CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO STEM2 Hub’s Success Credited to Leadership, Vision, Passion and aWillingness to Set and Meet Unreasonable Expectations
By Alyssa Briggs
TM
CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO STEM2 Hub’s Success Credited to Leadership, Vision, Passion and aWillingness to Set and Meet Unreasonable Expectations TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Challenging The Status Quo .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Sharing The American Dream .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Before The Lightbulbs Burn Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Resolutely Unreasonable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Founding Executive Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Stem2 Hub’s Technologist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Key Programming .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Renaissance Jax – A Regional Structure .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 A Leader With Different Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 A Leap Of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Power Of Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 An “Egg-Ceptional” Partnership – Eggs For Education . . . . . . . . 7 Carrying A Torch For Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 New Territory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Growing As A Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Developing A Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Landing A State Appropriation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 After School And Out-Of-School Time Partners Play Critical Role .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 More Than Computer Science .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Partnerships Of All Kind Are Important . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Constant Interation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Cooking Eggs and Deals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Basic Operating Practices .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Sharing Credit – We Are A Team .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Timeline .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Board Members .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14-15 Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
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CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO STEM2HUB’s Success Credited to Leadership, Vision, Passion and aWillingness toSet andMeet ‘Unreasonable Expectations’
By Alyssa Briggs
Gary Chartrand grew up as the middle child in a farming family where he was the first to go to college, the first to leave his hometown of Bedford, N.H. and the first to credit his early life with the professional success he has realized.
Chartrand, executive chairman and former president of Acosta, said his years of plowing fields, chopping and splitting wood, growing and harvesting corn, caring for chickens and disposing of their waste is why he developed a work ethic.
That work ethic, coupled with what he calls “unreasonable” expectations and passionate and driven colleagues, fueled the growth of Acosta, a food sales and marketing company he helped nurture from a small regional company to a blockbuster organization with revenue of about $1 billion per year. In many respects, Chartrand’s story closely mirrors the trajectory of STEM2 Hub, the Northeast Florida ecosystem that has grown from a big idea into a national model for how to bring together business leaders, educators, non-profits, and others to improve opportunities for children and to create viable STEM pathways.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The STEM2 Hub sprang from a big idea and a few committed partners to an ecosystem that is now regularly serving more than 100,000 students. This is the story of a handful of visionary leaders, a willingness to change course, and the determination to challenge the status quo. The relationship between growth in STEM education and innovation have been tied to the future needs of the economy. Hundreds of thousands of unfilled jobs in STEM professions, especially computer science, can have a profound impact on generational poverty in many communities if underserved students are given the knowledge and skills to engage in these careers. A growing body of research that links STEM education to massive economic gains are driving the work of the STEM Learning Ecosystems Community of Practice, SLECoP. Launched by the STEM Funders Network and TIES in 2015, the STEM Learning Ecosystems has grown rapidly throughout the United States and the world. As of October 2019, there will be 89 ecosystems serving an estimated 35 to 40 million students worldwide. This growth has been fueled by a growing and demonstrated understanding that collaboration among diverse cross-sector stakeholders who share the same goals around the promise of STEM actually works. Other factors are also driving the interest in and expansion of the SLECoP, including the five-year report from the U.S. Office of Science, Technology Policy listing the formation of STEM ecosystems as the most promising pathway for students to find success in STEM. The STEM2 Hub, also launched in 2015, is a strong example of the work that can be accomplished through an ecosystem approach. By studying the origins of STEM2 Hub, coupled with an examination
of its internal operations, a blueprint emerges that can be useful for others who seek a collaborative approach to proliferating STEM throughout communities. The examination of STEM2 Hub, entirely qualitative, uses an ethnographic narrative approach, coupled with historical narrative. STEM2 Hub, which serves the northeast Florida region, based out of Jacksonville, Fla., is committed to accelerating the growth of STEM education and careers. With a strong focus on coding and robotics along with science, math, design and engineering, the ecosystem has engaged dozens of partners, launched numerous successful initiatives and now stands as a model for other regions who want to harness collective action for common good. The following pages outline the history of STEM2 Hub’s evolution. The quick story: • The ecosystem formed in 2015 when Florida had 27,000 jobs in computer science for which there were no qualified applicants. • Gary Chartrand, executive chairman and former president of Acosta Foods, realized that something dramatic was needed to reimagine education in Northwest Florida. • Chartrand recruited business leaders from various sectors representing the business community to join the initiative. • Executive Director Kathleen Schofield, building upon the foundation set by her predecessors, Wanyoni Kendrick and Robert Copeland, is actualizing the vision set by Chartrand as evidenced by the explosive growth, both during out-of-school and summer programs, as well as through the infusion of STEM programs into the school day.
