Weekly Update 12/10
Jackson-Reed STEM Students, Parents and Teachers,
Here's what is happening this week at Jackson-Reed:
Academy-Wide Announcements
Monthly Diversity Listening Session:
Every second Tuesday of the month in the library, we host a diversity listening session for our students of color in the STEM Academies. This series is led by our equity officers Keira Martin-Willis and Simone Forbes and is a space for student to come together, connect, and discuss aspects and strategies of how to improve, increase, and support diversity in the academy. This week we'll be building gingerbread houses in teams while we talk. If interested, please RSVP here so we can plan: https://forms.office.com/r/
National Society of Black Engineers:
NBSE is meeting in Room 428 this week on Wednesday during lunch! Please note that this opportunity is also open to students of color in our IT and Biomed Academies! Please see Mr. Reeves or Ms. McClure if you are new to the club and are interested in joining! Hope to see you there-this session there will be a discussion about leadership positions, recruitment and discussing sessions for the second semester.
Robotics First Tech Challenge Tournament volunteer opportunity:
Our robotics team is hosting a regional robotics tournament on December 16th. We are expecting a large number of students from across the region to attend-we'll need a lot of student volunteer support to ensure the event is a success. We'll need help setting up the evening before-December 15th and all day on December 16th. This a great opportunity to rack up some community service hours in a meaningful way! A link in the Remind from Ms. McClure has been sent to sign up to volunteer.
Upcoming events and programs
Engineering Scholarship Opportunities
David M. Rubenstein/Economic Club Scholarship
The David M. Rubenstein/Economic Club of Washington, DC Scholarship Program is one of the few large-scale scholarships dedicated exclusively to students graduating from DC public and charter schools. Approximately 50 scholarships of $20,000 are awarded each year to bright, motivated students who exhibit impressive academic achievement. The application is due Wednesday, January 31, 2024.See the eligibility requirements and access the application here:
IT and Engineering Scholarship
Amazing opportunity for IT and engineering seniors; Students can use this link to apply to a 40,000 Amazon scholarship. Seniors, please review the eligibility requirements and get to it!
Academy Expectations/Requirements for Academy Graduation
In the academies we are always working to improve and become more organized in our communication and expectations. Below is a list of our academy graduation expectations. We want to acknowledge that the expectations are brand new for our engineering and IT families we want to assure our families of seniors in these academies that this is a soft launch and are going to work with students on an individual basis to support them in reaching these expectations (if they want to). In addition to pushing into all classes before the end of December, starting in January, Ms. McClure will be pushing into classes to meet with all academy students individually to discuss individual academy expectations, academy feedback, and next year scheduling. If students don't want to wait until the new year to meet individually with Ms. McClure to see where they are at the moment they are more than welcome to reach out via Remind schedule a meeting in advance.
Engineering:
Information Technology:
Health Sciences:
More Upcoming Programs
- Dec. 11: Lunch n' Learn: Mortuary Science Guest Speaker (work-based learning, open to all biomed)
- Dec.12: Monthly Academy Diversity Listening Session (open to all academies, counts toward Academy Initiative)
- Dec.13: National Society of Black Engineers Monthly Session
- Dec. 13. GWU Urban Health Programs Lunch n' Learn Series
- Dec. 13: Aerospace Engineering NASA guest speaker
- Dec. 14: Museum of Health and Medical Sciences (Biomed: PBS, HBS, MI, BI - collecting forms until end of school on Tuesday )
- Dec. 15-16: Regional Robotics Competition (community service opportunity for all academies)
- Dec. 19: IT Academy Fieldtrip to FBI HQ (Cybersecurity, CSA, Game Design)
- Dec. Gender Equity in STEM club meeting
Internship Information
Career Ready Internships:
For current eligible juniors (and seniors who have not yet completed a Career-Ready Internship), an email with the application link and all of the steps for the CRI paid summer internship opportunity through the academy was sent out about a month ago. If you have not yet applied, you should have/will receive a text or email from Ms. McClure between this past Friday and this upcoming Monday. If you believe you are eligible, but have not received an email with this important information, please check your spam. If it is not there, please let Ms. McClure know so she can look into it (it went to whichever email is in aspen and we know sometimes there are changes there.) Once you have applied (deadline January 5th), the next step is to complete the Tenacity course that should now appear on your Canvas! Please notify Ms. McClure if you do not see the course appear on your Canvas so she can report that info to Central to load it.
