A north-metro-area school district hopes a gleaming — but controversial — new high school with a different approach to teaching will help bring it out of the academic doldrums.

Adams County School District 50 opens the doors to Westminster High School on Aug. 30, drawing students from the now-closed Ranum High and the old Westminster High. The original Westy was razed to make way for the new high school. Ranum was converted into a middle school.

Once inside, students will head off to one of five career academies of their choosing. The academies will include smaller classes and more one- on-one instruction.

“The teachers, by being with the students more, will be able to say, ‘I really know you well, and I know you can do better,’ ” Principal Pat Sanchez said.

The academies — health and biomedical; architecture, construction and engineering; global business; visual and performing arts; and liberal arts, humanities and education — also will emphasize more real-world problem-solving.

“It’s all project-based and requires more collaboration, just like on the outside,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez oversaw a similar academy approach at Denver West High School, where test scores began to climb the third year after the academies were introduced, he said.

Sanchez is confident the academies will produce the same results in Westminster, where Colorado Student Assessment Program test scores this year dropped in nearly every grade.

“The traditional high-school approach is simply not working,” San chez said, “and at some point I think the district decided, ‘What do we have to lose by trying it?’ ”

The 375,000-square-foot school includes an 850-seat auditorium, with acoustics that rival the Temple Buell Theatre, and a shiny new gym, a running track and plenty of room to accommodate traditional clubs and other extracurricular activities.

Incoming senior Ed Morales, one of an estimated 2,300 students enrolled this year, said the new Westy’s looks and career academies have sparked high interest.

“A lot of people are actually excited about coming to school,” he said. “They are talking about it a lot.”

Rumors that former Ranum and Westminster students wouldn’t get along under the same roof are unfounded, he said.

“There was talk of a lot of fights, but that’s turned out OK,” Morales said.

He has been leading tours for incoming students from both schools.

Some residents see the school as a waste of a $98.6 million bond issue that passed in 2006.

About $90 million of the bond was used to build the school, which has a capacity of nearly 3,000 students. Not nearly enough was left over for other schools with critical needs, said Westminster resident and former City Manager Bill Christopher.

“I think the clear public sentiment is that we spent way too much on the high school and oversized it,” he said.

Officials, he said, ignored the fact that enrollment in the district has been steadily declining.

“I don’t think the residents, based on what happened here, will ever vote again for another school bond issue,” Christopher said.

District officials said that in time, the school will fill to capacity, in part from marketing the school to parents in surrounding districts.

“It’s our strong belief that our career-academy model will attract students outside our boundaries to ‘choice in’ to WHS,” district spokesman Jason Kosena said.

-Monte Whaley

More from Mile High Mamas

• Jeffco school becomes model for teaching kids with autism
• Helping students, one school and one teacher at a time
• Mile High Mamas Bubble Over With Fun

Mile High Mamas Recommends

• The Mile High Makeout: From Austria with love  (Reverb)
• The Mile High Makeout: Making out with new technology  (Reverb)
• The Mile High Makeout: Natural Selection grows up with new album  (Reverb)

Mile High Mamas Marketplace

• The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child At a Time  (Amazon | Books)
• Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board  (Amazon | Toys, Kids & Baby)

Ask Mile High Mamas To Recommend Your Posts