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• Decisions about what the ecosystemwould do and how it would operate were carefully planned with buy-in from the communities by engaging with TIES to survey cross sector stakeholders and bring representation from each sector together for design studios to set goals and agree on common goals. • Key thought partners, including LEGO Education, Microsoft, Code.org, Woz Education, and others have enabled the ecosystem to amplify its work by building capacity. • STEM2 Hub opportunities now regularly reach over 100,000 students in the Jacksonville region through school districts and partnering organizations, spanning from the heart of the urban core to some of the most challenged rural areas in the state. • Over 75,000 students participated in the Hour of Code in December 2018 through district-wide support led by school superintendents. Now computer science is available in 100 percent of the high schools in the region, and in many of the middle schools and junior high schools. • Computer science, through robotics and coding, is being infused into the elementary school media centers in over 50 schools by building capacity in the media teacher, impacting nearly 50,000 students across the schools.
• STEM2 Hub “demonstration schools” are being developed around the region, accelerating exposure by bringing STEM learning into the core academic areas. • Grade-level specific STEM programs are being developed and brought on the road through outreach from the local science museum, bringing a consistent experience to all corners of the region, impacting almost 10,000 students each year. One district has developed a mobile STEM van to bring additional experiences to some of the most rural areas of the ecosystem, allowing for equitable access, and will impact over 10,000 students this year. • This work is empowering students to build the critical thinking skills needed to succeed and lead in a technology rich economy through engagement with computer science, coding, robotics, drones, agrisciences, cybersecurity through science, math, and engineering, in the context of STEM coursework and out-of-school opportunities.
CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO At their core, Acosta and STEM2 Hub are stories of an intense determination to challenge the status quo. From its potentially lucrative deal with an egg farm to the fact that it has put robots in the hands and minds of nearly 100,000 students in afterschool and in-school programs, STEM2 Hub is achieving its mission of accelerating the growth of STEM education and careers. Chartrand and his belief in the power of big ideas, his ever-present smile, his willingness to challenge the status quo and his fundamental belief in the power of education are at the heart of why STEM2 Hub has been able to develop a regional understanding of the power of STEM, create unique opportunities for all students and ensure students throughout Northeast Florida have meaningful experiences with computer science and robots. SHARING THE AMERICAN DREAM “I worked hard at my business andwe ended up being successful and I had a lot of good fortune as well, and I felt like I had the opportunity to live the American dream,” he said. But Chartrand, his wife, Nancy, and his two children, recognized that others aren’t as fortunate.
Chartrand knows that many kids don’t have the opportunity to live the American dream because of societal challenges, poverty and limited educational opportunities or examples. He said, “I felt extremely blessed to be able to live the American dream and I wanted to try to create that for more kids.” BEFORE THE LIGHTBULBS BURN OUT With support and encouragement from his family, who share a passion for education, it was Chartrand’s idea to launch STEM2 Hub in 2015. And years later, he still remembers the “elevator speech” he used to coax others into joining efforts to create the ecosystem: “’There’s a huge gap in making sure that we expose our children to the STEM field. And we’ve got to do it by the fifth grade because that’s when the lightbulbs go off.’ There’s going to be a million STEM jobs opening up in the United States; we’re at 27,000 open jobs in Florida right now; we’re not preparing our kids for the 21st century and I think we need to do something about it.’” Chartrand and his teamwere successful bringing together key leaders, including representatives from business, education and non-profits to partner to improve education for children in the Jacksonville, Fla. area both in and out- of-school. The initial group included a handful of business leaders, who each made a financial contribution to help launch the ecosystem.
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Copeland said STEM2 Hub’s work was critical for helping to address the talent shortage and the pipeline challenges that were plaguing the region. Copeland worked directly with businesses who were struggling to find staff for vacant positions. “Consistently, the colleges would place all of their students and I still had companies in need of talent,” he said. Copeland knew that STEM2 Hub had to take its work all of the way back to elementary schools so that they would be able to feed middle schools with STEM- interested students who, in turn would feed high schools. “The talent wasn’t coming out of high schools and we had to change that,” he said. He knew there was the need to partner with local school systems. KEY PROGRAMMING Copeland said two of his favorite initiatives of STEM2 Hub were the Bicycle Club and expanding the First LEGO League Robotics program – both out-of-school-time initiatives with strong connections to goals of traditional school day classrooms. STEM2Hub borrowed the idea for the Bicycle Club from Cincinnati, another ecosystem in the STEMLearning Ecosystems Community of Practice. Students acquire STEM skills andmodel the engineering design process by breaking down and reassembling a bicycle, solving problems and discoveringmath and science principles at work. Simultaneously, competitive robotics programs were beginning to take a stronghold in the region with Clay County School District developing teams, with the birth of Renaissance Jax and its Duval County robotics program. RENAISSANCE JAX – A REGIONAL STRUCTURE A young engineer, Mark McCombs, had been a student of Copeland’s when he taught at Stanton High School in Duval County. Mark went on to the University of North Florida, where he graduated with an engineering degree. Mark decided that he would forgo the high salary opportunities of working as an engineer to, instead, bring to life his vison of access to robotics for students in Northeast Florida. He started Renaissance Jax to ensure that all students had an opportunity to participate on a robotics team, the same way that he had.
