"If you're not writing your own story, you are a character in someone else's." -Chris Brogan

Atlanta Public Schools re-established its commitment to offer Signature Programs at respective schools throughout the district in August 2015 to ensure a seamless matriculation of College and Career Readiness Programs for students. Schools in the Douglass Cluster unanimously agreed to focus on STEM, a result of input from a myriad of stakeholder focus groups which included: students, teachers, administrators, parents, and community partners. 

 

Thus, Frank Lebby Stanton Elementary School recruited a staffer from within the school who demonstrated an aptitude and interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics to serve as its inaugural STEM Program Specialist Coordinator. This staffer was also responsible for identifying and supporting students while serving as the Multi-tiered Support Specialist (MTSS) and her role as a STEM Program Coordinator. An important note is that both positions, the  STEM Program Specialist, and the MTSS Specialist, were two highly demanding roles presenting challenges impacting  the overall implementation of the STEM Program.

 

The next several years proved to reflect more of the same challenges regarding the dual role of responsibilities required of a second/newly recruited and hired Program Specialist whose role was to serve as the MTSS/STEM Program Coordinator. Again, this paired role did not afford the bandwidth for the STEM Coordinator to devote “protected time” needed for the duties and responsibilities of a STEM Program Specialist.

 

Three times is a charm, the concerns were voiced to key district personnel to fund the role of a STEM Program Specialist as a single position or to combine the STEM position with a another job of less responsibilities.  Thus, the third STEM Program Specialist also served as a part-time Math Specialist, and was able to gain momentum and traction necessary to garner stakeholder’s interest in promoting STEM as a viable curriculum at Frank Lebby Stanton Elementary School.  

 

As fate would have it, the STEM Coordinator was promoted to a district level position;  however, during her tenure, real STEM-focused work was completed with a student-centered focus.

 

Aside from the dual role and responsibilities of multiple STEM Coordinators, a mission, vision, and clear and succinct pathways were established to create and provide stakeholders with updates about the progression of the program,exposure, and engagement during weekly STEM classes, monthly STEM challenges, Professional Learning for staffers, and information meetings for parents and partners. Thus, these activities were led by the newly established STEM Committee prior to the onset of COVID.

 

The newly recruited fourth Program Coordinator, with the direct support of the district’s STEM Specialist, principal, and the school-based STEM Committee Members, followed a scope and sequence of events aligned to grade-band curriculum to promote student interests, participation, and sustainable engagement.

 

Students were continually exposed to the Engineering Design Process and everyday problems by: asking, imagining, planning, creating, testing, and  improving design-products.

 

An important note to highlight regarding multiple leaders associated with the STEM Program Specialist, is each leader respectively aligned school-based practices to the STEM vision, mission, and core beliefs, to advance the program closer to the reality of its intended goals for the school community.

 

Weekly STEM Classes, Monthly STEM Challenges, Professional Development and Collegial PBL Grade Band Unit Planning using Georgia Standards of Excellence, STEMscopes Curriculum, and Engineering is Elementary Curriculum offered ongoing opportunities for quality stakeholder planning and engagement. 

 

Students had innumerable opportunities to problem-solve, investigate, research, collaborate, build, and to present their project solution(s)/reasoning while exploring cross-content via the lens of Science Phenomenon, and real-world problems generated from brainstorming. The Brainstorming Strategy was used liberally to solve problems through student-led activities for the greater community at-large.

 

In fact, Camp Jenny, Frank L Stanton Elementary School’s loyal and devoted Partner in Education, provided monthly STEM Challenges with the delivery of resources required for each grade level project throughout virtual instruction due to COVID learning restrictions.

 

Frank Lebby Stanton’s Brand morphed from a community based focus to its current and lasting theme, “Building Engineers for the Future.”   Building Engineers for the Future is a comprehensive umbrella created to support students’ efforts in forging a career pathway in their respective field of engineer-interest.

 

Students participated in interest-inventories and brainstorming activities to derive at the development of grade level themes and projects.Their responses offered insight and context concerning problems they wanted to address within the community.

 

The school’s learning environment is STEMIfied, which means content-specific artifacts are attractively displayed throughout the school representing grade-level appropriate imagery of STEM and its related field. 

 

Additionally, we have partnered with Georgia Tech, Code Elephant, Georgia Power, NASA, Atlanta Water Works and a wide range of corporations and organizations to offer students exposure to experts in the STEM field to host student-friendly, gender neutral forums via virtual and in-person visits.

 

We believe student-learning is our priority, and students learn by doing.  Thus, our fundamental beliefs are embedded in our vision, mission, and core beliefs statements.

The STEM Program is a curriculum based on the idea that educating students in four specific disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is an interdisciplinary and applied approach. 

