* Official STEM School Designation!
Northwestern Middle School and Northwestern High School recently received word that we are officially 2 of only 25 Ohio schools having official “STEM Designation”!
This designation allows us to tap into federal grants, such as NSF (National Science Foundation), as well as OSLN (the Ohio STEM Learning Network) professional development, and state grants. This designation is essential to our progress and vision as we continue moving forward.
* Northwestern High School HSTW Gold Achievement Award!
Northwestern High School has been selected to receive the HSTW Gold Achievement Award at the 2014 HSTW (SREB) Summer Staff Development Conference at the Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville in July! We are one of only 10 high schools nationally that will receive this award this year! This award is based on our 2014 High Schools That Work Assessment results.
* Martha Holden Jennings Superintendent Recognition:
Our Northwestern Superintendent was recently awarded the Martha Holden Jennings Ohio Superintendent Outstanding Performance Award. With this award comes a $10,000 donation. Mr. Layton is leveraging this $10,000 by using it as matching funds for Northwestern STEM Education programs. We have had two contributors contact us to donate a portion of these matching funds. We are seeking additional matching funds from businesses and individuals. The anticipated $20,000 total will be used to support development of our district STEM lab as well as elementary, middle, and high school STEM programs which foster rigorous project-based instruction, equipment, curriculum development, and collaborative business-school-post secondary partnerships.
Other items of note:
• Website STEM link: Over the next few weeks Northwestern will be developing a link to our website as a platform for sharing Northwestern and area STEM collaboration, events, academic programs, and progress. I will communicate this and share the link once we have the link established and sufficient information.
• Vermillion Advantage Teleconference: On Tuesday Northwestern Curriculum Director and I participated with area business leaders in an enlightening teleconference with Vermilion Advantage at Shisler Conference Center, which is operating a successful workforce development program for their county in Illinois. Thanks to Director Rod Crider and Wayne County Economic Development Council for putting this together. They shared examples and a road map for future area school, business, post secondary, and government collaboration that will promote progressive economic development and career and college readiness throughout our region!
• Visit from Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce: In May a group of business leaders and Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce Director Justin Starlin toured our campus, MS and HS STEM programs, and discussed our programs, collaboration with area businesses and colleges in terms of needs and regional economic development.
• Business Visitations the month of June: Northwestern Administrators will be contacting area business partners to schedule individual business meetings for the purpose of discussing collaborative ventures, identification of business needs, workforce development & career readiness, internships, school curriculum, equipment needs, as well as economic needs for the area. Businesses, feel free to contact Jeff Layton via e-mail or phone call if you want to reach out to us before we reach out to you to schedule these meetings. We will happily welcome a visit your facility to meet or have a lunch or breakfast meeting at another location.
• STEM Advisory Committee Meeting: Thanks to all who attended. We had 32 individuals participating!
• Straight A Fund Grant: Our Northwestern Straight A Grant Fund proposal made it through to the second round. The final state decision is expected by late June. This $189,120 is intended to purchase professional development and equipment to develop project-based environmental and sustainable energy blended learning, student research projects.
• Northwestern-Wayne College Partners in Engineering: Wayne College Professors and Graduate Students are welcoming Northwestern Faculty and Administration to planned professional development in August. We anticipate students to make visitations to Wayne College Dept. of Engineering as well as increased Wayne College visits to Northwestern.
• Engineers in the Elementary? Northwestern Elementary School has applied to pilot the PLTW (Project Lead the Way) Engineering Curriculum for the 2014-2015 school year. We anticipate being selected and embedding this project-based curriculum throughout all Elementary School grades.
• Northwestern Board of Education Commitment: Thank you to our Northwestern Board of Education for your support of more than $225,000 in wireless infrastructure upgrades, Chrome Books, equipment, and software for the 2014-2015 school year. We are now at over a 60% student to laptop/Chrome Book ratio in grades 6-12! We are also continuing our increase of elementary equipment!
• Northwestern Middle School STEM Programs: Northwestern Middle School is adding to our current STEM PLTW Programs and outstanding faculty by employing full time STEM Teacher and Business-School Liaison Lee Kimmich.
• ATI Partnership: Northwestern is planning a visit to ATI and Quasar mid-June for discussions of developing a possible renewable energies career track.
• North Central State Partnership: Northwestern is planning a meeting with North Central State College this summer to discuss a potential partnered Nursing/Medicine Associates Degree Program