Tuesday, Feb. 07, 2012

Enloe students fashion their futures

New design-based career academy targets student engagement, retention

A new Enloe High School career academy teaches students to fashion a garment and lay out a building interior – but they must be able to market their designs to make the grade.

Launched at the start of this school year, the Design and Merchandising Technologies Academy targets students whose interests lie outside conventional extracurriculars such as athletics or theater, the ones not captivated by Enloe’s existing medical bioscience academy.

It’s a way to keep them engaged in school and on track to graduation.

“This is not about students becoming professional designers when they come out,” said academy coordinator Judy Smith. “It’s a way to provide a connection in an interest area that also connects them to their classmates and to the school.”

Academies provide a focus that improves achievement across all disciplines, Smith said. The consistent peer and teacher connections also promote attendance and participation.

The idea for Enloe’s latest effort came to former principal Beth Cochran in 2009, after she noticed that the school’s black and low-income students with lower test scores tended to connect well in the school’s existing fashion and design courses. Those same students wouldn’t necessarily choose to participate in athletics or arts programs.

“We were trying to find something to fill a different niche,” said Cochran, now the senior director of magnet programs for the Wake district.

Enloe’s new program has 32 ninth through 11th graders. That number will double next year when recruitment expands, Smith said.

To sign up, students choose between the interior design track and the fashion track.

Students who enroll hoping to become the next Sean John or Michael Kors are soon surprised, said DeAngelo Hall, business and marketing instructor. The focus is on practical skills such as marketing, sewing, computer-aided design software and the business side of the retail game – how to set a price and when to start a sale.

“They think they’re going to be designing clothes, then they get in here and they’re learning more about how to make money from marketing their product,” Hall said. “A lot of kids see Sean John and they don’t understand there are other skills at work there.”

Field trips, job shadowing and a required internship senior year ensure that students see how these skills apply to the job market. The advisory board of area design and merchandising professionals includes representatives from Belk and the N.C. State University School of Textiles, among others.

“Anything we can do to get them excited about school is going to help with test scores,” Smith said. “If they have peers who are focused, it will sharpen their focus.”