Santa Fe South Pathways Middle College is a 4-year comprehensive high school located on the campus of Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC). The school was founded in 2001 under the Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) umbrella as Pathways Middle College High School. The middle/early college design was introduced to Oklahoma with this small, 5-teacher, high school on the OCCC campus, where it operated for 13 years.
However, due to lack of growth and progress toward the middle/early college goal, OKCPS made the decision to close Pathways in April of 2014. Frustrated, the parents of the 71 students who were at Pathways at that time banded together to find a way to keep their beloved school open, and that is when they approached Santa Fe South Charter Schools. After many extensive, rigorous conversations between the leaderships of OKCPS, OCCC, and the SFS schools, it was agreed that the school could reopen as a public charter school as a Santa Fe South Charter School.
With a change leadership came a change in direction. Chris Brewster, the Superintendent of Santa Fe South Schools, charged the fully retained staff and the new principal with the task of 1: growing the population the school, and 2: building a model that could be replicated by other schools. For its first two years Pathways was an extension program under Santa Fe South High School. In the third year of operation, Santa Fe South Pathways Middle College was recognized with its own Oklahoma site numbers.
Pathways has now grown to over 200 students, and a faculty of 17 teachers/staff that have fully implemented a relationship, relevance, and rigor mindset into the culture of the school. A Harry Potter style HOUSE system builds RELATIONSHIPS by helping our teachers and peers provide students with academic and social guidance. Our faculty creates RELEVANCE with a project and cognitive skills-based curriculum using current events, personal backgrounds, and historical realities while emphasizing competency in twenty-first-century skills. The use of a demanding college-preparatory curriculum, SUMMIT learning, that sets high expectations for everyone, Pathways raised the level of RIGOR.
The RESULTS have spoken for themselves. In the last five years, over 80 graduates have completed their Associates Degrees before they graduated with their high school diplomas. The graduation rate for the last six years is 99.5%. Student have been accepted and are attending elite schools across the country from Columbia, to Florida State, to University of Minnesota, and Stanford University; not to mention the number who stay here in Oklahoma and attend the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. Pathways has produced Santa Fe South Schools 1st National Merit Scholar; a Gate Millennium Scholar; and almost $20 million in scholarships in a short 6 years.
What People Say
An opportunity to earn an associates degree while still in high school? Awesome! Great teachers, great staff, great school. Plus, now it is part of the Santa Fe South Schools family!! Santa Fe South is an amazing charter school serving hundreds of families and students in South OKC. Check them out!
Brandon W.
I appreciate what Pathways gave me because now I’m able to express it in college and to my freshman friends
Paolo S.
Pathways Middle College is a model for the students: we were good, but with encouragement, we’ve become great.
Dr. Klasek
pathwaysmiddlecollege.org 