Metro School students forming a human bar chart
Chemistry class for high school students
Groundbreaking for the Schoenbaum Family Center and Weinland Park Elementary School
Outreach and Engagement Awards
Engaged Partners—Improving the Lives of Children and Youth —2007 North Central Regional Winner
The Ohio State University is forging meaningful and creative collaborations to prepare young people for success. These partnerships will make Ohio State the first university in the nation to establish a public/private partnership model supporting lab schools covering infancy through grade 12.
OSU collaborated in the development of the new Metro School with Battelle Institute and the Franklin County Educational Council, which includes Columbus Public Schools and 15 suburban school districts. An initial $200,000 planning grant funded by the Gates Foundation facilitated the development of the concept. The Colleges of Education and Human Ecology (EHE), Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MAPS), and Biological Sciences collaborated in the development of the academic program. Metro School is a small high school designed as an incubator for advancing math, science and technology education. The school was up and running less than a year from the time that the commitment was articulated. Community internships for students are provided by Battelle, Ohio State, COSI, The Columbus Museum of Art, WOSU, and Wexner Center.
Less than a year after the opening of Metro High School, Battelle announced a $4 million dollar gift establishing the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy housed at Ohio State’s John Glenn School of Public Affairs. The Center brings higher education together with leaders in K-12 education, business, technology and government to develop policies and practices increasing the number of students prepared to become leaders in STEM fields. Carl Kort, Battelle CEO sees this effort as “improving the pipeline of talented scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians for the future competitiveness of the region and the world.” Campus partners include MAPS, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Education and Human Ecology.
Another part of this model is the Schoenbaum Family Center and Weinland Park Elementary School at Weinland Park, an economically challenged area east of campus, where OSU has build a $10 million child development lab school and Columbus Public Schools built a new elementary school. Lab school teachers and Columbus Public teachers jointly plan curricula. The City of Columbus helped assemble the land and is reconfiguring a park to provide green space and recreation areas. The Colleges of Social Work, Medicine, and Public Health will offer programs and the EHE facility features a family advocacy office, onsite health center, and facilities for teaching nutrition to families while providing research opportunities for faculty and students. A private donor provided $2.5 million to build the lab school, alumni and other donors added their contributions. Proctor & Gamble and JPMorgan Chase lead corporate foundation donors with $1 million each. Discussions around establishing a middle school are now underway.
None of these collaborative projects has been easy. “Playing well with others is not play at all; it is hard work,” reports David Andrews, Dean of the College of Education and Human Ecology, who helped facilitate the projects. “Solitary play is simple and offers complete control. Unfortunately, it does not offer solutions to complex problems,” which is the goal of OSU’s engaged partners working to improve the lives of children and youth.
