. The event will be open to parents, students and community members from the Aurora Public Schools District.

The open house will be an opportunity to spotlight the school’s unique, technology-based approach to education, just as it will serve as a forum to highlight the school’s dramatic transformation in recent years.

In 2008, William Smith became the first pilot school in the Aurora Public Schools district. The pilot model, based on a structure pioneered in Boston Public Schools, gives school administrators more independence in planning curriculum, budgeting and calendars. In return, the schools are expected to achieve higher levels of achievement and perform better than other schools in the rest of the district. William Smith’s program is open to all APS high school students through an application process.

Staff at William Smith have insisted the results of the reinvention have been improvements in attendance and test scores. It’s also meant a cut in the amount of 9th grade course failures. Last year, almost half of the 12 APS students who graduated high school with college-level associate’s degrees came from William Smith.

Last year, William Smith’s new model and promising results drew a visit from Dennis Van Roekel, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Education Association.

“Having the NEA president visit William Smith High School is (a) validation of the tremendous work the William Smith community has accomplished to create an exemplary school for students,” APS Deputy Superintendent Ton Van Gytenbeek said in an e-mail last year. “The innovative collaborations inherent in the pilot school model represent reform in public education that produces measurable results.”

For more information about the school or the open house event, call 303-364-8715 or visit www.aps.k12.co.us/wmsmith.