Organization-houses/small Learning Communities
Clinton is split into several small learning communities (SLC). They include the Macy Honors Gifted Program (internally referred to often as the Macy House), Health Professions, Veterinary Professions, Public Service, Business Enterprise, Future Educators, Academy House, and Varsity House.
The Macy Program, "begun in 1985 with funding from the Macy Foundation," attracts intelligent, hard-working children and preparing them for exceptionally selective colleges. The Macy program has been expanded to serve 1,200 students. The current Macy coordinator is Ernesta Consolazio. The Macy Honors Gifted Program in the Sciences and Humanities has its own teachers, and a nine-period day compared to the regular New York City eight-period day. The program offers Specialized and Advanced Technology (SMT) courses, Science, Math, English, Law, Government, Philosophy and Great Books. All students in the program are required to have a minimum average of 80 and not to fail any courses. When Macy students are removed from the program, they are placed in Excel, a special Macy-run program just for its kick-outs and drop-outs, before getting fully demoted to the lower programs. From at least 1998 to 2002 some students went directly into the Excel program.
Advanced Macy students are invited to join the even more selective Einstein Program which has about 50 students in each grade. The Einstein Program has even more rigorous academic performance requirements. Einstein students in their junior year are required to take a College Now course for philosophy and government science, in their first and second semester, respectively. These courses are used to earn college credits. Einstein students are automatically assigned to honors and AP classes as early as freshman year, followed by the mandatory AP United States History and AP English Language for Einstein students who make it to their junior year.
Many MACY students are invited to MASTERS, a month-long summer program that offers many hands-on college courses that emphasizes mathematics and science. Some include: Forensic Science, Robotics, Anatomy, Business, Consumer Chemistry and Electricity.
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Famous quotes containing the words small, learning and/or communities:
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—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Experiences in order to be educative must lead out into an expanding world of subject matter, a subject matter of facts or information and of ideas. This condition is satisfied only as the educator views teaching and learning as a continuous process of reconstruction of experience.”
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