Expanding Opportunities for Family Academy Involvement
As the structure of our STEM academies continues to evolve we are excited to create new, and formalize existing, opportunities for student leadership and parent involvement. In the 2019-2020 school year, beloved academy teacher Ms. Benjamin convened an ad-hoc advisory board of students and a few volunteer parents with the goal of formalizing industry partnerships and other opportunities/supports for the then Wilson STEM academies. In subsequent years, as the NAF academy model was rolled out, the role of the voluntary advisory began to evolve. In the 2022-2023 school year, an effort was made to begin formalizing student leadership opportunities and the structure of the advisory board. The current working board meets bi-weekly to share information and partner on upcoming events or initiatives (Annual Blood Drive, Engineering Expo, workshops, etc.) This year, we are excited to expand on this work and formalize opportunities for student leadership and parent involvement.
Opportunities for Student Leadership
The three J-R STEM academies present many opportunities for student involvement and leadership. Students have worked together to identify traditional and non-traditional roles where a student leader can contribute to improving the academy structure and culture. We are excited to expand student leadership opportunities for the 2024-2025 school year. In the spring, students will be invited to apply for a range of academy leadership positions. We hope many of you take the initiative and apply for a leadership position.
Opportunities for Parent Support
There are also many opportunities for parents to support our academies! The Engineering Expo, mock interview workshops, resume workshops, and other future opportunities are great ways that parents can get involved. We are also in the process of formalizing parent involvement on the advisory board for the 2024-2025 school year. Expect more information on how to apply to participate on the advisory in the spring. We would appreciate your partnership, perspective, skills, and willingness to roll up your sleeves and help with academy needs!
Current Board Members:
Director: Regina McClure
Teachers: Zachary Meyers, Romit Ghosh, Poonam Sharma, Alex Jacoby, Dylan Coster, Alex Kang, Qi Guo, Danielle Krafft, Amanda Dezenzo
Students:
IT President: Wesley Hoy, IT Vice President: Hernan Gonzalez
Engineering President: Samantha Gordon, Engineering Vice President: Meredith Janssen
Health Science President: Kinzly Gootman, Health Science Vice President: Rain Terrell
Equity Officers: Keira Martin-Willis, Simone Forbes, Anna Khabiyev, Jessica Serrano
Secretary: Lolera Tesema
Parents: Melody Molinoff, Elizabeth Mettler
The Week in Review!
What a week! This past week was extremely busy for the STEM academies, but our students showed up and showed out to make it a success! Some highlights are below!
Dec. 4-5: Academy students from all 10 academies displayed and led academy activities for 9th grade advisory students. We are always working on how we can recruit equitably for our academies and making sure every 9th grader has access to these opportunities is our priority. 9th graders got to play board games created by our engineering students, fling gliders made by our aerospace students, got to roll and identify their fingerprints with our biomed students, and got to play with apps developed by our Information Technology students.
Dec 6: Our Engineering Expo Extravaganza! Thank you so much to all of our families, biomed and IT volunteers who came out Wednesday to support and encourage our Engineering Academy! So many cool projects on display! Also a huge to shout out Mr. Meyers, Dr. Sharma and Mr. Ghosh, our committed engineering teachers who prepped students for the evening.
Dec. 7: Joint Andrews Airforce Base. Our engineering students had an extremely interactive fieldtrip on Joint Andrews Airforce base. They got to operate heavy machinery, take turns trying to wrangle active fire hoses, and learn all about aerospace physiology.
Dec.8: Biomed Fieldtrip to American Association of American Medical Colleges: This is the organization that develops the MCAT exams! Students got to engage with two health professionals who work with health equity policy, among a variety of other fields. It was great for students to lean about the speakers' career journies, passions, and interests. Students also got to try out a public health board game where students got to engage with the importance and impact of the social determinants of health.
Dec. 8th: IT Academy Fieldtrip to Georgetown's IT Department. Major shout out to Hernan Gonzalez, our IT Vice President, who arranged and organized this trip! Students got to engage with the Dean of the department who talked students through what his department has to offer as well as application best practices and how to think through financial aid.
