It’s a brilliant September morning in the rhododendron garden of Ruston’s Point Defiance Park. Sunlight filters through towering trees, creating dappled patterns on the forest floor. A spider web stretched between branches sparkles in the filtered light.

Students from the Science and Math Institute (SAMI), the Tacoma School District’s newest alternative high school, are there to record the scene just steps from their portable classroom doors.

They’ll draw it, dissect it, discuss it and – teachers hope – absorb lessons from across several academic disciplines, from language arts to geometry to science.

The teachers call the outing an “applications and adventures” exercise. Kids have shortened it to “A & A.”

“You pick a scene and observe the area,” student Kiah Lee explained. “Then I see what connections I can make.”

Students talk about the geometry of the spider web, their scientific observations of the sunlit scene and their sketches. Lee will apply the lessons to math, science and design class.

“I’m doing all three of my classes at once,” she said.

Lee is one of 138 students – all freshmen – who are helping to launch the new school, which opened this year in portable buildings located near the entrance to Point Defiance Park. Teachers plan frequent visits to the 702-acre park’s forest and its saltwater beaches, as well as the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.

THE SOTA MODEL

SAMI uses some of the same ideas that defined Tacoma’s School of the Arts when it opened in 2001: reel kids in with specialized classes that appeal to their interests, use community resources, help kids understand the connections between disciplines, keep the student body small and build a sense of community.

Jon Ketler was the founding principal at SOTA, and this year, he’s serving as co-director at both SAMI and SOTA. Michael Knuckles is his co-director at SAMI.

“The goal is to create a school of 400 to 500 students,” Ketler said, noting that future SAMI students can enter only as freshmen.

Last year, SOTA had 451 students, while the city’s five comprehensive high schools ranged in size from nearly 1,300 at Foss and Wilson, to just under 2,000 at Stadium.

SAMI’s small size gives teachers an opportunity to know students and let them build relationships with staff and each other, he said. He also believes a smaller school gives teachers greater opportunities to work across disciplines.

Amy Hawthorne teaches humanities at SAMI. She said lessons about Native American history also will touch on the role the environment played in their lives.

“We’re trying to get kids to look past face value and the obvious,” she said.

Johnny Devine taught science and math at SOTA for three years before moving to SAMI. He’s one of three SOTA teachers who switched to SAMI – a bit of a sore point with some SOTA parents who regret losing good teachers to the new endeavor.

But Devine said that teaching at SOTA helped him understand interdisciplinary instruction.

“I’m a science and math person, but I like to think there’s a Renaissance edge to me,” he said. His goal is to help kids break out of seeing education as something that’s compartmentalized by subject.

The SAMI experience is different from a large comprehensive high school in other ways, too.

School hours vary from the city’s larger high schools. On most days, SAMI kids start at 8:45 a.m. and the day ends at 4 p.m. Students at the city’s five comprehensive high schools begin their day at 7:35 a.m. and end it at 2:05 p.m.

There’s no cafeteria at SAMI. Students bring their lunch or choose from sandwiches or other sack-lunch items prepared at nearby Truman Middle School.

SAMI students say they’re happy that their school is different.

“I wasn’t a very traditional person,” said Lee, who wants to be a forensic anthropologist some day.

She attended Bryant Montessori School last year for eighth grade. She loved the spontaneity she found there, and hopes for more of the same at SAMI.

Rubin Ortiz, a Giaudrone Middle School graduate who wants to be a pediatrician, says he, too, was searching for something different.

“I think it will open more doors for me,” he said.

Alexis Adams, an eighth grader at Mason Middle School last year, was drawn to SAMI’s academics.

“I love science and math,” she said. While leaving her old friends at Mason was hard, she likes the new friends she’s made at SAMI.

Students agree you don’t have to be a brainiac to succeed at SAMI.

“Just interested,” said Steven Quick, another Giaudrone alum.

“I learn a lot by being hands-on,” he said. “It’s cool that we’ll be able to work in the park and in the zoo.”

Sarah Becker, a Hunt Middle School graduate who wants to be a veterinarian, likes being able to study outdoors.

“I like being outside, rather than being cooped up in a classroom,” she said.

Students will get plenty of outdoor time – rain or shine, say teachers. The school has a set of boots and rain coats for students who don’t bring their own.

BREAKING GROUND

Tacoma is one of few large school districts in the Puget Sound region to offer a separate science and math high school. There’s nothing like it in the Kent, Lake Washington or Bellevue school districts, according to officials in those systems.

Federal Way’s Technology Access Foundation Academy, which emphasizes a rigorous science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curriculum and college preparation for sixth through 12th graders, is in its second year. Seattle plans to open a STEM high school in 2010.

Tacoma’s new venture has already attracted attention outside the region. Next week, members of Advance Innovative Education, a Louisiana nonprofit group that promotes educational change, will visit SAMI to gather ideas.

SAMI cost the Tacoma School District an estimated $1.45 million to build, and just over $800,00 to staff with teachers and administrators, according to district budget administrators.

Just over 300 Tacoma eighth graders applied to attend SAMI last year; 60 dropped out of the selection process and 138 were chosen to become the first freshman class.

Students were chosen through a lottery system based on each middle school’s population; more names were drawn from the larger middle schools than the smaller ones.

“The goal was to be representative of Tacoma,” Ketler said.

The pioneers of SAMI’s class of 2013 say they don’t mind the fact that there are no upperclassmen. It means they’ll never have to endure freshman hazing – they will always be the oldest and the cool kids.

Although SAMI has no sports teams, students are eligible to participate at the city’s larger high schools.

And SAMI kids relish their ground-floor role in starting a new school.

Said Ortiz: “The United States of America started with 13 colonies breaking away from the British people. That’s what we’re doing. We’re breaking away.”

Debbie Cafazzo: 253-597-8635

debbie.cafazzo@thenewstribune.com

DEMOGRAPHICS AT A GLANCE

SAMIDistrict as a whole

White students46%49%

Black students3123

Hispanic students1013

Low-income students*5658

*Eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches