By Joan F. Simoneau, Community Reporter
Marlborough – The first year of the new Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) program? in the Marlborough Public Schools has proven to be beneficial to students and teachers, officials said at the June 26 School Committee meeting.
For the pilot year, the STEM program was offered to sixth-grade students at the 1LT Charles W. Whitcomb Middle School and to ninth-grade students at Marlborough High School.
Maureen Greulich, Instructional Leadership Director and Bill Rigney, STEM Instructional Specialist, told the School Committee that students are helping one another, working as a team in solving problems and responding to new teaching techniques with interest and enthusiasm.
The program is part of STEM Early College High School, a national initiative of more than 200 similar schools that provide students with access to both high school and college credit. It combines a rigorous program with intense academic support in a personalized environment designed to increase success for all students, especially those whose access to a traditional college may be limited. Partnering with Framingham State University, students engage in a project-based curriculum, using laptops, and choose career pathways that incorporate dual enrollment during their junior and senior years.? Students are also experiencing real world applications through collaboration with industry partners. Some of those business partners this year included Raytheon, Intel, Dow, PTC Software Company, and city of Marlborough department heads.
Rigney had high praise for the sixth-grade and ninth-grade teacher leaders when relating the advances made by students.
“This [program] would not have happened if it were not for these teachers,” he said. “The work they did was fantastic.”
The team leaders included: sixth grade – Angel Davis, Jeff Gay, Jeanne Gutowski, Katie Lubkert, Joanne Mahoney and Ann Valerio; and ninth grade – Scott Brown, Joanne D”Agostino, Paul Duplessis, Heather Kohn, Shawna Stea and Doug Tocio.
This fall, students in the seventh-grade and 10th ?grade will also be participating in the STEM program.
