KUNA — Construction at Swan Falls High School is underway, and the district is preparing to welcome 500 kids, but it’s getting harder to determine what’s next when graduation approaches.
“our tracking of students a Kuna High School, and really nationally, is that the people that enroll in 4-year and 2-year traditional college programs, it’s dropped for us, its dropped nationally,’ said Kuna School District director of human resources David Reinhart.
From 2010 to 2017, the percentage of Kuna students who enrolled in a university program dropped from 50% to 42%; a decrease that follows a national trend. Across the states, enrollment decreased by 7 percent for 4-year and 2-year public universities.
“We’ve begun to expand our definition of what 'future ready’ means for our students, it doesn’t just mean 4-year or 2-year colleges, those are great for some students, but not for everyone,” said Reinhart.
One way the district is helping get their students 'future ready’ is implementing a national program, called avid, at Ross Elementary. It helps teachers create lesson plans, training and other resources to get kids thinking about college at a younger age.
“Schools such as Vallivue have embraced it fully, we’ve begun to embrace it,” said Reinhart.
The other approach is Swan Falls. The career technical education planned for this space gives students an opportunity to find out what they want their future to look like, whether it’s a public university or not.