Chartrand said the business leaders realized that it was time to pull together to do something about the region’s once-failing schools. “The public system here, specifically in the urban core, was having a very difficult time. They were really poor and they were breeding chronically failing schools and students – Ds and Fs year after year. They were dropout factories and students weren’t getting the educations that they needed to succeed in the current environment and we wanted to change that,” he said. RESOLUTELY UNREASONABLE STEM2 Hub was born with a few guiding principles, drawn directly from Chartrand’s practiced philosophy regarding life and work: • Don’t accept the status quo; • March confidently into the discomfort zone; • Remain resolutely unreasonable to achieve progress. FOUNDING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR With a board of 15, a bold vision and mission, a little funding, buy-in from critical partners and a never- ending determination, STEM2 Hub was organized as a non-profit in 2015. Its first executive director, Wanyoni Kendrick, came on and helped build the board of directors and establish STEM2 Hub as a non-profit. Kendrick led the region through a SWOT analysis, meeting with leaders from each sector, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. One of STEM2 Hub’s first large public acts in 2015 was to host a convening of 300 stakeholders from around the region to reveal findings of the SWOT analysis. Kendrick stayed in the position of director of STEM2 Hub until 2016, leaving to return to the corporate sector. STEM2 Hub’s TECHNOLOGIST After Kendrick left, Chartrand and the board conducted a search and found Rob Copeland, an electrical engineer who holds a master’s degree from Stanford University. “Gary and the board were interested in taking a strong tech position. And that’s what I am – a technologist,” Copeland said. “Our goal was to ensure that education was fulfilling the workforce need.” Copeland said STEM2 HubwantedNortheast Florida to become known as a technology center, much like Silicon Valley in California or the Research Triangle inNorth Carolina.
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But Chartrand didn’t want to stop with just Clay County. So, Schofield began doing workshops for other counties. And soon, with Schofield’s leadership, they had struck a deal for Code.org to work in a seven-county region, expanding beyond just elementary schools to middle and high school computer science courses. Chartrand recognized that Schofield had the grit, passion, expertise and energy to meet unreasonable expectations and he wanted her to do more than focus on one district and lead coding workshops. He wanted Schofield to lead STEM2 Hub. She officially joined the team in 2017, as the In-School Program Director, kickstarting the computer science initiative, and took the reigns as executive director in 2018, replacing Copeland, who retired. A LEAP OF FAITH “I took a risk andmade a leap of faith in joining STEM2 Hub. I loved Chartrand’s vision, and I knew I could help accelerate this for him. I knew that leaving a school district and joining a start-up nonprofit would bringme new challenges, but I knew that the opportunity to impact hundreds of thousands of students was too great to pass up. I have never regretted the decision for even a moment.” STEM2 Hub’s work covers in- and out-of-school venues, including: • Supportingmore than
Chartrand met McCombs and realized that he was the spark that could accelerate access to competitive robotics and bring opportunities to more youth in the Jacksonville area. By investing in McCombs and his dream, Chartrand, and the STEM2 Hub, seeded the start-up of Renaissance Jax. This was a critical move in the development of the Northeast Florida STEM Learning Ecosystem. The program in the Clay County School District joined with Renaissance Jax, doubling the impact and streamlining efforts by working together. Within the first two years of the investment and the collaboration, national leaders at FIRST took notice of the exponential program growth in Northeast Florida and came to town to learn more about how the region was growing so rapidly.
A LEADERWITH DIFFERENT SKILLS
Copeland realized that STEM2 Hub needed a different type of leader who was more skilled with lobbying, marketing and outreach, and who had both corporate and educational administration experience. “I decided that it was time for me to step away,” Copeland said.
WITHIN THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF THE INVESTMENT AND
Kathleen Schofield
Chartrand had heard of powerful work that was
100 after-school robotics teams across the region. This program, led by Frank Robinson, director of the after-school program, was accomplished by working with partners, such as Communities in Schools, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCA programs, and Girl Scout
happening in Clay County, under the leadership of Kathleen Schofield, in the areas of STEM and with competitive robots. Chartrand made it known to one of Schofield’s contacts that he would be reaching out to the then- superintendent of Clay County Schools to see if that district would help make coding happen by taking advantage of the opportunity to affiliate with Code.org. JUST SAY YES Before the call, Schofield rushed to meet up with the superintendent and said, “You’re going to be getting a call from Gary Chartrand…Please say ‘yes’ and pass me the phone.” The superintendent knew how important computer science education was for students, and honored Schofield’s request, and, in a fewweeks, she and a colleague traveled to Chicago to become trained Code.org facilitators. They began infusing the computer science training throughout the elementary schools in Clay County.
THE COLLABORATION, NATIONAL LEADERS AT FIRST TOOK NOTICE OF THE EXPONENTIAL PROGRAM GROWTH IN NORTHEAST FLORIDA AND CAME TO TOWN TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOWTHE REGIONWAS GROWING SO RAPIDLY.
