Spending $496,266 in a single school year is harder than it sounds! Newberg’s Career Technical Education grant coordinator, Andy Byerley, has spent the last four months purchasing equipment and technology, arranging for teacher training and outfitting a new CTE classroom the Newberg High School. Here’s a brief update on the four elements of the one-year grant from the Oregon Department of Education:

Pathway to Engineering
Two NHS teachers spent much of their summer learning the nationally recognized, award winning Project Lead the Way engineering curriculum. Teachers Paul Schierholtz and Michelle Poletski are teaching Introduction to Engineering Design to two full classes. Principles of Engineering will be added next year. Both courses provide a solid foundation for engineering courses at NHS. The grant provided teacher training, course materials and outfitted a new classroom for Project Lead the Way courses.

School to Business Partnerships
Vicki Peterson has hit the ground running as Newberg High School’s School to Business Coordinator. She is matching students with local companies for internships and working with PCC and Clackamas Community College to give students dual high school and college credit for the internship. Class speakers from Climax helped celebrate National Manufacturing Day. ODOT is arranging for students to be on hand when bypass contractors set the bridge spans next week. Chehalem Valley Chamber representatives are working with Vicki to develop a mentoring database to help connect high school students with businesses for advice and mentoring resources.

CTE After School
“8th Period” is the new after-school camp for middle school students to explore CTE programs. Currently 122 students are enrolled in the six-week camps. Community partners are working directly with teachers to give students unique hands-on learning experiences. The City of Newberg, A-dec, Climax, Newberg Bakery and CodeMonkeys are helping students learn about stream restoration, creating a business, product design, 3-D printing, coding and crowd-funding at the middle school camps.

Champions for STEM
Ongoing, job-embedded professional learning for 20 educators from all schools and grade levels is beginning to increase teacher effectiveness and the capacity for STEM in K-12 classrooms. Newberg is looking at this as a replicable model for instruction and considers it one of the strongest returns on the investment of CTE grant dollars.