PUBLISHED MONDAY, APRIL 5, 2004

'Project Liftoff' to launch careers

Program targets middle schoolers

Gina Pace@PensacolaNewsJournal.com

Denise Jamison thinks the education students receive in middle school can make or break their future.

"It's when you learn those key skills to help you achieve your potential," saidJamison, a gifted studies teacher at Warrington Middle School. "If we keep waiting for high school, for a lot of these students, it may be too late."

That's why Jamison is coordinating "Project Liftoff," a multidisciplinary program with curriculum focusing on health and medical science.

The program has the potential to offer Warrington comprehensive advanced classes. The school now offers advanced math and reading but doesn't have advanced science or social studies.

Jamison hopes the curriculum will show students what kind of career possibilities are open to them.

"Many students that we have (at Warrington) are on free or reduced lunch,"Jamison said. "Most of them don't have opportunities that affluent families may have. They are aware of what's out there from things like TV, but sometimes it's as if they are on the outside looking in."

Marilyn Lamborn, the director of the nursing program at the University of West Florida, said it is key for students to start preparing for a career in the health professions early on.

"The courses you take (in middle and high school) determine how you are going to do in college and where you are going to get accepted," Lamborn said.

Pensacola Junior College has agreed to partner with the program, said Jennifer Ponson, coordinator of student and program outreach for the Warrington campus.

"We can take them through the 22 different health programs we offer at our health campus," Ponson said. "We would want to give them a hands-on look at what it would be like to work in one of those fields."

Jamison is waiting for final approval from the Florida Department of Education for a $10,000 grant to set up the program.

It also is designed to have a space and astronomy component. The school applied for a NASA Explore Grant but was not selected. Jamison plans on offering the astronomy and space classes if she can find funding.

The program will be offered next year to incoming seventh- and eighth-graders.

Escambia School Board Chairwoman Cary Stidham said she hopes the new curriculum will attract students to Warrington.

"This will provide some avenue for middle school kids that they don't have right now so they can start planning for the future," Stidham said. "It's an exciting new concept that we can really get some people interested in."