Frank Robinson
Troops across the region, as well as partnering with schools providing a 21st Century Community Learning Center program. • Working with elementary school media centers to incorporate robotics and coding into media centers. More than 75 teachers and leaders across multiple counties in the region have been trained, impacting more than 37,000 students. • Infusing robotics through middle school science courses in 24 classrooms around the region by working with teachers to align content to standards and provide materials and professional development.
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• Assuring that all middle and high schools have the ability to offer an introductory computer science class to students by working through the Code.org partnership to provide professional development and ongoing support. • Working with districts to build model demonstration schools around the region, infusing computer science and robotics content into the core academic areas, and serving as a site to build local expertise and capacity. • Working with the University of North Florida to infuse opportunities for preservice teachers to graduate with fundamental skills in robotics and computer science. The work with computer science and robots, Schofield explained, is critical because it’s a hands-on way of teaching students how to deal with challenges while learningmath, science and countless other skills, including those in the social-emotional learning categories. The tools that serve as learning vehicles – robots and computers – hook students and then STEM2 Hub and its many partners work to keep them engaged in the sciences and following a STEM career trajectory. THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS Schofield said the STEM2 Hub’s work would not be possible without the partnerships that have been developed, both locally and nationally. “Our board of directors is somuch more than a funding, governing and steering body. The members and their companies are actively involved in supporting our mission and the work,” she said. Schofield said board members make a variety of contributions, ranging from helping provide volunteers for student-level camps and events to lending expertise as new programs are developed. “The work would simply not be happening at this level without their commitment and involvement,” Schofield said. “One of the most
important ways that our board members are engaged is in helping define the specific technical problems and working side by side with me on framing in and out of school programs that will provide solutions.” The PGA Tour and the Jacksonville Jaguars have partnered with STEM2 Hub to help close the digital divide, with a goal of putting computers into the hands of those students most at risk. To date, working with partner organizations, almost 500 computers have been distributed to kids. The kick-off event provided computers to 125 boys who participated in the first STEM and Football camp. At an annual sleep over for girls in Jacksonville held by the Police Athletic League, 100 girls received a computer after a night of STEM activities. Large corporations, including LEGO Education and Microsoft, have developed partnerships with STEM2 Hub. Schofield and some of her colleagues are often tapped to play key roles in national events and meetings to share the STEM2 Hub code. LEGO Education was the first non-Jacksonville based organization to join the STEM2 Hub board. Laylah Bulman of LEGO Education said, “The STEM2 Hub partnership is unique for LEGO Education.” “We have chosen to be a part of this board because we believe the work being done here will lead to a replicable model that can be used to build capacity across the country,” Bulman said. “We have become a thought partner, bringing our expertise and global experience to the STEM2 Hub as they are designing aligned, systematic plans for infusion of robotics and coding. Bulman said LEGO has introduced MIT’s Mitch Resnick, who has been at the forefront of engaging learners of all ages in creative learning experiences, to STEM2 Hub in order for him to offer insight and feedback. Resnick, who serves as the EGO Papert Professor of Learning and Research at the MIT Media Lab, leads a Kindergarten research group that develops scratch programming used by millions of young people around the world. The group also collaborates with the LEGO Company on the development of new educational ideas and products, including LEGOMindstorms andWeDo robotics kits. In addition to work with Resnick and LEGO, STEM2 Hub has also developed critical partnerships with other influential organizations. Schofield said, “Microsoft has become a critical partner in our work, from kindergarten to the workforce. The partnership is opening doors and opportunities for many people,” Schofield said.
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AN “EGG-CEPTIONAL” PARTNERSHIP – EGGS FOR EDUCATION
The Microsoft Hacking STEM, part of the EDU group, noticed the work occurring in Northeast Florida, and the potential for scalability and a replicable model. To help build capacity, Microsoft made the unprecedented gesture of inviting Schofield and 30 teachers and leaders from the area to go to the Redmond Campus, headquarters of Microsoft, and participate in twoweeks of professional development with others fromaround the globe, including participation in the global hackathon. The STEM2 Hub team consisted of STEM teachers, media specialists, school and district administrators, and university faculty whowork with preservice teachers. The leaders experienced professional development during the first week and applied the learning in the second week as they participated in Microsoft’s global hackathon. Schofield said the goal is to build capacity to infuse Hacking STEM curriculum into the local educational experiences at all levels, in- and out-of-school. “The curriculum takes STEM learning so deep, seaming together big data, coding, circuitry, andmath and science content. The learning was tremendous,” Schofield said. “It was both inspirational and practical, arming us with new skills and competencies that are all directly connected to emerging technologies to develop student readiness to participate in careers involving data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence.” Schofield said the impact of the two weeks will tremendously accelerate the work of STEM2 Hub. Microsoft Military Affairs worked with the STEM2 Hub to bring Youth Spark to town, providing a day of coding, career exploration, and hacking to about 100 students of military families. Youth Spark is returning in the fall and will be expanded to reach at least 500 students. The Microsoft Software Systems Academy (MSSA) has a location in Jacksonville, serving the need for transitioning members of the military to learn new skills leading to high demand jobs in technology. So far, STEM2 Hub’s work has directly touched more than 100,000 students in the seven counties in Northeast Florida that the STEM2 Hub directly works with. But the ripple effect of how its work has spread through the STEM Learning Ecosystems Community of Practice is so vast that it is nearly impossible to quantify. The evolution of STEM2 Hub is a fascinating story involving eggs, robots, state policy and a handful of people determined to make a difference in the lives of students.
