The food truck will, of course, be a big part of Lincoln Public Schools’ culinary CTE program. But getting the truck going will require the skills and participation of students studying graphic design, automotive repair, business and law, among other subjects. “This food truck is a mobile classroom that is cross-curricular,” says Filippelli, Rhode Island’s 2023 Superintendent of the Year.

Lincoln Public Schools bought the five-year-old food truck from a restaurant with $125,000 worth of help from the Rhode Island Department of Education. Three graphic design students, including one who is special needs, have designed the wrap to cover the exterior of the truck, now dubbed the “Lion’s Mane” after the district’s mascot. Business and law students will review state regulations to ensure the truck has all the appropriate licenses.

The CTE focus jibes with the “vision of a graduate” framework Filippelli and his team are now finalizing after three years of work. “That’s the curriculum driver for everything we want our little Lions to be when they come to preschool and what we want our seniors to exit as when they graduate,” he says.

That vision, however, goes nowhere without the facilities to support i. Lincoln Public Schools, a suburban district of about 3,200 students, recently completed a $60 million renovation of its high school and is now building a $9 million physical education center. In the fall, voters will be asked to approve a $25 million bond to fund new gymnasiums, makerspaces, STEM spaces and reimagined cafeterias at the district’s elementary schools, where the media centers are also being renovated and updated.

“We’ve got a lot of infrastructure to support the curriculum,” Filippelli explains. “By the time we’re done, we’re probably going to spend close to $100M in renovations. That is really exciting.”

Why you need a second therapy dog

Meeting the social-emotional needs of students and adults presents one of the biggest issues that Filippelli says he and his team are facing as the school year winds down. “Last school year, we were coming out of COVID and we came out pretty strong but this year, getting back into those routines and putting COVID in the rear-view mirror, that really has been a challenge,” he says. “There have been some behaviors that we’ve had to address that just leave you scratching your head.”

The district has used ESSER funds to hire extra social workers and psychologists and ramped up professional development on trauma-informed practices. The district is also now home to a therapy dog, a Labradoodle named Willow. “She has made an incredible difference when it comes time for state testing and finals exams,” Filippelli says. “We’re considering getting a second one because it has made a huge impact to have a therapy dog here.”

Lincoln has not struggled to hire teachers as much as it has in filling administrative vacancies. The district has received about half the applications that it normally gets for an open position.

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Filippelli is seeing both lower enrollments in college administrative training programs and fewer teachers excited about moving to central office. The pay for a beginning administrator—such as an assistant principal—is not that much higher than for an experienced teacher who also earns a stipend for additional instructional duties. Some educators may not consider the pay increase worth the tilt in work-life balance for an administrator who is obligated to attend school events multiple nights a week, among other duties.

Can schools provide everything?

Filippelli is deeply involved in state and regional school safety efforts, including with SENTRY, a Northeastern University-based think tank that is backed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is looking into the role artificial intelligence can play in K12 security, among other research. The organization has also analyzed Lincoln’s lockdown drills.

He is also an adjuct instructor in the principal development program at Providence College and often works with state legislators on laws that will impact education, both positively and negatively. He is concerned about a bill that, at a cost of $15 million, would provide universal free meals to all students and the financial strain that could place on the state’s education system.

“Ever since we became mobile hospitals during COVID, parents have this expectation that schools just need to provide everything,” he concludes. “As you provide more, responsibility gets pulled away from parents, and when people have responsibilities pulled away from them, you get used to that really quickly.”

The post How this superintendent is fueling multidisciplinary learning with a food truck appeared first on District Administration.

In light of this and the relatively large influx of students into our small district, we began building out our career and technical education (CTE) pathways. We are currently implementing 14 of the 16 pathways and even finding paid opportunities for many of our students along the way. Here’s what it looks like.

Launching CTE pathways

We hired a CTE coordinator in April of 2022, and she has made it her focus to look into all the courses. She also pulls together licenses, looks into who could teach what, ensures alignment with state requirements and standards, and provides curricula for teachers. Through her work, she helps expand our community partnerships so that local business leaders can visit as guest speakers and hire our students. There has been a lot on her plate in this first year!

