South Central and Southeastern STEM Advisory Boards Joint Meeting Minutes
DATE: June 23, 2016
TIME: 11-1 p.m.
LOCATION: John Deere Works, Ottumwa
SC Present: Sarah Derry, Becky Wigeland, Amber Pargmann, Steve Sieck, Carrie Rankin, Katherine Harrington, Karen Pattison, Mary Bontrager, Kari Hensen, Mary Bontrager
SC Absent: John Arbuckle, John Chai, Jack Gittinger, Mary Madison, Stacey Singleton , Kimberly Wayne, Bob Volp
SE Present: --Kristine Bullock, Dave Jacobi, Craig Martinson, John Tursi, Tim Bower, Christine Cournoyer, Ellen Kabat Lensch, Dana Millard, Dwight Dohlman, Tonya Peeples, Adriana Johnson, DaLayne Williamson
SE Absent: Mike Adams, Patrick Barnes, Joseph Crozier, Jason Hutcheson
Guest: Carrie Rankin
I. Welome by David Bradford
A. Bradford has worked for the factory for 18 years and has a degree in engineering.
B. This factory is 116 years old, employees 855 people and produces baling and mowing equipment.
C. On community:
1. “I think about how our community comes together…to sell goods to farmers who feed the nation.”
2. “Students don’t always know what the opportunities are when they think about factory work. Employees here are building careers.
D. On challenges:
1. “From a production and work force stand point, it’s a challenge to find people with the life skills to come to work every day.”
2. “We have been able to find assembles quite easily, but struggle with welding and machining. On salary side, it’s difficult to find highly skilled positions, like weld engineer.
3. “I can’t imagine anyplace better than working to feed the world.”
II. Introduction by Amber Pargmann and Dwight ___
A. Building relationships
1. They serve on different boards, but are connected by their residence in Ottumwa. They began a partnership to reach out to local schools and let me know about the STEM opportunities in Iowa. The boards serve overlapping school districts.
2. Both visit schools related to their professional areas (John Deere’s Inspire program).
III. Best Practices Discussion
A. SC Board recently started sub-committees to allow more engagement on topics.
1. SC’s 5 subcommittees: met once and will meet individually in July.
2. SE’s committees are project focused. Ex. Pick a STEM teacher award.
3. SC’s Harrington is also helping STEM link to business people she’s familiar with to open doors with engagement and funding
4. Both regions target rural areas who haven’t applied. Areas in southern Iowa are a particular concern.
5. Both regions look to make more connections with business and schools.
A. IDEA: find a way to make one connection through an easy entry point like festivals or externships.
B. IDEA: face-to-face introductions work better, especially with rural areas.
C. IDEA: share who is participating and try to encourage a little competition between districts. Districts also have to consider open enrollment.
6. Dana (Lee County Economic Development) features Talent for Today Breakfast Series
A. They invite stakeholders (administrators, managers, community college, K-12). About 70 people come to the breakfast, scheduled at 7:30.
B. From the breakfast series, the team builds a consensus of important work. Grow Lee (10 diff programs) grew from this, including elementary robotics and Engineer 101.
C. Student leaders group who attend breakfast
D. Grow Lee 2.0 is in the works. In 2015, the mantra was Take a Swing. Now they are evaluating how to bring parents and students into the conversation. A good start have been career exploration days. There is a disconnect about job status as to what parents think is a good job and what actually is a good job.
E. Lee County is economically challenged. Kid Tech U Program is a growing area. It’s a STEM based week long camp. Lee Co wasn’t participating, so they provided scholarships—about 75 percent got help.
F. Muscatine is stepping forward with Mansanto and other businesses who do community events.
G. Better parent communication is needed.
1. Set up tables at parent-teacher conferences.
2. Connect to counselors at MS/HS when registration time.
3. Look at how we inspire our young women, also.
4. IDEA: Tool Kit of what to talk about at P-T conferences and other events. Ex. Iowa City Ice Cream Socials. Encourage them to set up a table. Here are the kits, here’s what we can do.