Partnerships are the cornerstone of the Northeast Florida STEM Learning Ecosystem. Some partnerships are easy to see, such as the partnership between the STEM2 Hub and Lego Education, but others aren’t as visible. The unique partnership between the STEM2 Hub and Bethesda Foundation started with a gift to bring food to the families of local students who face food insecurity. Just before Christmas in 2017, Sean Hellein, a new organic egg farmer and former finance analyst and computer scientist, met Schofield, who was still working for the school district of Clay County. Hellein, who wanted to give back, made a donation to the district that brought bags of groceries to over 300 families to help them survive the extended holiday season. Working with her local Publix food store, Schofield, who managed the holiday food project, ordered the food, organized the staging and delivery, and coordinated with the 40 schools in the district to identify the families most in need. On the Monday before Christmas, almost 200 volunteers gathered to organize the food and take it to families. The project brought a sense of hope and joy to many and has led Hellein and Schofield to form a deep friendship and partnership. After the holidays, Hellein knew he wanted to continue to do more. Schofield and Hellein partnered again to start microfarms on elementary school campuses as a place to learn to grow healthy food, to discover science, and to foster a sense of empathy and social responsibility in the students served. As the farm grew, Hellein was interested in getting his eggs into the Publix Supermarkets in Florida. Acosta Sales and Marketing, where Gary Chartrand served as the Executive CEO, stocks the majority of food for Publix markets. Schofield went to Chartrand and, today, Bethesda Farm Eggs are available for sale on the shelves of just about every Publix in Florida. Proceeds from Bethesda egg sales at Publix in northeast Florida are channeled to STEM2 Hub. Bethesda Farm also holds a seat on the STEM2 Hub Board of Directors, helping to shape the STEM opportunities being made available to students across the region and ensuring that biology and other aspects of the sciences are well represented throughout the ecosystem’s initiatives.
“ITWAS BOTH INSPIRATIONAL AND PRACTICAL, ARMING USWITH NEWSKILLS AND COMPETENCIES THAT ARE ALL DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES TO DEVELOP STUDENT READINESS TO PARTICIPATE IN CAREERS INVOLVING DATA SCIENCE, MACHINE LEARNING
AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.” - Kathleen Schofield
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CARRYING A TORCH FOR CODING Schofield said that all of the work is designed for one singular purpose: to give students opportunities that will better prepare them for their futures and allow them to make meaningful contributions to their communities. Chartrand said STEM2 Hub owes most of its success to Schofield, a former teacher who has long carried a torch for coding, computers and technology. Before her work in Clay County, she had worked in human resources with a defense contractor. It was during her years with the defense contractor, and long before computers had become common workplace tools, that she began playing around with coding tomake her work more efficient. Her bosses were opposed to relying on computers for anything other than typing. “They didn’t trust their formulas.” Schofield told the story of the day she came up with a big idea to streamline her work long before Excel was ever invented. “I thought, ‘what if we loaded all of the monthly billing and the customer names and everything into this spreadsheet and I wrote a program that would take the invoice template and put it in like one by one. I wrote a macro that basically prepopulated the invoice and then printed it on a dot matrix printer.” NEWTERRITORY Schofield’s early experiments with coding were not the only time that she ventured into new territory. At a time when others were in the middle of their careers, she began taking college courses to pursue her long dream of teaching. A bachelor’s degree fromUniversity of North Florida in elementary education then led her to a master’s and then to a classroomposition in Clay County in 2006. After four years in the classroom, she was moved to the district office where she began to lay a foundation for STEM programs in Clay County as she oversaw the STEM needs of over 36,000 students in 41 schools. Schofield is the public face of STEM2 Hub, and along with a handful of other key leaders, has built the Northeast Florida-based ecosystem into a model ecosystem in the international STEM Learning Ecosystems Community of Practice. Schofield has become a trusted ecosystem leader and regularly mentors many other ecosystem heads on everything from strategies for gaining public attention to ideas for how to sway a state legislature.
Schofield has the entire history of STEM2 Hub on instant recall and can relate specific dates and events that were critical milestones in its evolution.