Nevertheless, she managed to pull together a career fair that brought 72 people representing 32 local businesses. They spent four hours on our campus, offering 15-minute presentations, chatting with students about the jobs they offer and even accepting applications from some students.

We also launched an automotive program in the 2022-2023 school year that has partnered with a car dealership in nearby Alamogordo. We helped the head mechanic become certified to teach through the community college, and now he’s teaching on our campus for two hours each evening, Monday through Thursday. The owner of the dealership has encouraged students to apply for jobs, so they have an opportunity to get paid while they’re learning a skill set and figuring out what jobs are interesting to them.

Agriculture, construction, and healthcare are priorities for us as well because those sectors represent a lot of careers in our area. We also have a civic pathway that allows students to shadow police officers and have other experiences that give them insights into public service and law.

We’ve hired some students who are working on pathways for careers such as electrician or plumbing to do maintenance work within the district. Others who are working on a technology pathway have become an in-district “Geek Squad,” helping teachers and other students when they have trouble with their computers, printers or other technology. We’re grateful for the opportunity to pay these students as they learn, and they also play an important role in the operation of our school.

Those are a lot of programs to launch in a short time. One of the reasons it was possible at all was that we converted our existing elective classes into our new CTE pathways. It was still a big job that required working with the Bureau of College and Career Readiness at the New Mexico Public Education Department. They helped us understand the pathways, look at our existing classes and bring them into alignment. They also clarified what our teachers could teach and what additional licenses they would need.

Earning teachers’ buy-in

One of the challenges was helping teachers understand why things needed to change. For the most part, it was just getting them licensed, changing the codes on the class names, and making some tweaks to what was taught or how.

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Fortunately, they were mostly able to continue teaching the same stuff, and once they saw the benefits, they were actually excited. Changing the codes on the class names to CTE codes means that additional funding is available for those classes, and we were able to bring in approximately $1 million to purchase new furniture and technology such as smartboards, teacher computers, and student laptops. Elective teachers don’t often see that kind of investment in their programs because most schools give that money to the core subjects, so they did come to see the value in making some changes.

They still get to be elective teachers in one sense, but now their students can follow the pathway that allows them to pick up some certifications and experience to make themselves more marketable to employers.

Computer science for everyone

Our computer science program is a good example of how our CTE expansion has worked. We adopted Ellipsis Education’s curriculum because our teachers felt comfortable that they could implement it and were confident that it would be effective with students. In lower grades, we wanted to use a year-long process for computer science, while in high school we wanted to go with a semester schedule, and Ellipsis was flexible enough to be used for both.

At our intermediate school, which is grades 3-6, nearly 300 students use Ellipsis in a specials rotation. At our high school, we had a retired technology teacher who was working as an educational aid overseeing a credit-recovery program. When we launched our computer science CTE program, he said that he’d like to work full-time to help students develop those skills, and he has been phenomenal in that role.

One of the biggest challenges that we’ve encountered with computer science is that every student wants to jump right into game development. Everyone wants to build the blockbuster game that’s going to set them up for life, so we have to slow them down and make sure they follow the pathway correctly and gain some exposure to the various job opportunities in computer science. It includes game development, but it also includes fixing and troubleshooting computers, securing data and so many other possibilities.

Computer science students get paid

Our students have really taken to computer science as well. In their first year competing in an IT services competition, they came in eighth out of 24 teams in a regional competition. Shortly after we implemented our computer science curriculum, we were offered tech initiative funding to set up a help desk program run by our students. Because our students already had some computer science experience, we were able to get it off the ground in two weeks. Now they receive calls from state facilities all over New Mexico and help adults troubleshoot their technology for $15 an hour. They even have a repair depot to fix hardware. Some other schools have joined, but our students have been the only ones ready to get to work so far.

We also have a community partnership that allows students to earn money for their computer science knowledge. Tularosa Communications has provided spots for students to do cybersecurity work as well as maintenance work on their telecommunication lines.

We’re looking for more opportunities for students to earn money in computer science. We have about 10 of them currently working on the state helpline, and once students saw that they could earn money down the line, many began signing up for the initial courses that build towards that opportunity. For our students, ensuring that there’s money available at the end of the line has proven to be a huge motivator. If that money isn’t available through community partners, we’ll find a way to pay for it through the school or district. Money is always going to talk to kids, especially in poor, rural areas like ours.

