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The new Warrior NexTech Academy for middle schoolers was unveiled at the February 26 Board of Education meeting.
The program is designed as a “school-within-a-school,” with students from both the Hamilton Street and Sampson G. Smith middle school campuses eligible to participate, although it will be housed at Hamilton Street.
While they will have their own curriculum during the day, Academy students will join their peers for general subjects, such as physical education, the Board was told.
The Academy was introduced to the Board by its co-coordinators, Eric Siegal, the District’s Supervisor of Science, Work-Based Learning, and Amy Arsiwala, the District’s Supervisor of Instructional Technology.
“Here’s the elevator pitch,” Siegal told the Board. “It’s a middle school STEM academy that focuses on project-based learning and immersive technology and career readiness.”
“Or said another way, if yours is the child who would take apart an appliance in your house to see what the inside looks like, if they’re interested and fascinated by AI encoding on a small cell phone, and how it can seemingly send a signal around the world, this may be something new for you to consider,” he said.
The Academy is scheduled to begin operation in the 2026-27 school year.
Fifth-grade students who are interested in the program will fill out Google forms or paper forms, which will be sent home with them, Arsiwala said. The forms will then be reviewed to see if they meet certain criteria.
After that, the culled applications will be put into a lottery, from which 75 students will be picked.
Siegal said the plan is to keep the Academy size at 75 students for next year’s 6th Grade, and then keep it at that limit as the program spreads to the 7th and 8th grades. He said they hope to one day expand the Academy to Franklin High School.
“Every 5th Grade student will hear directly from Amy and me in seven 5th Grade assemblies across the district about exactly what this is and what it means,” Siegal said. “And then we schedule a parent night on March 11th, which will be advertised on the website.”
“So what does it mean to be in the academy model? Your home school becomes Hamilton Street,” Siegal said. “All academy students leave us in the morning to Hamilton Street and will return to you in the afternoon from Hamilton Street. The four core courses, math, ELA, science, and social studies, will have embedded in them extras, lessons from Intel, a technology company that teaches technology.”
“But even if you’re in the Academy, you still have access to every elective that any other student has the ability to take,” he said. “And although the core courses will be with only other Academy students, the students will be mixed in with their peers for lunch, gym, and the other elements.”
Somerset-based SHI International is partnering with the District on the Academy, Arsiwala said. She said the schools Superintendent had the idea to approach SHI, and did.
“Not only Eric and myself, but all the colleagues, our administrative team were so excited about it,” she said.
“We were fortunate that with our partnership with SHI that they were able to connect us with Intel,” she said. “And Intel provides us with Intel skills for innovation lessons. So it’s a huge library of lessons that are core subject matter that tie in, as Eric had mentioned, the technology skills and computer science skills embedded into those lessons.”
“And these lessons are used globally, which is exciting,” she said. “And then alongside that, we’re working on building an immersive lab where the students can actually work with these lessons and build project-based skills and just create and build.”
“So there’s a lot of that real-world application, but also problem-solving,” Arsiwala said. “And then alongside that, offering in this immersive lab those cutting-edge technologies such as the VR glasses, drones, 3D printing, and then new iMacs.”
Siegal said that middle school staff have been introduced to the Academy.
“We have a curriculum development team already in progress,” he said.
The idea was warmly received by Board members.
“This is truly amazing,” Board member Bill Grippo said. “And the public, the people who question our school system and go on Facebook and say, I don’t know if I should send my kid to Franklin, blah, blah, blah, all that nonsense, they need to learn about this.”
“This is what we need to show people, that there’s an opportunity for gifted and kids that really want to challenge themselves,” he said.
“Future scientists, astronauts, pilots, people like that are going to come out of this program,” Grippo said. “Because they’re going to be inspiring. That’s what we’re here for. That’s why we’re on the board of ed, and you do what you do.”
“I think this is a wonderful initiative,” Board member Meher Pervaaz-Rafiq said. “And, you know, it’s planting the seed for those students that are interested, and just to flourish. So, yeah, looking forward to it.”
“Thank you for putting all this together,” Board member Clara Wilson said. “It’s a great opportunity, and I know some students are very excited to participate in it.”
“Like Bill said, you are challenging and moving this district forward,” BOard president Dr. Dennis Hopkins said.
Ravally said that Arsiwala and Segal came to him to volunteer to lead the Academy project.
“And believe me, they’re busy people,” he said. “We’re a big district, and they’re both K-12 supervisors. And they have staff, and they have observations, and they have all the other things.”
“But they came to us and took this on,” he said. “And it’s been yeoman’s work. It’s been a big lift.”
“We are so far down the road thanks to your leadership that I wanted to make sure the world knew that a lot of what you saw tonight, and there’s much more, by the way,” Ravally said. “This is just what they could describe in a short period of time. There is a lot of thought and effort that went into this, and that took good leadership, and you guys did a great job.”
“And I know there’s more to come, so thank you,” he said.
“It was kind of a big, grand idea in the summer that we really needed to hone and shape, and you guys have really done that,” said Dan Loughran, the District’s Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum. “So thank you so much.”
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