ASPIRNAUT INITIATIVE GAINING ATTENTION

By Melody Moorehouse/GRANT COUNTY CORRESPONDENT

GRAPEVINE — The Aspirnaut Initiative, an innovative pilot program being tested in the Sheridan School District involving the concept of school buses as mobile classrooms, has been in place less than a year and is gaining national attention.

An NBC Nightly News crew was in Grant County for two days recently, along with Dr. Billy Hudson and Dr. Julie Hudson, the masterminds behind the project, to film footage for an upcoming “Making a Difference” segment. The feature on the Aspirnaut Initiative in the Sheridan district is scheduled to air on Friday on NBC Nightly News.

In addition to filming for the news segment, the Hudsons met with school district administrators and provided an update on the status of the program, which is being tested in the Grapevine community where Dr. Billy Hudson lived as a child.

The Hudsons are involved in the strategic planning for the project and have input each week in the day-to-day operations. They also make routine visits to the school district and Grant County. Dr. Billy Hudson is the Elliot V. Newman Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry and director of the Center for Matrix Biology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Dr. Julie Hudson is an associate professor of clinical anesthesiology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt’s Children’s Hospital.

The Aspirnaut Initiative partners Vanderbilt University Medical Center with the Sheridan district, the Grapevine Historical Society, and the Grapevine community, which is served by four school district buses that make morning and afternoon routes within the community. The project involves the selection of one school bus, No. 46, which has been outfitted with mobile broadband Internet access via cell phone towers and the latest technology, including laptop computers and iPods, to provide virtual classroom instruction to the students onboard.

The route for Bus No. 46 is 90 minutes one-way with the first students on the route being picked up about 6:15 a.m. In the afternoon, the last students are dropped off after 5 p.m. Students are also provided additional instruction if needed at a “satellite school” being maintained several afternoons at Sardis Missionary Baptist Church in Grapevine. The Sardis site also enables students the opportunity for Webcasts and Internet access if they don’t have service at their homes due to remote locations within Grant County.

When asked why the Aspirnaut Initiative project was launched, Dr. Julie Hudson replied: “The initiative was launched for several reasons: 1) To transform long, idle bus commutes into productive learning time; 2) To address the national need for talented students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math; 3) To return a component of learning to the communities that have undergone school consolidations.”

Overall, she said she and Dr. Billy Hudson, as well as school administrators and teachers, have received good feedback from students involved in the Aspirnaut Initiative. She said students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses on the bus are about halfway through the course instruction and that the students enjoy the personalized online instruction from a teacher who works with each student individually. Students also benefit from a teacher posted at the satellite school in the Grapevine community.

“The overwhelming success is that nine students are completing an online course while on a long bus commute; and the students are accelerating their curriculum relative to their public school classroom work,” Dr. Julie Hudson said. “The program has also re-invigorated community involvement in and support of education.”