GROWING AS A LEADER She became a LEAD STEM fellow in 2017, joining the inaugural class of STEM leaders to enter the formal training program. “I felt like I was at a place in my life and in my career where I needed to expand my viewpoint and learn how to have a greater impact,” Schofield wrote about her decision to join the program. “My role was changing in my ecosystem, and I knew that I needed to learn a new set of leadership skills if I were going to grow as a leader.” She explained that the national ecosystemwork was inspiring. “I wanted to play a bigger role in the national work, learn more strategies about impacting policy, and have a bolder vision to set impossible goals for my region, and then work to achieve those goals,” she wrote. Schofield’s LEAD STEM capstone project, “Exploring in the STEP (Solve/Tinker/Explore/Play) Lab was inspired by her fear that schools were not moving quickly enough to reach every learner who needed deep and meaningful exposure to computer science, coding, robotics and other STEM activities. As part of her project, she spent considerable time talking to and learning from many ecosystem partners and discovered that there was a serious need for comprehensive teacher preparation and professional development for 21st century skills. DEVELOPING A PLACE With several partners, including the College of Education at the University of North Florida and numerous visioning meetings, the decision was made that a “place” needed to be developed. That place would be where teachers could come to learn new skills, where educational leaders could learn to teach in a new learning environment, and where preservice teachers could learn the skills needed to enter their careers with a thorough understanding of problem- solving and critical thinking that robotic technologies and making environments could foster.
ALL OF THEWORK IS DESIGNED FOR ONE SINGULAR PURPOSE: TO GIVE STUDENTS OPPORTUNITIES THATWILL BETTER PREPARE THEM FOR THEIR FUTURES AND ALLOWTHEM TO MAKE MEANINGFUL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEIR COMMUNITIES.
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LANDING A STATE APPROPRIATION
The decision was made to house the center at the university with sister spaces strategically located in school districts so that local capacity would be built, and teachers would have a place to explore and learn with their students. Numerous partners came to help imagine what the space should look like and how it should function, including teachers from surrounding school districts, university faculty members, members of the business community, statewide education officials, IKEA, Google, LEGO Education, the MIT Media Lab and others. Flexible furniture, robots, 3D printers and more started to fill the lab. Schofield explained how the center is mirroring the cross-sector focus of the STEM Learning Ecosystems Community of Practice, “We work deliberately across our region and across the sectors with program design so that there are deliberate connections between the school day and the afterschool and out-of-school experiences that our students receive.” For instance, with the robotics program, teachers who coached a robotics team often had stronger professional learning experiences than after-school program staff members serving as robotics coaches because they have been receiving regular training in robotics directly from LEGO Education. In order to address the competitive advantage that the school teams would have, in 2019, STEM2 Hub changed that model and provided training to non-teacher coaches from the afterschool programs in a setting that is side- by-side to the teachers. “As a result of this, new partnerships between formal and informal educators were formed, and the afterschool providers’ skill sets were sharpened. This had a tremendous impact on student performance,” Schofield explained, noting that many afterschool teams, such as the Boys and Girls Clubs and Communities in Schools were not only winning bids to regional and state competitions, but winning awards as well. Schofield said this change has triggered other benefits for the robotics competitions. “The change in the diversity at our regional competition is remarkable, with a record-breaking presence of students from rural, underrepresented minorities, and girls participating at all levels. All of this has happened because of the empowerment of afterschool providers by giving them the needed skills for their success as coaches and mentors,” she said.
While plans for the space and its design continued, Chartrand knew that acquiring state funding would accelerate the work at a tremendous pace. Chartrand set the foundation and made the connections for the STEM2 Hub to work through the legislative process to request a local appropriation. With significant guidance and support from Chartrand, Schofield worked with him to develop an appropriation for workforce development to expand equitable access to robotics, computer science, high quality mathematics instruction and to expand after-school programs that prepare students to be critical and flexible thinkers. In spring 2018, Schofield received word that the STEM2 Hub’s first appropriation was approved and $975,000 was earmarked for expanding access to robotics, computer science and coding, building deep fundamental math skills for teachers, increasing access to robotics in the school day, and exploring new and emerging technologies, such as drones and augmented/virtual reality in the schools. After a successful implementation year, the STEM2 Hub has once again been approved for a second appropriation that will continue and expand the work. As with many of the initiatives of STEM2 Hub, Schofield credits Chartrand with providing the leadership, know- how and introductions that enabled the success. “I didn’t know any of these people in the beginning, or how to do this. And the first time Gary told me to get in front of a state legislative committee, I was like a deer in the headlights,” she said. “I didn’t even know where to start! And I have made mistakes, but Gary always guides me and helps me learn. Thanks to his leadership, so many students are having experiences that just would never have been possible.” When news arrived that funds would be available to work with school districts, Schofield began to focus on the details of building an implementation plan. She started developing and implementing an outreach plan, meeting with district superintendents and curriculum leaders, pitching the idea of starting to expand access to robots, coding, 3D printing and makerspaces to their media centers, starting in the elementary schools.
