programs

The BHS 21st Century Fund provides funding for model programs that are designed to improve academic achievement for all students. Hundreds of students and teachers benefit from our programs each year. In addition to the quantitative and qualitative measures of the effectiveness of a 21st Century Fund program, we view adoption of the initiative into the high school’s operating budget as a key indicator of success. It is worth noting that of the seven model programs initiated by the organization in its early years, five have been wholly or largely absorbed into the school’s budget.

New Programs for the 2008-2009 School Year

Arts Infusion
Enhanced Tutorial
Ithaka Project
Political Literacy

Other Programs

Social Justice Leadership Program is a multi-year, action-oriented experience that fosters student citizenship by incorporating humility, global awareness and social responsibility through instruction, group activities and volunteering in a local organization. Students develop a global perspective of the world and learn the complexities of working collectively to become an agent of change.

Engineering By Design is a year-long, project-based course that exposes 12th graders to the fundamentals of engineering, including design and fabrication with the goal of increasing the numbers of students pursuing further study.  Across the country fewer college students are choosing majors in the sciences and engineering. This trend has risen to be a significant concern for the nation’s competitiveness in the global economy.

In the spring of 2006, in collaboration with Tufts University School of Engineering, a team of teachers from the BHS science department created an intensive curriculum that challenges students to identify problems and then to design, build and test solutions for them. Projects are interdisciplinary and draw from the fields of biomedical, chemical, civil, electrical, environmental, materials science, and mechanical engineering. Class sessions include building and programming robots, designing clean energy storage devices, and modeling real-time biosensors. Teams of students collaborate on projects, taking their ideas from abstraction, to working prototypes, to a finished product for a specific audience. In addition, students learn about current breakthroughs in biomedical engineering as well as receive an overview of the great accomplishments and failures in engineering throughout history. Twenty-eight students were enrolled in the course’s inaugural year. For the second year offering this course, 2007-2008, due to its great popularity and overwhelming student demand,  two sections are being offered with a total of 60 students participating, including 23 female students.

Family Partnership seeks to improve the performance of children ranked in the lowest academic quartile by encouraging their parents’ active involvement and removing barriers for participation. The majority of students’ waking hours are spent outside of the classroom. External factors play a significant role in determining students’ success in school. Substantial research has proven that parents of high-achieving students are actively engaged in their children’s academic life.  In early 2007, 16 freshmen and their parents were invited to participate in the program which includes mentors for students and support groups for parents. As students, parents, teachers and the program’s coordinators all play a crucial role in a student’s success, each agree to sign a contract as well. Goals for the program are measurable academic improvement for participating students and to expand the program to include more families in subsequent years.

The Freshman Center provides personalized, special assistance for freshmen who are not reaching their full potential and can benefit from personal attention from teachers during the regular course of the school day to improve their overall academic performance as well as help with homework and preparation for tests. Simply put, The Freshman Center helps to settle “new-school-jitters” and makes a big school feel like a small one.

The Freshman Center sprang from our successful, now school-wide, Tutorial Program hailed by a team from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education as an innovative and an impressive alternative to traditional special education programs for many students. Like the Tutorial Program, the Freshman Center Tutorial Program has two teachers (one with a background in the humanities, one with a background in math and science) work with ten freshman four times a week during the school day providing content support for ninth graders. Interpersonal connections make all the difference to these students’ academic performance and success in high school.

The Teachers Mentoring Teachers Program helps to recruit and retain a world-class faculty at Brookline High for the next generation of graduates through a comprehensive induction and mentoring program. Every new teacher upon his or her arrival participates in a year-long series of seminars, networking events, and peer support that includes assignment of individual mentors, retreats and observation of master teachers.

The African-American Scholars Program at Brookline High School aspires to establish a corps of high-achieving students of color to serve as academic role models for other African-American students, as well as the entire student body. Students with a GPA of 2.7 or above are matched with a mentor and participate in a year-long series of activities designed to encourage academic success. Since its creation in January 2000, the Program has evolved from mentoring a dozen juniors to a comprehensive, 4-year program for more than seventy students.

The Good Citizen in a Good Society Senior Seminar is a special initiative developed in collaboration with Facing History and Ourselves. An elective seminar for seniors the program seeks to promote greater awareness of social justice and the responsibilities of democratic citizenship. Team taught by English and social studies teachers, readings, discussions and individual projects incorporating participatory democracy are part of this life-changing course. Senior projects have included advocating the use of alternative fuel sources, improving drug abstinence education and embracing diversity in the high school.