Congratulations to Albany High senior Christina Pringle, who is our first Falcon to complete the New York State Individual Arts Assessment Pathway!
Pringle is a prolific and talented artist, and her appreciation for creativity started at a young age.
"When I was little, I watched a lot of cartoons and was inspired by the character design and animation," Pringle shared. "I felt the same inspiration when it came to video games, anime, and graphic novels. This inspired me so much to the point where I wanted to create artworks by using my imagination."
During her time at Albany High, Pringle has unleashed her creativity and developed her skills by taking a variety of arts classes, including Studio in Art: Electronic Media, Drawing/Painting I, Animation, Graphic Arts and Studio in Art: Pottery & Sculpture.
For years, Albany High has been building a framework to support multiple pathways of learning that equip students for higher education and career readiness.
With the completion of Albany High’s rebuild and expansion in 2025, all career and technical education classes are now on the main campus, featuring classrooms with state-of-the-art equipment for hands-on learning in subject areas such as culinary arts, cosmetology, barbering, construction, automotive technology, pre-engineering and health sciences.
The addition of the IAAP opportunity offers students yet another pathway to build and showcase their proficiency, this time via the arts. The program also is building momentum, with 13 juniors who are well on their way to completing the requirements prior to graduation in 2027.
To complete the IAAP pathway, Pringle took three years of art coursework and curated a portfolio that showcased her growth and development as an artist.
“We are incredibly proud of Christina's accomplishment, and of our program that now offers the Individual Arts Assessment Pathway," said City School District of Albany Fine Arts Supervisor Kate Wright.
Each portfolio must include an artist statement and goals, a minimum of five creative works connected to the student’s artistic goals, evidence of and reflection on the creative process and design process, and a final artwork with a growth statement.
These Google Slides highlight five of the creative works featured in Pringle’s portfolio.
Currently, the IAAP program at Albany High features fine and media arts. The groundwork also is being developed to expand the offerings to music ensembles, general music and interdisciplinary arts, which will encompass theater, dance and music performance.
This implementation of the IAAP is timely as New York moves toward the Portrait of a Graduate and opportunities for students to follow multiple pathways to high school graduation.
“By focusing on demonstrated readiness rather than accumulated seat time, New York is creating a system that is more rigorous, more relevant and more responsive to the strengths and aspirations of every learner," State Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa said June 15 as the Board of Regents and State Education Department announced the next phase of the NY Inspires Initiative and the planed shift toward a competency-based diploma, the first steps of which will begin with the 2027-28 school year.
"What we’re doing is not an incremental change to our current model; it is a nation-leading transformation that redefines what a diploma represents and how students demonstrate readiness for the future.”
Pathways such as our CTE offerings and the new IAAP opportunity highlight Albany High's readiness to lead the way in this new world.
Students pursuing the IAAP are able to showcase their competency in the arts through initial, intermediate and final creative works that are featured in their final portfolio. Over the three-year process, students receive feedback at multiple checkpoints so they can refine their project to meet or exceed the standards outlined in the scoring rubric when they submit the finished project.
The creation of a portfolio teaches students valuable life skills about managing and executing long-term projects. It also culminates in a final product that can be shared along with their transcripts as students pursue opportunities for higher education and career pathways.
After graduation Sunday, Pringle looks forward to studying graphic art and animation and will begin her coursework at Hudson Valley Community College.
"I hope that my talent can inspire other people to use their own imagination to create artwork in their unique ways," Pringle shared.
We are immensely proud of this Falcon artist for her role as a trailblazer in the arts, showing the power of student choice and student voice in 21st-century education!