Building Tomorrow’s Economic Future: High School Entrepreneurs-A Fresno magnet school helps students

A new type of magnet school in Fresno, California is changing the way high school students learn about business, by creating entrepreneurs that will have launched their own start-up company before even graduating from the 12th grade. According to Patino School of Entrepreneurs Principal, Brett Taylor, the goal is to have “students leave school and have already started a business.”

A big part of how Patino encourages students to innovate is by doing things a bit differently, starting with the classroom. On a typical day, classrooms are vibrant and full of energy: students are getting out of their seats, writing notes on walls, not about who is dating who, but about strategy and marketing. They have their own business groups for collaboration and connect with each other through affiliations aimed at enhancing their business acumen.

When Superintendent Michael Hansen of the Fresno Unified School District first tasked Principal Taylor with developing such a new type of school, Taylor knew he needed to do some research. To accomplish this, he made visits to a number of start-up companies looking for approaches that would help to foster, produce, and cultivate young entrepreneurs. “We wanted to throw out all preconceived notions and be willing to do something different.” After his visits, he made the decision, that unlike other traditional high schools, the Patino school would be desk free. By eliminating desks, students are able to collaborate as a team in a collective space.

However, the advent of unconventional ideas didn’t stop with desks and shared spaces: as soon as he had implemented changes to the student entrepreneurs’ work space, he went out to find real world business owners who would be able to serve as mentors to the students. Taylor initially reached out to community members and the response was overwhelming.

Even though everyone was very eager to help mentor the aspiring entrepreneurs of tomorrow, there was one problem: despite the many business men and women’s accomplishments, they all worked for someone else. None of them had the real-world experience starting and running their own business. So, he thanked everyone for their willingness to support his students and began to search for others who met the entrepreneur profile. And eventually Taylor found the perfect mentors. Some of them happened to be local, but most were not.

And he describes the search process for the mentors as a major pay off for the school. “The day that the students had their first meeting with the actual entrepreneur mentors, it became real to them. It wasn’t just a school project anymore.” The new students started to see their visions become a possibility as they interacted and chose the mentor they believed would best fit them. Their confidence began to grow and their drive became stronger.

The high school students’ business ideas, spurred on by their newly found confidence, brought them to compete at San Jose State University’s annual “pitch day.” Upon entering, three of the Patino High School teams qualified to pitch their business ideas. Two of the teams were picked to place and one team won a prize of $1,000 dollars for their start-up business pitch.

In addition to phenomenal mentors, Taylor also attributes the success of his students to the autonomy that is given to the children in the decision-making process at Patino. “Every idea regarding the businesses and start-ups are all student generated.”

The teachers that work with the children on a daily basis are specially selected, as well, to help cultivate the spirit of creativity and entrepreneurship. “We take the ceilings off for the kids, we let them know that they can do whatever they want. We decided early on that we wanted to create entrepreneurs-not entrepreneurships.” Said Taylor. The Patino school requires that teachers must either have a business/entrepreneurship background, tech experience, or show that they can be willing to innovate and learn from their mistakes. According to Taylor the last trait has proven to be the most important among his staff.

And as far as disciplinary issues, the Patino School of Entrepreneurship has maintained a 0% suspension rate. This was a shock to many observers as it was quite clear that the incoming Patino School had accepted children with both “troubled” backgrounds and suspensions in their past. But Principal Taylor has a unique philosophy, “I always think, how would a business handle this? It’s all about the connection that you make with the kids. They feel respected here, they matter, we trust them.” Taylor refuses to review the background files on any of his students. He wants everyone to have a clean slate and treats them as his own “peer.”

When asked how children are selected to attend the school, Taylor said, “There is no lottery system. We allow any kid who is interested to attend. We realize that not every entrepreneur is a good student.” And to ensure equity of access to children in the Fresno area, the Patino School has made a few changes to the way the school operates.

School begins later in the day at 9:20am and end at 4pm. This was done to make sure that all who need to utilize public transit will be able to arrive on time. The Patino School also presents the enrolment opportunity to every single student within the Fresno School District. “We take these extra steps, because we soon learned that you can have an equitable school without being truly equitable to all.”

Taylor stated that the Patino School of Entrepreneurship was made with the aim to help strengthen the next generation and the Fresno economy simultaneously as many kids go to college, graduate, and flock to other major cities to apply their expertise. “We don’t have major industries in the Fresno area. This school only helps build our community and helps them (graduating Patino students) be independent.”

Kids have the ability to keep their newly founded business local. And although it sounds ambitious, Taylor makes it sound a lot like common sense. When asked if he believes this is the future of education, he replied, “I think so, because kids get the skills that are needed now. They become problem solvers.” And what business doesn’t have a problem that needs to be solved?