I spent 13 years in high school classrooms and career-focused education was always very poorly funded. This is a really exciting time to be in education because those attitudes are changing. Not all kids have to go to a four-year college, and the world is desperately in need of the kinds of skills they can develop in CTE programs. There’s tons of funding available for it these days and we get to use it to develop these kids and see them bloom. And that’s what education is all about, right?

The post How new CTE pathways are inspiring students to learn—and earn appeared first on District Administration.

Two cohorts of 15 students were transported from the high school to the South Jersey Electrical Training & Apprenticeship facility to obtain their OSHA 10 and Lock-In/Lock-Out certifications, preparing them for a lucrative career as an electrician. “South Jersey is in dire need of skilled laborers, and this was our first step toward filling that void by preparing our high school students for jobs that are ready and waiting for them upon graduation,” Dolente tells District Administration.

Next school year, HVAC training will be added to the Skilled Trades Program to broaden the district’s impact on the local employment market. Here, Dolente talks about how he and his team are tackling today’s K12 challenges and what else is top of mind as he looks ahead to the 2023-24 school year.

1. What are the biggest challenges that your district is facing?

Coming back from the pandemic we have noticed that students have grown a new level of attachment to their hand-held devices. Cellphones have become a major distraction in classrooms. We are currently exploring creative ways to detach our students from their personal devices, which they were conditioned to utilize as their only means of communication, education, and entertainment for almost two years.

2. What are the top 3 goals for the rest of this school year and 2023-24?

1. To improve the climate and culture of our district through a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion strategies, mental health programs, and professional development.
2. To enhance our efficiency and effectiveness through administrative restructuring, aligning our building operations and management with our curriculum and instructional goals.
3. To increase the number of 8th-grade students enrolled in our CTE programs by 10% while simultaneously increasing the number of completers and concentrators by 5%.

3. What have you learned about supporting student success and what works, and what doesn’t work?

When it comes to supporting success, there is nothing more important than building rapport with each and every child. Relationships within the classroom are essential to optimize student success on every level. When students feel connected to their teachers, administrators, counselors, and school community as a whole, they thrive and flourish both academically and emotionally. This is why our district’s mission statement is: “Creating connections to empower every student to be successful and fulfill their dreams”

What doesn’t work is putting students into structured, cookie-cutter boxes with a “one-size-fits-all” approach to education. We teach the importance of individuality, diversity, and being comfortable with who you are. It’s vital that we practice what we preach inside the classroom. For students to realize their full potential, a variety of pathways must be available to them. That is why the Cumberland Regional High School District is proud to offer seven different CTE academies, an early college high school program, and most recently, HVAC and electrical training in addition to our standard high school offerings.

4. What are you and your team doing to support students’ mental health?

During the pandemic, the district brought on two additional counselors at the high school. One is a full-time student assistance coordinator and the other is a school social worker. Together this dynamic duo treats hundreds of students on their caseload who are struggling with mental health issues stemming from childhood trauma and the typical stressors related to adolescent development.

We have also built SEL lessons into various areas of our curriculum and placed a heavy DEI focus in our social studies classrooms over the last two years. This year we brought in an amazing mental health program called “Challenge Day,” where every sophomore in our school was given access to this powerful, full-day workshop that addresses mental health on a multitude of levels. I encourage every school district to look into this program, as we have found the feedback from parents, students and staff to be overwhelmingly positive.

5. What’s at the top of your district’s list of must-have-ASAP?

An increase in funding. As our schools now face the end of all the COVID money we were given, many of the programs, positions, and technology will be hanging in the balance. Trying to find ways to sustain these important and much-needed improvements we were able to make over the past three years will take a great deal of creative budgeting and resourcefulness.

6. Do you have a good relationship with your school board? If so, what are the keys to collaborating effectively with the board?

I have an excellent relationship with my board. When I hear or read some of the horror stories my colleagues are faced with, I can’t help but feel incredibly blessed and fortunate to have such a supportive, student-focused BOE that understands the complexities of running an efficient and effective school district. There is not one person on our board that takes an individual approach or view when it comes to making decisions for our district. They do a phenomenal job of looking at the district as a whole, through a global perspective, not a singularly focused lens often associated with hidden agendas.

