Promoting Equity
A foundational goal of the Governor’s School for Science and Technology is to promote equitable access to the program to students from all race/ethnicities and income levels. We accomplish this in several ways:
- Utilizing inclusive strategies for recruitment and admission of students
Our Prospective Student Pipeline (PSP) – which disseminates information about the program through an online newsletter, videos, web documents, and virtual parent information sessions – is open to all families. Any interested parent can sign up on our website.
- Utilizing mastery placement and instructional differentiation in math courses
Once students are accepted to the school, they engage in an online summer software program (ALEKS) to help us identify their best math placement – and to provide an adaptive instructional package that helps them identify and address any areas of weakness prior to beginning their first classes here.
- Promoting student success through school-wide support strategies
The end goal of promoting equity at Governor’s School is not mere enrollment of a diverse group of students, but success for all students. To that end, we’ve developed a program, Student Instructional Teams (SIT) that helps us to quickly identify students who are struggling and engage all of the student’s teachers, plus parents, in developing strategies to address whatever difficulties the student is facing.
- Developing virtual Capstone opportunities
All seniors engage in one or more Capstone projects, choosing from a range of options in traditional lab research, collaboration with local professionals in their ongoing work, and group projects in the areas of engineering, modeling, robotics, or even developing a new product. In order that all students can participate in this program, regardless of access to independent transportation to a mentorship site, Governor’s School has developed multiple opportunities for virtual participation.