With the opening of the new Innovation Campus this year, many may wonder what life is like at the new extension.
English teacher Sejee Kim is in her 6th year of working for MUSD and moved from the main MHS campus to the extension when it opened this year, Kim said.
Regarding what motivated her to teach at the extension, Kim said, “I realized that a lot of the goals of this campus are really closely aligned with my personal goals of trying to provide equitable education and increasing underrepresented populations in our workforce.”
She also wanted an opportunity to do something new, Kim said.
“I’d already been teaching at MHS for five years, and everything was stable, but I wanted to challenge myself,” Kim said.
Kim believes the student environment at the extension is very different from the environment at the main campus, she said.
“For one, just the fact that it’s a smaller school already makes the environment more close,” Kim said. “Everyone is like a friendly, familiar face to each other.”
Kim’s teaching standards are the same, but she can do more creative things because of the extra resources teachers have at the extension, Kim said.
“For example, if I wanted them to write a personal narrative, instead of just having them write that down, I can also have them record a podcast of a video clip,” Kim said. “There’s access to the district’s recording studio. The kids all have Macbooks so they have better software. The technology and resources here just lend better to being able to do more things.”
Kim is looking forward to having a fully fundraised trip to Japan in 2026, she said.
“We want to fundraise all of it so that way kids that can’t afford to go to Japan or travel abroad can go.”
Some of the students’ projects are tied to fundraising events, Kim said.
“For example, some of them are designing merch, designing logos that can be put on merch, or just designing websites,” Kim said.
Math teacher Mimi Nguyen taught at the MHS main campus for five years before teaching at the extension, Nguyen said.
“When I was a part of the planning process and saw how (the planning committee) was building out the school, I was really interested in it, so that’s why I volunteered to come over here,” Nguyen said.
The MHS Innovation Campus Extension extension uses a block schedule, where students take their 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th periods on Monday and Wednesday and 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 7th periods on Tuesday and Thursday, Nguyen said. Friday is the extension’s minimum day and students attend periods one through six, she added.
“For the most part, I do like the bigger blocks of time, (…)” Nguyen said. “The main adjustment I’ve made is, instead of giving students homework and not being sure whether they did it on their own or not, this is the time that I’ll give them in class to actually work on the assignments, and I could just help them immediately.”
Nguyen is trying different teaching methods at the extension, she said. She is trying to assign more projects that she did not have time to develop or execute on the main campus, she added.
“I definitely do less homework and more work in class to make sure that they (students) actually are developing that proficiency,” Nguyen said.
History teacher Sherilyn Roy taught at the main campus for two years before moving to the extension, Roy said.
“I’m still doing (teaching) the same things,” Roy said. “The only new class for me is ethnic studies, but I believe at MHS they’re also doing (requiring) ethnic studies.”
The class sizes at the extension are small, Roy said. Her largest class has 22 students and her smallest class, ethnic studies, has three students, she added.
“I’m sure that next year when there’s more of an interest, we’ll get more and more people to join,” Roy said.
A big difference between the main campus and the extension is that the extension has a beautiful STEAM lab that is being set up, Roy said.
“We have a ton of 3D printers and a lot of machines that the kids can use,” Roy said.
Roy thinks that a lot of people are hesitant to come to the extension because it’s brand new, she said.
“And I think everyone here took a leap of faith in us,” Roy said. “ They see that the school is still running, nothing is on fire. So a lot of parents in the community are like, ‘Ok, we can breathe.’ Everything was going to be okay.”