A total of $16,018 awarded to two North Olympic Peninsula schools kicked off the first round of grants given by a new educational nonprofit.
The money was awarded by Washington Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — or Stem — which is in its first grant cycle, said Carolyn Landel, chief program officer of the state group.
Chimacum Middle School received $10,300, and Neah Bay High School and Markistum Middle School in Neah Bay were awarded $5,718 Wednesday.
For the past 18 months, Stem has been raising money for its first round of grants, Landel said.
“It is largely seeded by the private sector, who were saying that they know that these are important areas to work on,” she said.
“This first round, we really wanted to make sure we highlighted some great work in different parts of the state.”
Although public schools have seen some failures, “there are also things that are growing, and there are some really innovative teachers doing great work with their kids,” Landel said.
“We are continuing to press ahead and give them a little money to try and move that along.”
Awards will be given two or three times per year, Landel said.
Chimacum Middle
Al Gonzalez, project leader at Chimacum Middle School, will lead the effort to help teachers learn from each other using technology.
Gonzalez currently works with a group of six other math and science teachers, which he calls a “personal learning community.”
In the hopes of expanding the group, he went online.
Through Twitter, he has built an international network of teachers that numbers upward of 1,900 — a group he calls a “personal learning network,” he said.
“I can ask a question if there is something I need help on,” he said.
“I am getting ideas I could have never gotten on my own through reading other teachers’ blogs.”
Through online blogging, the seven Chimacum teachers will share ideas, struggles and challenges in teaching math and science, Gonzalez said.
“One thing I’ve learned so far is that no matter where you are in the world, kids are the same — and so are teachers,” he said.
“So if there is a teacher struggling somewhere, they can read a blog by another teacher and realize, ‘Wow, they are struggling, too.’”
Gonzalez said teachers using the Internet for learning can serve as an example to students.
“The students use the Internet as a social tool. They haven’t yet grasped it as a learning tool,” he said.
“Our goal is to focus more on the learning part of the Internet for our students.”
Landel said the connection among teachers is one of the reasons the grant was awarded.
Interesting model
“It is a really interesting model because they don’t have access to something like the University of Washington or high-tech industries — but they have been working together in a really rigorous way to improve their practice,” she said.
“They can go beyond the bounds of the [North Olympic] Peninsula and tap into some of these virtual resources and target other colleagues around the state, nation and globe and use that virtual community to improve their lessons.”
Gonzalez said he also wants to convey to students the tools they will need online in their careers.
“[The students] get into this whole social networking and Internet will be part of their careers,” he said.
“It will be part of their lives, so it is important for them to learn how to use it most effectively.”
Neah Bay schools
Neah Bay schools will foster mentoring among students with its grant, said Principal Ann Renker.
“The high school is wildly successful,” she said.
“The piece we’ve identified in the middle school is that students don’t take it as seriously as in high school.
“In our case, before we start doing complicated curriculum changes, we thought our students need to learn how to do the hard work of being good students first.”
In addition to coordinating the mentoring of middle school students by high school students in a program called the Catalyst Corps, the grant also will fund several field trips.
“The Makah tribe has jumped in as our first partner,” Renker said.
“They will be putting together a scientific project that our kids will be doing for the fisheries management of the tribe.
“We are hoping that this will help us show these students the real-world links between what we ask them to do in the classroom and what occurs out in the world.”
Field partners sought
The schools are currently looking for other partners for field trips for presentations that would show students real-life application of science, technology, engineering and math, Renker said.
She also will keep up a blog that will address the progress of the program.
Landel said the leadership of the school and district helped make the school stand out for the grant.
“It is a great story on a couple of levels,” she said.
“They have really committed leadership in [Principal Ann Renker] and Superintendent [Kandy Ritter.]
“But they also have the middle school that is struggling to reach a level of proficiency and the high school that has been so successful.
“They have been working to mobilize kids to reach out in a peer-to-peer kind of way to find a link to help all of them reach their potential.
“They already have a track record of success in an innovative model.”
For more information on both programs and to read the blogs, visit www. washingtonstem.org, click on “Investments,” then click on the school name.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
