St. Petersburg College has become an integral partner with the Pinellas County Schools in its effort to revitalize Gibbs High School, identified as a failing school by the state.
Since the partnership began about two months ago, the college has:
- Offered student teachers to work in the classrooms.
- Provided the college’s developmental reading program for use at Gibbs.
- Administered the College Placement Test to more than 400 Gibbs students and, this week, began Dual Enrollment classes for the students who qualified.
- Worked with students to get their ideas for improving Gibbs’ image and bridging the gap between students in the magnet programs and the traditional program.
Pinellas Schools Superintendent Julie Janssen thanked the St. Petersburg College Board of Trustees for its support and said she is excited about all the possibilities the partnership with SPC makes available.
“We are getting smarter by the day in working with our friends at the Pinellas County Schools,” President Bill Law told the Board of Trustees this week.
The efforts at Gibbs have taken shape quickly.
Law saw a story in August about the state’s intervention at Gibbs and the difficulties there in trying to overcome the state’s F grade. He set up a meeting with Gibbs principal Kevin Gordon and Janssen and offered to help.
Gibbs High School
He appointed Watson Haynes as the college’s point person with Gibbs.
Haynes, coordinator of the Consular Institute, now is spending much of his time on the Gibbs effort. The stakes are high for the Gibbs administration and faculty; the state’s “intervene” status meant Gibbs Principal Kevin Gordon and his faculty and staff would have little time to turn things around.
“Kevin has only been there for one year,” Haynes said. “He’s made a lot of progress, he’s got the kids at Gibbs to pull their pants up and improve their grades, but if they don’t make real progress soon, the principal and half the faculty will be gone.”
Haynes said Dr. Law didn’t have a specific plan in mind, but he wanted SPC to make its resources – and perhaps its college flavor – available to Gibbs.
The senior staff at Gibbs soon sensed that SPC might be a major source of help.
“Gibbs’ staff began to place things on the table,” Haynes said. “They were eager to meet with us. If a meeting interfered with someone’s schedule, they would make the necessary adjustments. They understood that it’s important for these kids to get help so they can be successful.”
When Gibbs teachers said we need teaching theories to use in the classroom, SPC people supplied teaching models. When Gibbs teachers noted that SPC had a great reading program, SPC delivered it.
“As we began to do things for teachers, we looked at the student issue,” Haynes said. “When there was talk about having Gibbs students take the College Placement Test early next year, SPC’s Director of Dual Enrollment/Early College/Early Admission Programs Jeff Cesta asked why we couldn’t roll that out in just a couple of weeks.”
Usually, high school students have to make an appointment to take the College Placement tests, then wait a number of days to get their scores. Cesta set up a system in which students could take the test on campus and get their scores immediately.
“As a result of that,” Haynes said, “more than 100 Gibbs students are now college-eligible.”
Sixty of those eligible students now are enrolled in the two dual enrollment courses that started this week. SPC and Gibbs also are developing a program to encourage more dual enrollment among other students so they can take high school and college credits simultaneously.
“When we have kids there talking about earning college credits, we will have moved the ball forward,” Law told the Board of Trustees this week.
St. Petersburg College also will benefit if Gibbs students elevate their high school performance, Haynes said. If students come in better prepared, the college can spend less time and money on remediation.
“It is frustrating when students have to spend much or all of their first college year in remediation,” Haynes said. “They get frustrated, they lose interest, and they are apt to go and get a job and lose interest in school. …Dr. Law said, ‘Let’s make it happen on the high school side so we won’t have to remediate them when they get to college.’ ”
If St. Petersburg College can develop routines and programs that work for Gibbs, the valuable resources can move to other high schools, Haynes said.
“Everyone is excited about this,” Haynes said. “The students are excited because they can boast that they have a relationship with SPC. The students are creating an opportunity to develop a brand that involves both SPC and Gibbs.”
At the same time, he said, teachers at Gibbs have access to up-to-date resources that they wouldn’t have otherwise.
“And SPC will get students who are prepared, and who will come in and take classes and stay,” Haynes said. “We want them to stay, and to finish.”
Gordon, the Gibbs principal, says his school is reaping many benefits as a result of the relationship with SPC.
“It’s being able to offer college placement testing without students having to pay a fee; it’s offering dual enrollment classes to students here on the Gibbs campus; it’s being able to do professional development with professors at SPC; it’s SPC helping our teachers get through various issues and challenges,” Gordon said. “For SPC’s part, it gives them students who are college-ready, and it allows SPC to indoctrinate those students in the SPC way of doing things.”
Perhaps the most emotional moment for Gordon came recently when he observed a class of Gibbs students being taught by Joseph Smiley, SPC’s Dean of Social & Behavioral Sciences.
“It was so powerful seeing Dr. Smiley in front of our kids in a dual enrollment class, teaching them right here at their high school,” Gordon said.
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