“THE CHANGE IN THE DIVERSITY AT OUR REGIONAL COMPETITION IS REMARKABLE, WITH A RECORD- BREAKING PRESENCE OF STUDENTS FROM RURAL, UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITIES, AND GIRLS PARTICIPATING AT ALL LEVELS.
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Students work together in teams, accomplishing their mission. With standards in mind, the scenario was built, materials ordered, and custom-made items, such as the surface of Mars as a roll-out field were designed and ordered. “The cost to make and develop a scenario like this is simply not feasible or practical for one school or even a district. But through the power of the ecosystem and the collaboration across school districts, the magic began,” she said, growing from one school district to more and then to Boys and Girls Clubs. MORE THAN COMPUTER SCIENCE While much of STEM2 Hub’s highly visible work has included computer science, organizers recognize that STEM, in general, is broad and encompasses important disciplines and they try to integrate responsive programs. For instance, STEM2 Hub has partnered with the Biomimicry Institute to provide training to 40 middle school and high school science teachers. “By infusing principles of biomimicry into their content, students learn to look to nature to find solutions to problems that exist in the environment, and look to science for solutions to advance medical solutions for health problems,” she said.
“As buy in continued to build, excitement around the region grew. We knew that this work was going to make a huge difference to our children. We developed a bold implementation plan with a heavy focus on professional development that would help us to build capacity,” she said. Addressing the needs of preservice teachers to learn more of these skills before college graduation, The STEP Lab continues to be a work in process, and the partnership continues to grow. As of May, 2019, the College of Education awarded the first 10 educators with the newly developed Computer Science Educator Cord, indicating that they are graduating ready to introduce computer science and robotics to students in their classrooms. Preservice teacher preparation will be critical to a sustainable effort to expand access to computer science, Schofield remarked. Its implementation plan shifted from elementary media centers to middle school science courses – a shift in thinking that has opened new doors for the project. AFTER SCHOOL AND OUT-OF- SCHOOL TIME PARTNERS PLAY CRITICAL ROLE Partners from the out-of-school and afterschool space are involved with STEM2 Hub in numerous ways, in addition to their participation at the center. “We also work with informal educators for meaningful systemwide impact. An example of this is our partnership with our local science museum, the MOSH. Field trips are not always practical due to travel time and the cost of bussing for areas of our region that are rural,” she said To close that gap and bring equitable access to experiences for students, STEM2 Hub invested in developing an outreach program. The first year of the outreach, STEM2 Hub worked with existing MOSH programs that could be taken on the road. “This was well received, and wonderful, but we wanted to do something more. Something that infused computer science, and was transdisciplinary in nature. We thought about what might be interesting to students. Then we got an idea... Mars! We put our heads together to create something new. Red Rover Robotics!” Schofield explained that the floors of cafeterias and gymnasiums are transformed into the surface of Mars. Students simulate a “crash landing” with their robot, and then are set free to explore, record data, and learn.
“PRESERVICE TEACHER PREPARATION
WILL BE CRITICAL TO A SUSTAINABLE EFFORT TO EXPAND ACCESS TO COMPUTER SCIENCE.” - Kathleen Schofield
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PARTNERSHIPS OF ALL KIND ARE IMPORTANT At the STEM2 Hub, partnerships of all kinds are important and are driven by an adherance to mutual respect and commitment. And that starts at the top, Schofield said. “Our board members roll up their sleeves and bring their expertise to the table. There are so many examples of this depth of involvement. For example, Jason Raymond, CIO of Florida Blue, works with us on the development of cybersecurity pathways, helping us bring relevancy and currency into the programs. With Lisa Cochran, Head of Global Consumer Technology at Citi, we have worked together on events, such as Bring Your Child to TECH Day, Hour of Code with preschool children, and numerous community events. Our board member, LEGO Education, has pulled together teams of global experts to collaborate,” she said.
At the training, the capstone project was for teachers to work together and hack a problem utilizing a solution found in nature. This year, as science classes across the disciplines infuse biomimicry into the curriculum, students will be challenged to solve a problem that is of interest to them in a way that they take their learning from nature. To do this, ecosystems, symbiosis and anomalies from the natural world are studied, igniting interest for studies from life and environmental sciences to biomedical and environmental engineering. Schofield said, “All of this is happening while students are learning what is required in the standards, but in a more engaging way, through a problem-solving, collaborative environment.” The agrisciences are another area of study, linked and aligned to standards and to social justice through the study of food equity and school-based microfarms. In partnership with board member, Bethesda Farm, school-based microfarms have been located at a few schools in the region. Schofield sketched plans for a new program: “After learning about the Farm Beats program during our visit to Microsoft, we will be partnering with Microsoft and learning more so that we can infuse technology into the Microfarm project so that we can teach about increasing production through the use of technology to monitor, diagnose and treat conditions in plants that can lead to greater yield through IoT applications. As we develop this partnership, we plan to expand to develop more Microfarms, especially in the urban core of Jacksonville, where there are still many areas that are considered to be food deserts. Building empathy, and working to solve social problems, while learning science and technology applied in agriculture offers great promise for children to develop interest in helping solve the projected problems with having enough food to feed the world! Eventually, we plan to develop a place at Bethesda Farm for field trips and summer camps for students to be immersed in these kinds of learning experiences.
