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Alliance Academy begins construction in Cumming
New high school to open fall 2018
2PRINT-under-the-tent WEB

CUMMING -- The construction of the Alliance Academy for Innovation of Cumming-Forsyth County is officially underway, marked by a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday afternoon.

Collaboration was the theme of the afternoon’s event, which highlighted the academy’s partnerships with the Forsyth County Board of Education, Public Facilities Authority, City of Cumming, Forsyth County government, Lanier Technical College, the University of North Georgia and Junior Achievement.

The career and workforce development campus – an alternative public high school – is expected to open in August 2018 and will provide secondary, post-secondary and continuing education for students, organizations, small businesses and corporations, along with financial literacy and business ethics training for middle and high school students.

It will be the county’s eighth public high school, adding to the five brick-and-mortar campuses already in existence and the Forsyth Virtual Academy. Denmark High School is also expected to open in fall 2018 after breaking ground earlier this year.

In part, the academy is modeled after the Junior Achievement Discovery Center of Atlanta, an alternative school that focuses on financial literacy, career readiness and “fostering the entrepreneurial spirit.”

“[Alliance] will not be a traditional high school campus like others, but a true learning collaborative that the vision asked us to establish by 2030,” said Valery Lowe, director of workforce development for FCS. “We’ll have a school of criminal justice, a school of energy and aviation, a school of healthcare and first responders, a school of hospitality and design and a school of mechatronics and logistics.”

Ten years ago, the Cumming-Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with FCS, created Vision 2030: a collaborative initiative that “supports the lifelong educational needs of Cumming [and] Forsyth County.”

The partnership’s goal was to develop a plan for recruiting, educating, training and retaining a future-oriented workforce.

Alliance Academy does just that.

The academy’s curriculum was developed with high-demand, high-growth, high-wage careers in mind, while also avoiding duplicating existing career pathways at other district high schools.

Alliance Academy’s schools will allow “students to work in simulated environments of business/industry and earn industry credentials and college credit.”

“We cannot, probably, begin to understand the amount of interactions that we will have over time,” said Bonita Jacobs, president of the University of North Georgia. “When you have a program that is this innovative and you have partners who will work with this, those ideas will flow.”

Forsyth County Schools Superintendent Jeff Bearden said the ideas are already flowing.

“I have never worked in a school system or a community where there’s been such great synergy between K-12 and post-secondary education,” he said. “This facility is not only going to serve our students in Forsyth County Schools, but eventually prepare these students to move on to the University of North Georgia and Lanier Tech.”

Lambert High School Assistant Principal Brandi Cannizzaro was recently named Alliance’s principal.

Her position will take effect July 1, 2017.