In mid-July, Carencro High School's Academy of Information Technology Director Kit Becnel and Co-Director Joel Hilbun traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the National Academy Foundation Summer Conference workshops and present technology created by their students.
At the conference, Becnel and Hilbun were awarded the Aldo Propone Award for Leadership in Academy Performance, which recognizes excellence among schools considered to be on the cutting edge of high school curriculum reform.
Initially, the idea to create the Academy of Information Technology -- a school within a school -- for each Lafayette Parish high school was recommended by Burnell Lemoine, the current acting superintendent of Lafayette Parish, and Burnell Lejeun, career and technical education instructional supervisor.
"We'd been looking at creating academies in our schools for years," says Lemoine. "Both Kit and Joel had a background and interest in technology, so that's why we approached them about starting an information technology academy at Carencro. And today it's terrific to see the amount of work they've done. The potential for their students and this community is incredible."
"Our initial challenge," says Becnel, "is that we had to sit down and write a framework for something we were unfamiliar with. The NAF gave us guidelines, but they want you to create your own unique program. We had to envision what we wanted -- which books, software, hardware, how do we let people know about it, and how to get the funding. There were many dedicated hours asking lots of questions. We started from ground zero in fall of 2002."
Even with the encouragement of the NAF, it took a full year for Becnel and Hilbun to put together what they believed would be a successful technology academy program that would be fully funded, meet all NAF curriculum requirements, and be supported by parents and the local business community.
As a direct result of their hard work, the first 75 freshman Academy of Information Technology students who launched the program in the fall of 2003, will graduate in the spring of 2008. These initial 75 have experienced what has become a celebrated odyssey toward fulfilling a challenging four-year program in the study of networking, computer hardware, digital media, programming, database and web design.
With their first graduating class scheduled to be released into the competitive world of information technology this spring, Becnel and Hilbun plan to offer more certification opportunities that will allow their students to choose a profitable path to success right out of high school.
"Our emphasis this year," says Hilbun, "will be more industry-based certification opportunities so they can go straight into industry work, or to higher education. They will have the option. We want them to be able to use what they know to start earning money right out of high school." 6