5. When parents events are planned, have PLTW, robotics, etc, people there.
IV. How are communities, schools, businesses changing because of STEM.
A. PLTW is taking a hit because it competes with AP classes.
B. Hour of Code is a nice entry point for schools who want to align with STEM programming.
C. Ottumwa keeps losing its PLTW teacher.
D. TAG programs have STEM opportunities, but those need to be expanded to all kids.
E. Work to incorporate STEM into summer reading events.
F. Concern: Scale-up programs are great, but then it goes away. There’s a huge funding problem. Could we provide them a list of places where more funding might be available?
G. SE takes district with over six buildings and see what programs are funded from other sources and who has nothing.
H. Harrington would be willing to do more community group outreach with Rotary, Lions, etc.
I. Bontrager can help get into Chambers.
J. When Pargmann presented, she navigated through the state website.
K. Job shadowing is a growing need in all areas. In addition to career specific skills, kids need help developing soft skills, like communication, dependability, honesty, etc.
L. Transportation is a limited factor for many groups. How can we partner with local organizations, like the Boys and Girls Club, to create opportunities for students with fewer resources?
V. Work table activity (Outcomes divided into Scale-Up and Outreach are listed below).
VI. Closing remarks
VII. Please attend the statewide meeting June 29, 2016.
Q: Where would you like to see the STEM Council in 2-5 years?
SCALE-UP
A. Steve—Address leaking pipe system. We lose programs that are exciting touch points to some specific
B. Craig—mini-grants; fund indiv classrooms; 3 mil in one spot
C. Using STEM literacy to help with 21st century skill building—resiliency, skills, etc.
D. How we evaluate scale-ups—we need to look at that. Selection of program providers. Working on that.
E. Section on website for educators to connect on funding
F. Website on how to link with businesses and more educators.
G. More diversity in who is awarded in the grants. Who and what gets funded. Look at the innovation pool of money.
H. Big school/little school—some big schools have grant writers. Capture resource difference as well. Grant writing workshops. Leveling the playing field. STEM BEST grant. Specific workshop on how to write the grant. Need to train educators.
OUTREACH
A. Encourage districts not doing STEM to do it.
B. Move from awareness to a call to action AND clarify how you’d like each entity to act.
C. Increase teacher professional development for in-service and pre-service teachers. Include volunteers and mentors in trainings, also.
D. Give districts more opportunity to show off STEM that they are already doing.
E. Build STEM that attracts diverse students: biology, engineering, manufacturing jobs
F. Create a list of STEM role models and mentors for job skills
G. Create more job shadowing and impress pay that they get.
H. Incorporate more pieces with creativity and design elements, like the maker movement.
I. Offer ideas on how to team-teach with a professional in a business. Ex. First Lego League—those teachers who are worried about coding can find a computer person to be a mentor.
J. Develop a menu of STEM options for a business to choose from in terms of engagement: festivals, tours, shadows, virtual tours, mentors, funding, etc.
K. Could STEM be in the Hall of Pride?
L. Develop a list of STEM role models and mentors for job skills.
M. Create more community partnerships on key issues: funding, barriers, ownership.
N. Feature a community actually using STEM to solve their problems.
O. Could we get a teacher/leader contact sheet? Maybe use something the state has already created that might NOT change year to year.
P. We need more discussion between business and schools—Lee Co model; breakfast has been the best turn out.
Q. Develop a toolkit for parents on engagement/best practices
R. Use literacy education to tell STEM stories
S. Offer mini-grants, instead of just one big grant cycle.
T. Facilitate skill development (being on time, responsibility, putting down cell phones) in classrooms—we are already doing well with building enrichment.
U. Promote STEM in the trades as well as in college majors.
V. Create more opportunities for low-income and diverse students