Medical Lake board hears CTE, STEM program updates

The end of the 2017-18 school year review in Medical Lake included updates on CTE and STEM programs with some notable advancements announced.

The district's CTE or Career Technical Education and STEM - standing for science, technology, engineering and mathematics - have gone through what was presented as a very rigorous re-approval process by the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

"All program areas had to be reapproved," program coordinator Ann Everett said at the June 26 school board meeting. "We're all compliant."

The program of "career connected" learning is being presented as early as seventh-grade, Everett said. But its goal is to gradually prepare students to have a path after high school for either work or higher education.

"We have lots of partnerships and this is really healthy for our district," Everett said.

The newest example is of a carpenter's apprenticeship program. "It's also one of the highlights for our district," Everett said.

The program helps develop skills in high school, so when students graduate they are ready to move into a job.

"They have invested money with us to do a curriculum that is related around shop math," Everett said. "Not only are the kids learning shop skills, but the math that goes along with that."

Everett said it is a good fit for the kids who do not want to go to college right off the bat, but acquire good apprenticeship jobs to earn, plus learn. The carpenters' union will pay for two years of college for students who opt into membership

There have been $80,000 in grants over the past two years to fund the CTE program. That money comes in all shapes and sizes, Everett said.

"We had non-track grant for $25,000; we had a little bit, $2,500 for engineering; biomed for $25,000 and ag-science is $25,000 and this is all STEM curriculum," Everett said.

Students have lists of classes to move them along this path. "A pathway is only developed if there is a viable career need at the end of it," Everett said.

Everett said school course catalogues have been updated and teachers provided with information from the state on college costs - both two and four-year varieties - and the career outcomes with expected earnings.

"For example, the computer sciences pathway, those people are walking out with anywhere from $54,000 - $78,000 a year jobs out of a two and a four-year college," Everett said.

With those needs in mind, the district plans to introduce an advanced placement computer science program in the 2018-19 school year as the teacher training has just been completed.

There are already 12 students signed up for the program and Everett was encouraging students in other AP disciplines to pursue the computer element as well.

A new STEM grant will help fund equipment training for virtual learning opportunities, "So they could be missing school and yet not missing school," Everett said. There are any number of learning opportunities that can revolve around STEM, she added.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.