SVVSD partners with CU Denver to add STEM P-TEACH pathway

Oct. 2—St. Vrain Valley students considering education as a career will have more options to prepare for a career as secondary science, technology, engineering or math teachers.

The St. Vrain Valley School District is part of a new University of Colorado Denver initiative, supported by Apple, to increase access to tech education and expand the district's grow-your-own teacher program, called P-TEACH.

Along with St. Vrain, CU Denver and Apple are working with high schools in Aurora Public Schools and Jefferson County Schools.

P-TEACH, which started in spring 2018 with 17 students, is a concurrent enrollment program that includes field experiences in classrooms and college-level early childhood classes, allowing students to earn college credit while still in high school. About 70 students are enrolled in the program this year.

P-TEACH also includes a college apprenticeship program for graduates, giving them an opportunity to gain classroom experience while working toward a teaching degree. This semester, 22 graduates are enrolled.

"The goal is for St. Vrain to hire every single one of them," P-TEACH coordinator Nicole Rudman said.

The programs are a way for St. Vrain to encourage its students to go into education, addressing teacher shortages. It's also a strategy to increase the number of teachers of color. Many of the St. Vrain graduates are first-generation college students.

For the high school students, the current P-TEACH pathways are early childhood, special education and elementary education. The initiative with CU Denver will add a secondary STEM pathway.

"We have a lot of students interested in STEM who also have a passion for working with children," Rudman said.

Apple, through its Community Education Initiative, has donated a technology hardware package and is supporting student scholarships, curriculum development and teacher training for the P-TEACH program. The technology package includes access to Apple's Swift Coding and Everyone Can Create curriculum.

Rudman is on the team with CU Denver professors that's working on the best ways to integrate the newly donated technology into the program's existing STEM Methods class. Next, the team plans to develop two new STEM-based classes.

The first will be a digital teaching and learning class. Students will explore the fundamental skills of using video, photography, music and drawing, as well as using web and iOS design applications to encourage deep thinking, collaboration and creation.

The second will be an interdisciplinary design studio class. Students will test and design solutions for businesses that provide products and services aimed at enhancing the quality of education.

The addition of those two new concurrent enrollment classes will give P-TEACH students the opportunity to earn up to 37 college credits prior to high school graduation, giving them a strong competitive advantage.

Also in the plans is student internships in the Innovation Center's classrooms, so students can put what they learn into practice.

"They learn right from high school what it's like," Rudman said. "We don't want everything to be only theory. We want to very practical.

Senior Ankara Way said she appreciates the opportunity to learn more about teaching as a career while still in high school, before committing to a college major. She's considering teaching high school music or history.

"It's a really cool program," she said.

Frederick High sophomore Emily Warnecke said she's known she wanted to be a second grade teacher since second grade, when she was inspired by her teacher.

"I really like that age," she said. "They're still super excited to go to school. Kids' imaginations are super cool."

Tyler Graham, a senior at Niwot High School, is planning to become a pediatric speech pathologist and is shadowing the speech pathologist at Burlington Elementary.

"I love working with kids," he said. "This lets you see the possibilities of what you can do with kids."

On Friday, two P-TEACH classes at the Innovation Center set up stations in the makerspace for preschool families from Longmont's Indian Peaks Elementary School. The theme, based on the preschool curriculum, was healthy bodies.

The preschoolers could explore robotics using Spheros, Cubelets and Beebots. Or they could try scientific drawing and painting of eyes and teeth. There was a reading nook with body-themed books, along with a "mess about" station with stones and other small objects.

Along with the makerspace centers, families could visit St. Vrain's mobile Innovation Lab, where the preschoolers tried virtual reality goggles and drew lines that a small robot could follow with help from the P-TEACH students.

The plan is to host the same makerspace program for preschoolers about three times a semester. Kristen Brohm, Innovation Center STEM project manager, said it's another opportunity for the high school students to get hands-on experience, as well as a way to introduce more families to the Innovation Center.

"We have students, teachers and parents all working together to support the preschoolers' STEM learning," she said. "We want to show them that everyone belongs here."