Notes from Meeting with Innovations VP Melissa Fleming

Since not everyone was able to go to the meeting with Melissa Fleming of Innovations High School, I am posting the notes that I took while we talked with her about our project.

• Arts integration in their Core classes (math, science, english, history)
• Budget was cut because of the move to the new building, so arts integration was cut, this is one reason why Melissa was interested in our project
• Melissa thought having the same group of students over the course of the project would work best
• Students range from the ages 16-20 and come from various CPS high schools. The most common reason for students to move to IHS is for bad attendance records (can be related to family, sickness, work)  but there are also students that are teen parents or engaged in bad behavior.
• Students tend to come into IHS with a 7th grade reading level and 6th grade math level. They are lucky if they are able to get students up to 8th grade levels when they graduate.
• Part of their mission is for students to have goals/careers in mind
• Students like anything hands-on, out of the school building, and trying new things
• They have only had one or two field trips to the Art Institute, so its likely most students have not been to the Art Institute
• They are liberal about censorship, "students have pretty much seen everything," just no cuss words in artwork
• Would like digital art because they are trying to move towards being innovative (as their school name suggests) but anything is great
• Their arts integration is more about getting concepts not about the product
• They have one lab with Macs but that lab is usually occupied, they have another lab with PCs so we have to be able to work on the digital art on PCs and with free programs they can use
• Melissa mentioned IHS is all about giving the students choices
• We are most likely (but now it is confirmed) working with the journalism class, they have not done any form of photojournalism so that can be something we consider to integrate
• What cameras are allowed in the museum?
• We can look at the teacher's curriculum we are working with so we can make additional connections to her lessons
• There will be about 25 students in the group we work with, but attendance is a big problem for them so there might be lots of absences 

- Paola