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I have found the keys to collaborating effectively with my board to be total transparency and humility. It is essential for there to be mutual respect for the roles we play respective to our different positions and an understanding that we will not always agree or see eye-to-eye on every issue, and that’s OK. It is also important to address their issues and concerns with a sense of urgency and provide them with immediate follow-up to inquiries or investigations.

7. Is your district experiencing teacher shortages? If so, how are they impacting your schools and how are you responding?

We don’t have any major shortages like our neighboring districts have experienced lately, however, we are certainly finding a lack of qualified candidates for specific teaching positions in the areas of math, science, and special education.

We have doubled our efforts to get our small district’s name out to the teacher pool by attending a variety of recruitment fairs held at local colleges/universities. We have also been successful in getting a few current employees certified in the areas of need by sending them back to school to complete the required coursework.

The post Why this superintendent is excited: He figured out how to improve career paths appeared first on District Administration.

“A business can be situated inside a high school and create benefits for both,” ISD 197 Superintendent Peter Olson-Skog says. “The business can test products in real-time with real people, and the students are helping to create them. You never learn something better than when you have to create it or teach it.”

Pivot Interactives got off the ground with grant funding and word of mouth as Bohacek and his classes shared the videos with other teachers, schools, and districts. Video is particularly effective for teaching physics because it’s often difficult for teachers to find ways to show real-life examples of concepts and the formulas students have to solve, Skog says.

Demand was building pre-COVID but it surged as teachers and schools on remote instruction sought out innovative, interactive platforms that could replicate the in-person experience as well as experiments that couldn’t be done in most school settings.

As proof of Pivot’s ingenuity, the company was purchased last year by edtech giant Discovery Education, which plans to keep the company in its ISD 197 headquarters in the Twin Cities. “There’s a grounding in the reality of the classroom that comes from walking into and out of school on your way to work every day,” Skog says of Pivot’s employees. “You see the students, you see your videos in use, and you have direct relationships with teachers who are using them to deepen the learning for their students. It’s a constant feedback loop.”

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Skog believes the videos have helped ISD 197’s students get into some prestigious colleges and universities, including one student who arrived at Stanford to find a class using a video he helped create.

Pivot is just one of the district’s multi-faceted career exploration programs, which also cover health care, computer science, business and entrepreneurship, and environmentalism and agriculture. For students on these tracks, content in core courses, such as English and science, are tailored to those career areas, Skog says. These pathways culminate in students’ senior year with internships during the final semester.

It’s these kinds of programs that convince business leaders that they can play a key role in helping public schools supply the educated workforce that companies are demanding. “These strong partnerships are resulting in experiences that students will benefit from their entire life, and in some cases lead right out of high school into their lifetime careers.”

The post Why you should let an edtech company live in your high school appeared first on District Administration.

The driving force behind her solution for shifting social norms is empowering girls to shape their own relationships with technology by infusing STEM with the healthy dose of creativity that comes with a STEAM approach, says Imafidon, who will deliver the closing keynote, “The Tech Landscape And Cultivating Leaders Of The Future,” at the 2023 Future of Education Technology® Conference in New Orleans Jan. 23-26.

Greater inclusivity in a tech-driven world should also chip away at the persistent bias in data collection and algorithms that drive major decisions in society and industry, Imafidon adds.

Imafidon was the youngest girl ever to pass A-level computing when she was 11 years old and received her master’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Oxford at age 20. Since then, she has held positions at Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard and Deutsche Bank and is now a visiting professor at the University of Sunderland and a member of the Council of Research England. Her latest book is She’s in CTRL, a guidebook to help women take back tech.

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Imafidon answered a few questions from District Administration ahead of her FETC keynote:

1. What role do K-12 schools have to play in solving the tech skill shortage?

“K-12 schools have a very important role. For most people, their formative STEM/STEAM experiences are at school—many don’t have science capital provided in home environments. So ensuring that K-12 can see tech in all its creative, altruistic and diverse glory is paramount for inspiring folks to build tech skills.”

2. How can schools make tech more inclusive for girls and students from other underrepresented groups?

“Schools must focus on creativity, altruism and diversity in tech in order to make the space more inclusive. They also need to embrace equitable practices in teaching and engagement so underrepresented groups are clear that they have value in technical conversations.”

