Demographics
Conrad Schools of Science (CSS) is a science/biotechnology magnet school serving almost 1300 students in grades 6 – 12. It is considered an urban school, situated on the outskirts of the most populated city in the state of Delaware, Wilmington that is well known for its violence rates. CSS students come from all over our state’s largest county, New Castle. The school’s increasing popularity is obvious as many families complete the Choice application process seeking admission to our school. At the high school level, students can choose to focus on a variety of learning “strands” such as biotechnology, physical therapy/athletic healthcare, biomedical science, animal science, and computer science. Our high school is the only one in the state that is not a vocational-technology school to offer a Delaware Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program.
Additionally, a variety of Advanced Placement (AP) courses are offered as well as multiple courses that are in conjunction with our local community college and university. I am the teacher of one of these courses, Sociology. This dual-enrollment course in which students (mostly seniors) are enrolled at the local community college and receive credit from that institution upon successful completion of the course with me on the high school campus. Moreover, it is a distance-learning course in that some of my students are at my school while others are at two sister schools in our district. The course happens real-time – at the three different locations – same teacher (me!), curriculum, activities, etc. This will be my sixth year teaching in this manner. I am continuing to try to master this type of teaching/learning environment as well as the content that I had not interacted with in many, many years. This year we are switching learning management systems so that will be something to get used to for both my students and myself.
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