Our world is ever changing and our community is as well. It is very easy to see that our local businesses and organizations desperately need more skilled and dependable workers. Students in high school question everything they are asked to do, and one of the biggest questions they ask is “Why do we need to learn this?” Staff work tirelessly to implement instructional practices and activities that are engaging, relevant and meaningful for students, but it is very hard to recreate the “real world” in high school.
With an eye on the future of our students and community and the continuous effort to make what we do relevant, meaningful and engaging, Monroe High School is starting a new program for the 2022-23 school year. This project-based learning experience will partner our students with local and community businesses and organizations to solve real-world problems. This program is called LAUNCH.
LAUNCH is a member of the Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS), a nationally recognized, innovative high school program. Students will be immersed in a professional culture, solving realworld problems, using industry standard tools, while being mentored by actual employers. For this opportunity, students will receive high school and potentially college credit. LAUNCH is an example of how business,
community and public education can partner to produce personalized learning experiences that educate the workforce of tomorrow, especially in high-skill, high-demand jobs.
LAUNCH provides students the opportunity to deeply explore professional areas of interest through a profession-based, inquiry learning method. CAPS is driven by the changing workforce needs of industry; therefore, instructors and LAUNCH business partners collaborate to develop coursework.
Monroe High School will be implementing two career strands in LAUNCH for the 2022-2023 School year; Business Analytics and Media Solutions. We are beginning to develop future career strands for the 2023-24 school year as well. Our initial conversations with local businesses and their representatives have been very encouraging as we believe this program is a “win-win” for everyone involved. Students gain the skills, knowledge and amazing experiences of this program, and businesses get a project completed as well as possible future employees, keeping our young, talented students here in Monroe.
In developing LAUNCH, we have been working with another district in Wisconsin, Elmbrook School District. They are the only other district in our state that is currently operating the LAUNCH program and are in their fifth year of doing so. Our team is collaborating with their team through this implementation and has made site visits with
teacher teams and student teams. We are extremely excited to be bringing this program to Monroe High School, and these opportunities to our students, local businesses and organizations.
For more information, go to: https://www.monroeschools.com/ schools/high/academics/launch. cfm.
— Jeriamy Jackson is the Interim Principal at Monroe High School.
He can be reached at 608-328-7359 or jeriamyjackson@monroe. k12.wi.us.