3. How do educators get these students engaged in tech and STEM?

“Start with fun! Bring in creativity and problem-solving. Don’t be prescriptive about the results of experimentation. Use the IoE equity compass to ensure you are starting from the interests and assets of students when engaging them with STEM and tech.”

4. How will inclusion impact our tech-driven world?

“It will ensure that tech is solving more problems than it creates. I explore the possibilities in my new book, She’s in CTRL.”

5. What else can attendees expect to hear about in your keynote speech?

Practical tips and mindsets to take back for themselves as well as their classrooms.

The post Anne-Marie Imafidon wants to help K-12 educators make STEM HERstory appeared first on District Administration.

A startling three-quarters of high school grads say they do not feel prepared to make these important choices about their futures, according to a survey of 500 students from the classes of 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 conducted by YouScience, an integrated college and career readiness platform. Here’s a look at more of the students’ responses:

• 62% say college and career readiness is one of their school’s responsibilities.
• 41% felt unprepared to make a career choice or declare a college major at graduation.
• 42% lacked confidence or were only slightly confident in their chosen career or education; 33% felt only moderately confident.
• 37% of the graduates—regardless of their current education or career—are still not sure they are where they want to be.
• 30% were not following any planned educational or career path.

“Education leaders and industry must come together to help our students better understand themselves and their opportunities beyond high school,” said Edson Barton, founder and CEO of YouScience. “Career guidance and exposure are a critical part of student development. We need to provide this support as early as eighth grade, beginning with helping students understand their natural aptitudes and talents and how that translates to career fit.”

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Another key finding is that more than half of the graduates said that their family and friends had the greatest impact on their decision-making. As education leaders know, family involvement is crucial, but this can also have its limitations.

“We need to showcase career opportunities beyond the obvious,” Barton added. “If students rely on family and friends for direction, they can be limited in their dreams and fail to fulfill their potential. In large part, our talent gap is also a career exposure gap.”

College and career decisions in more detail

The survey also revealed varying levels of college and career preparation across K-12. A large majority of the least confident students reported being less often exposed to career options in high school and having had limited discussions with teachers or counselors about post-graduation opportunities.

The most confident students, on the other hand, reported ample exposure to potential careers and have had as many as 20 conversations with educators about life after high school. And only a handful of graduates reported taking college- and career-aptitude tests even though nearly 80% of the students say they would be more engaged in learning if they had deeper knowledge about their own aptitudes and opportunities.

The post Why many high school graduates don’t feel ready for college and career decisions appeared first on District Administration.

Students at Blackman High School in Rutherford County Schools run a dog-grooming operation as part of a small-animal CTE program. Families, staff and community members bring their canines to a specially designated back entrance to get them bathed and beautified to their specifications. The fees they pay help fund the school’s career-oriented agricultural programs.

“We can give our students who have veterinary aspirations the experience to go out and start a business or work for somebody else to pay their way through college,” says Principal Justin Smith, adding, “My dog comes with great regularity.”

The school’s current master groomer is a student who discovered his skills by cutting his own hair during the COVID lockdown. “He realized it’s something he enjoyed and it was a skill he could transfer over to some other areas,” Smith explains.

Students also do some marketing, particularly to family and friends, and have developed a reliable stream of repeat customers thanks to the reasonable pricing of the services, he adds.

Banking on student-run business

For the numerically minded in career tech, students also run a Redstone Federal Credit Union bank branch that the company built inside the high school.

There, students can open accounts, deposit paychecks and withdraw funds while the branch is open during the lunch period. The students who staff the bank are trained Redstone Federal Credit Union employees who also earn a CTE class credit for their work.

Students receive $500 when they sign up for online banking and use their debit card five times. This has resulted in a “massive” number of students opening accounts. “It’s an opportunity to take the first step into financial literacy. It’s an opportunity to start saving and spending.”

Blackman is the only high school in Tennessee that has its own branded debit card, a service that is also operated by the credit union. The school earns a 10-cent contribution every time someone swipes their Blackman debit card, generating a few hundred dollars a month.

“It’s an easy way for families to support the school,” Smith points out. “As a public school, every little bit counts…every little bit can go a long way.”