The engagement of  students in hands - on, real world, project- based learning experiences through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics promotes critical thinking and deep content knowledge essential in developing 21st Century Skills and Global Citizens.

Collectively, WE believe:

• A Student-Centered Approach is essential to student success.

• STEM-Literacy includes but is not limited to Global Mindfulness, which supports a solid foundation for a choice-filled future.

• Students are engaged in Project-based Learning (PBL) in a STEM Signature Lab.

• Students explore cross-disciplinary integration in Fine Arts: theatre, music, and visual arts.

• Students thrive due to Restorative Justice, Social Emotional Learning, and morning/afternoon Mindful Moments.

• Students are provided Targeted Instruction to meet their Academic Level of Readiness across disciplines: before, during, and after school.

• Students are empowered as a result of parent and community engagement, thus maximizing their post-secondary college and career options.

Improving literacy and numeracy across grade levels serves as the basis for the actionable steps of cross-curricular integration aligned to the Engineering Design Process (EDP) as evident in Frank Lebby Stanton’s School Improvement Plan (SIP).

 

The STEM Community, learning culture, experiences, and outcomes are foundational to a successful STEM Program that fosters and promotes a STEM-rich atmosphere with partners and the community-at large, all of whom provide time, talent, treasure, and “boots to the ground” sustainable support, with highly engaging and “made-to-stick” learning opportunities, coupled with marked and measurable learner outcomes.

 

Frank Lebby Stanton’s Elementary School Strategic Actionable Strategies deem the school and its community the backbone for teaching and learning. Moreover, the  learning culture encompasses professional learning opportunities and content-rich, targeted  weekly professional learning community work sessions. Professional learning opportunities strengthen teachers’ ability to provide literacy/numeracy integrated,  inquiry-based lessons to promote students’ critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills.  Students’ STEM Experiences range from virtual to in-person activities and lessons facilitated by STEM Industry Experts who offer  real-world student experiences.

 

Successes to-Date

Spring 2021, during the annual school-district collaborative budget meeting, the GO Team’s recommendation to fund a full-time STEM Program Specialist was approved. In fact, we recruited a highly qualified STEM Program Specialist for the 2021-2022; however, due to unforeseen circumstances, the newly hired STEM Coordinator resigned, but not before establishing a strong and viable, updated STEM Pathways per grade band, PBL Units aligned to Georgia Standards of Excellence with Mathematics driving the planning sessions, school-wide.

 

STEMification/Beautification, the recruitment of STEM-related partnerships, and parent/family engagement initiatives.  Finally, she was instrumental in planning and launching the first PBL Unit and Showcase post COVID in-person instruction.

The first in-person PBL Showcase sparked an instructional contagion that ignited excitement throughout the school’s culture.  Students were sketching/illustrating prototypes, researching,, asking clarifying and thought provoking questions, and building structures to solve school-based and community problems.  

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Tiger Scientists were busy at work exploring, tinkering, and documenting their daily efforts in their personal STEM Journals in preparation for the showcase, which included an open-invitation to parents, the community, and district personnel. Therefore, on the day of the showcase, students, with the support of teachers, positioned their displays throughout the hallways, enthusiastically prepared to present their projects and findings.

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PBL Unit Presentations were informative, inspiring, and standards-based.  Students were able to articulate their presentations using the Engineering Design Process Model.  Though many students had “project similarities” of their peers, time invested researching, asking, testing, and proving or disproving the effectiveness or lack thereof of their project-build was an invaluable experience for particpants.

Challenges

The challenges experienced as a result of implementing the STEM Program with fidelity were primarily centered around the dual role of the STEM Program Specialist, a result of budgetary constraints as imposed by the district based on its Student Success Formula (SSF). Based on the Student Success Formula, Frank Lebby Stanton Elementary School was allotted a part-time STEM Program Specialist combined with either the role of a part-time Math Specialist or Multi-tiered Specialist Support (MTSS) Personnel. 

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Another notable challenge was COVID, an interruption to learning in the traditional setting. Nonetheless, teachers forged ahead to “build the plane while flying” to learn and implement new ways of engaging students while sustaining students’ interest in STEM and related fields.  Fortunately, our partner Camp Jenny, agreed to align its programmatic structure to an online/virtual format and  provided a monthly STEM Challenge per grade level during the first week of each month throughout Covid.  Fortunately, the STEM Challenges fostered and promoted student engagement which heightened parent or family interest and participation.

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Overall, despite the challenges encountered while in a traditional setting or the exigent need to pivot/transition from a traditional setting to a virtual setting, the STEM Program made substantial and measurable gains as evident on Georgia Milestones Assessment System, specifically in Science Longitudinal Data.