泰尔市——在印第安纳波利斯举行的全州常青藤科技峰会上，佩里县领导发表了讲话，主题是在过去十年中激发社区的活力.

Professionals from community development and industry, 谁参与了Tell City-Troy乡镇学校的Ivy Spark专业教育计划, traveled to Indianapolis for Ivy Tech One Summit on Feb. 在那里，他们介绍了Tell City学校的Ivy Sparks项目的发展情况. 400名常青藤技术社区学院的管理人员参加了这次会议.

TCJSHS副校长Chris Hollinden本周向当地董事会成员介绍了他们在印第安纳波利斯的演讲的最新情况.

According to Hollinden, 这一切都始于去年年底的一次埃文斯维尔之行，当时他们与常春藤科技大学董事会进行了交谈. At the meeting they impressed Sue Ellsperman, president of Ivy Tech Community College, 是谁邀请他们去印第安纳波利斯与常春藤技术学院的管理人员分享他们是如何将常春藤火花融入学校系统的，以及从那时起它是如何提高教育质量的.

“It was a great opportunity. It sounds really weird, 但这对我来说是一种反思，因为有时我们(向前)前进，而不去想我们在哪里,” Hollinden said.

佩里县发展公司副总裁艾琳·爱默生在峰会上发表了讲话. 在对Tell City的受托人讲话时，她解释了她在印第安纳波利斯分享的一些话题.

“We explained that we are a small, rural community, and like many small communities, we deal with the brain drain, downward population trends, aging population, and we’re trying to be proactive about that,” Emerson said.

Emerson described Perry County as manufacturing-based, revealing the statistic that 36% of employment comes from that sector. Second is health care. Both are reflected as top providers in payroll across the county.

回到2010年，她说:“(直到2010年)发展的重点自然是大生意. And then at our Ivy Tech, a very academic focus. 快进到2013年，我们的社区有大约300个空缺职位. We were also facing the potential loss of our campus. As a community, we joined forces and figured out how to keep Ivy Tech. 没有它，你的学生必须开车50英里到最近的地方.”

Emerson said that at the same time, 开发公司将重点从大企业转移到劳动力开发, talent attraction and community development.

From Ivy Tech, 开发公司想要提供鼓励社区就业的教育项目. 吸引合适的教师意味着用当地的补助金来支持长途通勤, among other incentives. 

Gary Greubel, Waupaca Foundry human resources, who also presented in Indianapolis, told the trustees about why Waupaca is involved in the schools, “It’s important to maintain a talent,” he said.

“We don’t want schools to be the farmers that bring the workers, but there’s skilled trade jobs here,” he revealed. Automation and integrated technology are large parts of Waupaca, 他们希望“为学生提供制造业的职业道路. There’s the high learning demand skills.“沃帕卡大学采用指导计划，让学生安全地学习电气面板等基础知识.

“It’s the experience they gain. The positive view of manufacturing,” Greubel said.

How they’ve bolstered the community, Waupaca supports the local daycare, contributed to the STEM lab at WTE, supports VEX robotics, provides junior achievement and has an internship program.

格鲁贝尔分享说，有时候学生实习生会发现职业道路并不适合他们. Other times, 实习生学习计算机软件和制造实践，吸引客户的注意，实习生因其经验而获得就业机会.

“We have to grow our own through Ivy Tech,” Greubel said.

Hollinden addressed school board trustees on Tuesday night saying, “我们现在在学校做的很多事情比以往任何时候都更有意义. There’s been a major shift in how we educate our kids.在印第安纳波利斯，常春藤理工学院的管理人员听到了他们的演讲, Hollinden said, “(这种转变)越来越倾向于他们能给我们提供什么. I think some of them saw it as an opportunity they can jump on.”

As for how education works now in Perry County compared to 10 years ago, Hollinden said, “10 years ago we were very closed door. It’s typically how schools are. But we started having these conversations with PCDC about what can we do, because we did see long-term issues, that dwindling uneducated workforce. How do we bring people back and bring our best back? How do we sustain where we are right now.”

He said there was a shared demoralizing when they addressed the issues. “我们不得不开始一场几乎是意识运动来教育我们的孩子，同样重要的是教育我们的父母. 如果你想回到这里，这里有工作，而且是高薪的工作.”

霍林登指出，常春藤理工学院的课程不仅仅是校外实习, but integrated in many classrooms with dual college credits. “Ivy Tech is a big help with that,” he said.

“在孩子上学的时候，有一条职业道路比以往任何时候都更重要,” Hollinden said. “You need to find creative people who can build those pathways.”

SCIENCE BOWL

威廉·泰尔小学在28所学校参加的州大型学校竞赛中获得了科学碗队的第四名.

六年级科学老师萨拉·彼得(Sarah Peter)带领这支队伍到达了他们的位置. The team participated in three competitions.

彼得解释说:“2019-2020年科学碗比赛由三轮组成. The Experimental Round, the Team Round, and the Individual Round.

All questions were administered through an online test. 科学碗队能够在远处与其他学校竞争, where judges assessed all entries and tallied results. Entry forms for the competition were due back in October 2019, 并于2019年11月发布了实验要求和在线测试信息. The competition itself was held Jan. 27-30, where all entries were submitted

Four of the 11 students participated in the individual competitions. 学生分别是亚伦·希尔根霍尔德、赖林·奥布里、亚历克西斯·富尔顿和凯尔顿·奥布里. The online test and experiment were taken by all participants.

今年参赛选手的共同主题是生命科学、生物学. Peter said, “The team learned how to extract DNA from a banana, and about the different types of cells and what they are made of,” which their results were their entry.

Students said, “We would practice every day, skipping out on recess just to practice all vocabulary and our project.”

STEM CERTIFICATION ROUND 2

“There were 34 schools who initially sought STEM certification, 现在通过第二轮，我们有两周的时间在灰色地带提供更多证据，这些证据没有达到(要求的)水平，11所学校通过了审查. 我们是13所学校中的一所。”威廉·泰尔小学校长劳拉·诺布尔说.

Expanding student studies in science, technology, 工程和数学继续在WTE，因为学校的教师和管理部门正在寻求印第安纳州教育部STEM学校的认证.

正如上个月报道的那样，IDOE寻找那些教师和管理人员有兴趣支持教学方法转变以培养学生逻辑思考能力的学校, solve problems, innovate in both academic and real-world contexts, engage in inquiry, collaborate with peers and self-motivate.

Noble reported that after the first round, they found they fell a little short, but that was expected since they are new to the IDOE STEM criteria. They hadn’t given up on meeting the requirements, 在提供了更多的证据使他们的初始分数达到预期水平之后, the extra effort and evidence improved their scores. 他们现在要期待的是第二轮谈判，即IDOE代表的访问.

Improvement is a process that takes different steps and time, and as Noble described, “We’re down to one required element that is ‘professional development,“我们需要在课堂上使用STEM评估并提供反馈. 所以我们求助于南印第安纳教育中心，他们会来提供定制的培训.” While SIEC is visiting WTE, 教师和管理人员希望了解更多他们需要改进的特定领域.