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The post Why these students are grooming dogs and running a bank—at school appeared first on District Administration.

A program designed to give students more work-based learning experiences was launched Monday by the U.S. Departments of Education, Commerce and Labor. “Raise the Bar: Unlocking Career Success Initiative,” supported by an initial $5.6 million in funding, will also offer administrators updated guidance on using federal funds to develop and expand registered apprenticeships and other career pathways connected to in-demand industries such as advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity.

The Department of Education is also planning a series of regional CTE-focused summits for students, educators, employers, and other stakeholders. “It’s time we bridge the divide between our K-12 systems and our college, career, and industry preparation programs, which leave too many students behind and perpetuate inequities in our most diverse, underserved, and rural communities,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

“An education system reimagined for the 21st century engages youth of all ages in the power of career-connected learning and provides every student with the opportunity to gain real-life work experience, earn college credits, and make progress towards an industry credential before they graduate high school,” Cardona added.

A highlight of the initiative is the “Career Z Challenge: Expanding Work-Based Learning Opportunities,” a competition that will culminate in spring 2023. The challenge will bring together employers from multiple sectors to collaborate around providing more comprehensive work-based learning opportunities for students. The leading projects will receive targeted technical assistance including professional development support, webinars and training, the Department of Education says.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s FY 2023 Budget proposal would invest $200 million in “career-connected” high schools and grants to innovative districts. The funding would also support partnerships between districts, higher ed institutions and employers to enhance dual enrollment and career counseling programs. The administration’s budget proposal includes an overall $1.4 billion for CTE  programs.

“America is home to some of the world’s brightest and most ambitious students and we owe it to them to set them up for success,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “Career-connected education programs are essential to the success of the American economy and will spur a new generation of researchers, engineers and manufacturers in critical industries.”

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The post Learning to work: New program bridges the divide between K-12 and careers appeared first on District Administration.

At Robbinsville Public Schools, New Jersey, newly installed solar canopies at the high school and middle school are conserving energy, providing new learning opportunities and saving money, Superintendent Brian Betze says. “The education and environmental benefits are really powerful,” Betze says. “Sending both messages out to the community helped us sell it—and we’re saving tax dollars.”

The solar kiosk on Robbinsville schools’ website allows students, educators and community members to track energy generated and other environmental benefits. The kiosk measures the number of trees saved and the level of carbon emissions that are being offset.

There were no upfront costs because the panels were installed by an outside company that is selling energy back to the district at a deeply discounted rate that will save about $100,000 to $150,000 annually. After 15 years, the district can buy back the panels or remove and replace them.

Betze says the panels also came with aesthetic benefits and other seasonal conveniences. “They look great—they have a really cool, Star Trek-y look to them,” he says. “And when it was 90 degrees this summer, we had staff and student parking under the canopies saying thank you for cooling off their cars.”

Not just for wealthier districts

The amount of solar power being utilized at K-12 schools has tripled since 2015. Overall, about one in 10 schools now use solar energy, says Tish Tablan, director of Solar for All Schools at Generation180, a clean energy nonprofit. Energy is generally the second biggest expense after staffing in most school districts, she adds.

Most of those installations are financed and owned by a third party, which means there are no upfront costs and schools get discounts on energy rates that can be set for decades. “Our data shows that solar is not just a technology for wealthy school districts—rural to urban to underresourced, they’re going solar,” Tablan explains. “Nearly half of all public schools with solar are eligible for Title I.”

Many of the districts incorporate their solar energy systems into instruction, particularly in career and technical education. Tuscon USD in Arizona built solar canopies over school gardens to introduce students to the field of agrivoltaics to research how various plants grow in the shade of solar panels.

“If all K-12 schools in the US were completely powered with clean energy, that would reduce carbon emissions equal to closing 16 coal-fired power plants,” Tablan says.

School solar panels in the shade

Shade for basketball games and free car charging are among the many big benefits of newly installed solar panels at the Los Gatos Union School District near San Jose, California. The district has nearly finished installing solar arrays on and around all five of its buildings, Superintendent Paul Johnson says.

