Montre Simpson Jr., a strong-willed rising sixth-grader already showing a penchant for science, has begun collecting living things. He has a fish, a hermit crab, a frog, a snail and a puppy he shares with his siblings. He'd like some guinea pigs, but he hasn't talked his mother into letting him get them yet.
"He has to see how things work," said his mother, Tara Simpson, explaining her son's interest in pets and biology.
She wasn't at all surprised that Montre said he couldn't wait to go to middle school after hearing he was accepted into a new health sciences magnet program at Old Court Middle School. He was one of the lucky 90 of 450 applicants to win a seat in the program.
In the three difficult years of middle school, when students can often derail academically, Baltimore County schools hope to spark their interests by expanding its magnet programs and offering them a pathway to high school. The expansion will ensure that students, whether they live in the east or west side of the county, get the same academic opportunities.
Over the next several years, the school system will launch new programs to give more students a chance to immerse themselves in the arts, health sciences and courses that would lead them to the teaching profession.
This fall, the school system will expand an existing arts magnet at Milford Mill High School and open the Northwest Academy of Health Sciences at Old Court. In subsequent years, students who want to explore teaching will be able to take classes in middle and high school that introduce them to the profession.
Montre, 10, won admission to the magnet through a lottery and seems to be exactly the type of student Baltimore County School Superintendent Dallas Dance envisioned could take advantage of the magnet programs.
Students who choose these pathways have "an option to get more deeply grounded in something they already know they are passionate about," Dance said.
Baltimore County began establishing magnet programs two decades ago. There are only six schools devoted to magnet programs, drawing students from across the county and open only to those who meet the entrance criteria and are chosen by lottery. But there are more than a dozen smaller magnet programs, such as the new one at Old Court, that exist within neighborhood schools and are open to any student who enters the lottery.
Sixth-graders at Old Court now will have a chance to participate in a seven-year program that begins in middle school and feeds into a biomedical technology magnet at Randallstown High School. After taking related courses in ninth and 10th grades, students can do internships at a local hospital in their junior and senior years.
Kyria Joseph, Old Court's principal, said parents are attracted to the program because it gives their children a clear academic path to pursue college majors and find jobs in health science disciplines.
One of Montre's sisters is in the biomedical program at Randallstown High. His other sister, who was also in the program, is now studying at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Their parents, Tara and Montre Simpson Sr., believe the magnet classes keep their children motivated and on track.
"They feel as though they are part of something," Tara Simpson said. "They put their best foot forward."
She hopes the program will be particularly good for Montre, a straight-A student with wide-ranging interests.
"I feel that some students need more of challenge," she said.
Students in the magnet at Old Court will take one class in sixth grade that gives them perspectives on different health sciences careers and introduces them to human anatomy, Joseph said.
The school system recently was awarded a federal grant to open a health sciences magnet on the other side of the county at Golden Ring Middle School. That program will send its graduates to a similar magnet to be created at Overlea High School.
The new magnet options will give students on the east side the same option as their peers on the west side and help ensure an equitable distribution of programs. Parents have complained for years about the difficulty of providing transportation for students who want a program miles from their home in the sprawling county.
Dance hopes such programs elevate the public's perception of some county schools.
"I had been looking for a way to rebrand Old Court," he said, adding that the school has made progress in the last several years. "It's hard to change the perception of Old Court. It just had this reputation."
The growth of the magnet programs will continue, but only in certain fields.
With its strong reputation for teaching music and the arts, the county has decided to expand on the success of the George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Towson by creating similar magnet programs in Patapsco High School in the east portion of the county and Milford Mill in the west. Milford's program will expand in the fall to include theater, instrumental and vocal music and the literary arts. Dance and visual arts programs will be added in the 2017-2018 school year.
Dance said he also wants to end any confusion between magnet programs and vocational education programs. He wants to give each path its own identity and ensure each high school offers at least three vocational programs leading to professional certifications.
As state and national interest has grown in elevating vocational education, now called career and technology education, Dance said he wants to provide students the opportunity to get training in high school that could lead directly to a job that pays a decent wage.
He said the school system is trying to create the labor force that "industry is calling for over the next 10 to 15 years."
Dance stressed that the new magnets will not replace solid academic programs at each school.
"I don't want people to feel they have to go to a magnet school to get a good education," he said.