Officials, board members get a look at how the program is faring in its first year

The members of the Austin Public Schools Board met Monday afternoon to tour the Pi Academy at Southgate Elementary School, which is in its first year.

“What you see here isn’t the end product, it’s the beginning,” Superintendent David Krenz said about the academy.

Pi Academy, or Personalized Instruction Academy, which is located at Southgate Elementary School, has students from the entire district, grades first through fourth, learning in the same class. Two first-graders, eight second-graders, four third-graders and five fourth-graders will have lessons based on skill level versus grade level. The top 10 percent of students were invited last year based upon data from reading, math and the cognitive abilities tests, and chose whether to attend. The ungraded environment is based more on where the students are in terms of skill level.

The six board members who toured the class got the chance to ask questions and learn about the students’ routine.

They also got the chance to interact with the 19 students in the program as they tested out bridges they built by putting weight on them.

Mary Jane Kestner was excited about students of different ages learning together.

“I think it’s always good when kids are learning from one another; the different ages, they have different perspectives, they see things differently,” Kestner said.

Pi Academy teacher Karla Carroll was also excited about different age groups coming together.

“The responses that I get from the younger students as opposed to the older students — they really play off each other and you can tell that they’re actually learning from each other,” Carroll said. “It’s not just [that] the older students are helping the younger students, they’re actually learning together.”

Krenz added that Austin Public Schools has already been trying to group students together by academic levels, and this is the next step of that initiative.

Kestner hopes to see more come from the program in the future.

“It’s a nice beginning and our district is brave to try something [new],” she said.

Board member Don Fox was excited about the technologies students get to use in the class. He recalled seeing a robot when he was in school and thought it was amazing, and said today’s technology is much more advanced.

“This is what it’s all about for kids who are anxious to learn, and they are anxious to learn today,” Fox said.

He was also excited that the program deals with students of different ages.

“This is maybe the closest thing we’ve got to finding the maturity of a child, which I think is so vital,” Fox said, in terms of students finding out their full potential.

Board member Greg Larson was also excited about the class.

“I think it’s going to be exciting for these kids,” he said. “[It’s] just an opportunity for these kids to gain that much every year.”

Although the students will work together on academic subjects, Southgate Principal Edwina Harder said the school did not want them to be isolated.

“We didn’t want the kids just identified as Pi kids; these are Southgate Gators,” she said.

For classes such as physical education and music, students rejoin their grade-level peers. So a first-grader will take PE with other first-graders.

The class space, which was renovated in the summer, was designed for up to 50 students, so that in the future the program can grow.