The panels, which cost the district nothing up front, are owned and maintained by a private company that will charge the school system a fixed, below-market electricity rate over a 20-year contract. The solar arrays will generate enough energy to power 250 homes annually and save the small district about $3.6 million in funding that can be redirected to teaching and learning. “If more schools could participate in something like this, just imagine how it would help our environment on a massive scale,” Johnson says. “We have five schools and it’s all of those homes. There could literally be thousands of homes worth of energy provided.”

One of the solar arrays was built over a blacktop area where students play basketball and hold a bike rodeo, all in the shade. Other canopies cover parking areas, and the energy generated allows teachers and other staff to charge electric cars for free. Students also have access to data that will allow them to track energy and cost savings for STEM assignments. The district’s use of clean power is roughly equivalent to taking 275 gas-powered passenger vehicles off the road each year, Johnson says.

And when California’s recent record-setting heat wave sent temperatures soaring to an unheard of 111 degrees in the Los Gatos, the solar panels were able to keep the district’s air-conditioning units cooling classrooms at full strength.

Setting your long-term energy strategy

Some district leaders are incorporating solar power into the HVAC upgrades they are making in the wake of COVID’s heightened air quality concerns. Hotter weather across the country is also driving a growing number of districts to use American Rescue Plan relief funds to install air-conditioning.

Money saved on renewable energy can leave districts with more funds for ventilation and other infrastructure improvements, says Jordan Lerner, a West Coast regional director at Schneider Electric. “Districts are now using their schools for longer periods of time and in different ways,” Lerner explains. “We’re definitely seeing communities that didn’t feel like they needed AC looking at portions of their buildings where they now want it.”

Federal renewable energy tax credits have recently been extended to public and tax-exempt agencies, which means there is more funding than ever before to install and own solar power systems. School administrators, with outside help, should make comprehensive energy and HVC plans rather than taking on projects one at a time, he recommends. “The places that have seen success are doing it in an intentional, phased approach, where the most pressing needs are handled first and equity is provided across districts,” Lerner says.

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The U.S. faces a shortfall of nearly 714,000 cybersecurity professionals, according to CYBER.ORG. The organization’s Project Access, which is running summer camps in several states, is expanding access to cybersecurity education and career preparation for blind and vision-impaired students between the ages of 13-21, says Kevin Nolten, vice president of Cyber Innovation Center, the parent organizationo of CYBER.ORG. Within the cybersecurity realm, instructors are teaching students how to build and code robots and manage networks with the Linux operating system.

“Someone who has a disability may self-select out of areas like cybersecurity more quickly than other students,” Nolten says. “We’re removing the ‘I can’t do that’ component and giving them the ‘Oh my gosh, this is what’s possible.’ We’re making them aware of a whole new path.”

The students are provided with accessibility tools that magnify or read screens. And they can build robots by feel, with parts that come in different textures and sizes. The robots, in turn, play sounds so students know the direction in which their creations are going. They also try to break into and destroy mock computer networks and hack passwords to learn the many ways systems can be compromised. The experience can place students on the path to earning certifications in cybersecurity, Nolten says.

Justice Roberts, a mentor in CYBER.ORG’s summer camp in Virginia, said cybersecurity was not offered at their high school when they were a Project Access student in 2018. “I grew up in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t have social networking skills to make connections,” says Roberts, who is now studying math at Lipscomb University in Tennessee. “The camp helped me learn soft skills such as how to communicate and work in teams to solve problems, which have served me long-term as far as being able to advocate for myself.”

Participating in the camps also helped Roberts realize what they weren’t interested in–which is the hardware side of the tech industry–and that they prefer working with software. “It goes to show there is no limit as far an individual’s ability see perfectly as to how far they can go in cybersecurity,” they say.

The program, which was initially piloted with Virginia’s Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired in 2017, is open to students who don’t have prior computer or technology experience. More than 90% of the program’s participants said they planned to study cybersecurity in college, pursue cybersecurity credentials or go directly into the cybersecurity workforce.

CYBER.ORG intends to work with districts to bring Project Access and experiential learning to more students with visual impairments. The organization can provide districts with professional development, curriculum resources and other tools. “We need to ensure that teachers have the confidence to begin implementing cybersecurity inside the classroom,” Nolten says. “These jobs are a national security issue, and K-12 educators are the key to decreasing the number of jobs that are open.”

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