At the Feb. 19 work session, the Bartlett school board released STEAM.
The new honors program for grades one through five at Rivercrest Elementary will focus on science, technology, engineering, the arts and math (STEAM) for the 2015-2016 school year.
Dr. Lee-Ann Kight, teaching and learning director for Bartlett City Schools (BCS), explained why the rollout of this new program will better prepare children for a job market that will evolve during their education.
“The top jobs in 2014 didn’t exist back in 2002,” she said at the Feb. 19 BCS school board work session. “So we’re educating students for jobs that don’t yet exist or they’ll be using technologies that haven’t been invented and solving problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.”
The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) will grow 17 percent by 2018. That’s nearly double the growth for non-stem fields, she said. By 2018, the U.S. will have more than 1.2 million unfilled STEM jobs because the labor pool does not have enough qualified candidates.
“So STEM is where the jobs are today,” Kight said. “And it’s anticipated, with that trend, that that’s where the job growth will be in the future.”
Bartlett will be implementing a STEAM Honors Program, based on Project Lead the Way, the most common program used nationally and internationally, Kight said. The elementary program is called Launch, and BCS will be using that as a starting point. See more information about Project Lead the Way online at pltw.org/.
Depending on grade level, the STEAM classes will be designed for about 20-25 students, and the district expects to expand into additional elementary schools and into the middle and high school levels as well, when resources allow, she said.
She explained how the STEAM classrooms will “go a little deeper” with problem-based learning and plenty of small-group collaborative work.
School board members at the Feb. 19 work session responded positively to the STEAM presentation.
“That is outstanding,” board vice chairman Bryan Woodruff said. “It really is. Halfway through our first year of operation and to be able to do things this early on, already planning for the next year to have a STEAM program at the elementary level, that’s just another testament to not only ‘local control’ and ‘smaller is better,’ but also to just the quality of staff we have.”
Applications
Outstanding students at Rivercrest and at other Bartlett elementary schools who will be in grades one through five as of this fall are invited to apply to the program.
However, the program is not limited just to gifted students, Kight said. They will be evaluated on multiple factors, including the student’s own responses in the application packet, and a student who is an off-the-charts performer in one or two areas but more average in the others would be a good candidate to apply.
A completed application packet is due by 4 p.m. March 13. Applications should be delivered to STEAM Honors Program Applications Bartlett City Schools Central Office, 5650 Woodlawn Street, Bartlett, TN 38134.
Students who would need to transfer to Rivercrest to be part of the STEAM program should follow the BCS district’s policies about transfers and use the same March 13 deadline:
- No. 6015, for students who are not residents in the BCS district
- No. 6019, for students already in the BCS district
Students from outside the Bartlett school district are also to eligible to apply, on a space-available basis and with their applications governed by the out-of-district policy.
Application packets are available online or may be picked up at these locations:
The application requires two teachers to complete questionnaires about the applying students and return them in sealed envelopes to the applicant’s family so the questionnaires can be included with the application packet. The district’s Teaching and Learning Department will provide student grades, benchmark assessment data, and test scores.
Parents or guardians will get email notifications on whether their children have or have not been accepted into the STEAM Honors Program. Students who qualify, but are not accepted due to space, will be placed on a waiting list and will be placed as space becomes available.
For more information, see the STEAM flier available online.
Written by Carolyn Bahm, Express editor. Contact her at (901) 433-9138 or via email to bartlett.editor@journalinc.com.
