LaFayette Students are Getting the "Big Picture"

November 9, 2009

Sara Sultanik NCC News

LaFayette, N.Y. - Ever feel like you didn’t belong in high school? There were so many cliques: the jocks, the nerds, and the popular girls.  

And the topics you were learning in class were of no importance to you. So, you didn’t do your homework.  

You didn’t see a reason to go to class.

But what if there was a high school where you could self-design your own curriculum?

That’s LaFayette’s Big Picture High School.  A school designed for kids who were at-risk of dropping out of their public high schools because the traditional educational model just didn’t work for them.  

And New York State Assemblyman Al Stirpe recently honored Big Picture High as the “October School of the Month” due to the school’s new way of learning.

High School in an Elementary School?

You walk in.  See small children scurrying through the halls.  It’s C. Grant Grimshaw Elementary School in LaFayette Central School District.

But if you peek around the corner, you’ll see people you may not expect.  High schoolers.  Big Picture High School is housed in a few rooms right there.  

“It’s just an alternate,” said Megan MacDaniel, Internship Coordinator for the Big Picture School, “There’s students in high school right now where traditional education just doesn’t work for them.”

And that traditional education model didn’t work for the thirty students attending the Big Picture School this year.

“I think it’s way better than normal high school for me,” stated Randy Crouse, a 10th grader who wants to be a recording artist, “I wasn’t really good at getting work in on time in normal high school and a lot of stuff i learned up there, I didn’t think I could use for what I want to do.

Hands on Learning

But now Randy gets to go out into the real world twice a week to intern at a guitar shop.  He is also going to start interning at a radio station sometime soon.

The Big Picture High School emphasizes hands on learning through an internship on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week.

This program is a way for at-risk students to know that education can be fun too.

“Drop out rates are abysmal.  It hurts to watch kids crumble and become ignored and become statistics, and we want to fight against the statistics,” stated Big Picture advisor Ken Keech.

Big Picture has been a way for kids to stay in school, graduate, and go to college.  Something they may not have been able to do without this program.