“Everyone is learning together to create a better learning experience for children,” she said.
CONSTANT ITERATION Schofield said STEM2 Hub has to understand the need to constantly iterate and seek feedback and input from diverse partners. Schofield believes in casting a wide net for that feedback and support and has been successful with developing media partnerships, including one with a Florida television station that is producing 30-second public service announcements being aired with a STEM student of the week. Schofield said the weekly spots increase the public’s awareness of the Jacksonville-based ecosystem and help improve the community’s overall awareness of STEM. Schofield said the partnership with the television station began when she met some TV staffers at a school where she and one of her STEM2 Hub leaders were cooking eggs for volunteers working at a school.
AT THE STEM2 HUB, PARTNERSHIPS OF ALL KINDS ARE IMPORTANT AND ARE DRIVEN BY A ADHERANCE TO MUTUAL RESPECT AND COMMITMENT.
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COOKING EGGS AND DEALS One thing led to another and by the time the eggs were ready, Schofield had hatched a plan. STEM2 Hub is paying for a package of ads with the television station and the station is reciprocating with the weekly stories.
SHARING CREDIT –WE ARE A TEAM Schofield is the face of the STEM2 Hub, but she emphasized that so many others deserve credit for this work. Every district leader, principal, and teacher who has opened the door to us, and become our partner deserves credit for the outcomes of this work. We all have a part to play and when, with passion for kids at the forefront, we bring our talents, access, and perspectives together, this is what can happen. And those from other organizations also play a role. She related the story of her meeting with Mitchel Resnick, Director of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab in Massachusetts. “He reviewed our theory of change and logic model and gave me some input that I can’t even begin to tell you how valuable that is.” In addition to Resnick, Schofield says many others have been instrumental in STEM2 Hub’s success, including TIES and the STEM Learning Ecosystems Community of Practice, SLECoP. Specifically, she noted that Marc Siciliano, a partner of TIES, provided critical guidance for the establishment of the ecosystem, weaving in the importance of cross-sector collaboration, and placing emphasis on building the infrastructure to enable innovative programs and practices to flourish. She also said that serving as part of the SLECoP has enabled STEM2 Hub to learn and model best practices while also sharing some of their own work. Schofield, however, said Chartrand and his original vision and passion have always served as the most powerful driving force. “Gary is a visionary leader, and the most caring person I have ever met. He inspires me every day to do more, as we have so much work left to do. One of the things that sets our ecosystem apart is the fact that we have Gary Chartrand, who knows education from his service on the board of education for the state for eight years. And he knows how to build a corporation,” she said. “I can’t even speak to the power of the corporations coming together to support this work and grow our talent. I work with the goal of bringing Gary’s vision to life. He has inspired me, and I will forever be thankful for the opportunity to build this plan and be his hands to lead this work.” “ONE OF THE THINGS THAT SETS OUR ECOSYSTEM APART IS THE FACT THATWE HAVE GARY CHARTRAND, WHO KNOWS EDUCATION FROM HIS SERVICE ON THE BOARD OF EDUCATION FOR THE STATE FOR EIGHT YEARS. AND HE KNOWS HOWTO BUILD A CORPORATION.” - Kathleen Schofield
View one of the public service announcements here.
Schofield explained why this partnership and the TV exposure is critical: Parental Engagement - Parents will see these spots and connect with the children they see. We will be varying the kids who are featured to represent all age groups andmindful to include underrepresented populations. There is a deliberate call to action: “Ask your school about STEM education” Community Engagement - When our community members see these spots, we want them to ask, “How can I help?” “How can I get involved?” Economic Development - We think that this clearly paints the picture that NE FL cares about STEM education and the development of the talent pipeline. https://www. facebook.com/NEFLSTEM2hub/videos/2243448975702093/ BASIC OPERATING PRACTICES While bringing strong public attention to issues and lobbying legislators, STEM2 Hub has also adhered to basic operating practices and ideas: • The economics of STEM education must be recognized with an understanding that success in building a STEM Citizenry will bring economic vitality and fulfill communities’ hopes to “grow their own”; • The STEM workforce must adapt to include new team members and new training that recognizes and acts upon the principle of promoting equity of access to STEM learning and careers; • Transformative efforts are needed to promote STEM careers with the expansion and development of pipeline programs for STEM, including those that are collected to in-school courses and activities; • Technology is ushering in new and different opportunities for the next generation of workers and innovators; • Training to establish student cohorts bound for the STEM professions in learning communities will promote college-bound STEM students; • Community members must become active supporters and learners in this new STEM world.
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