Gilbert staff outline Mesquite High "ASU experience" amendment to instructional-time model

At a June 10 public hearing, Gilbert Public Schools officials described the Mesquite ASU Experience — an amendment to the district’s instructional-time model that will let a small cohort of Mesquite High School juniors and seniors attend in-person Arizona State University Polytechnic classes part-time while remaining enrolled at Mesquite.

District staff said the program will begin as a limited pilot and emphasized logistics: students will start their mornings at Mesquite, ride district transportation to ASU Polytechnic, attend university courses in the morning and return to Mesquite for lunch and additional classes and supports. Staff said the district will submit an Instructional Time Model (ITM) description to the Arizona Department of Education and return to the governing board with additional implementation details on June 24.

District leaders said the Mesquite ASU Experience uses a multi-campus instruction model that mixes in-person university classes, on-campus high school instruction and online ‘‘Universal Learning Courses’’ (ULCs) through ASU. Marguerite Brown, assistant principal at Mesquite High School, told the board students will follow ASU’s class schedule (Monday/Wednesday/Friday and Tuesday/Thursday patterns) and attend roughly 9 credit hours of in-person ASU courses plus ULCs; if students begin the…