Weekly Update – Jan. 7th
Jackson-Reed STEM Students, Parents and Teachers,
Happy New Year! Here's what is happening this week at Jackson-Reed:
Academy-Wide Initiatives
Middle School Academy Recruitment!
Academy leadership is currently working with our three feeder middle schools (Deal, Hardy, and Oyster) to set some dates for J-R Academy students to come speak/showcase their academies to 8th graders to increase awareness and access to the academies to new students. Our dates for Deal and Hardy are currently set and a date for Oyster Middle School is pending. Sign-ups for these opportunities will come out via Remind in the coming week or so. Please note that these recruitment events will be taking place during the school day and students who volunteer will be excused from class/will need to make up their work.
Deal Middle School: January 30, Feb 1
Hardy Middle School: February 8
ACE Structural, Civil, Architectural Engineering Mentorship Program
We are thrilled to have a new partnership come to Jackson-Reed. For any STEM students interested in civil engineering-we have a club just for you! This club will meet from 8:00am-9:00am on Thursday starting on January 18th in Dr. Sharma's room (323). If interested, please fill out this link (if you have not already done so) in order to have Ms. McClure add you to the calendar invite reminder: https://forms.office.com/r/
National Society of Black Engineers:
Our monthly meeting takes places this upcoming Wednesday in Room 328 during lunch on January 10th. For students who want to join this organization, it is not too late! Please note that this opportunity is open to IT and Biomed students as well! Please reach out to Mr. Reeves in the College and Career Office or to Ms. McClure to get connected.
Physical Therapy Bi-weekly Lunch n' Learn Series
We are excited to kick off our second year of partnership with the PREP Program (Physical Therapy Exposure Program). This is a bi-weekly series that will every Thursday (location at Jackson-Reed is still pending) starting this Thursday, January 11th. Their mission is to: "'share' the profession of physical therapy with high school students from minoritized backgrounds in order to promote diversity, improve community access, and strengthen collaboration across disciplines of health and education." Each session focuses on a different career concentration within the field of physical therapy-they are fun, interactive, and very informative. See you there! For more information:
Upcoming Opportunities and Scholarships
Summer Youth Employment and On Ramps to Careers Opportunities
For current freshmen, sophomores, and seniors (who already completed the CRI Internship), please consider for signing up for Summer Youth Employment for opportunities this summer. Explore this link for more information: https://summerjobs.dc.gov/
On Ramps to Careers has IT and Engineering opportunities offered through SYEP for students who aren't eligible for CRI yet. Please see this flyer for more information.
Army Educational Outreach Program Internships and Apprenticeships
One of our internship employers for some our students (Airforce Office of Scientific Research) provided us a link of potential internship/apprenticeship opportunities for high school students. Be sure to filter for opportunities in Virginia, since most of the opportunities are on-site. Have fun exploring this resource:
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:
Dellums SMART Scholarship
For high school seniors, and participation in the FIRST program is included as a checkbox on their application. Includes full tuition, $30,000 annual stipend, summer internships, experienced mentors, book and health allowance, and Civilian Department of Defense Employment opportunities. Review the application process and see if you are eligiable to apply on their website:
More Upcoming Programs
- January 10th: National Society of Black Engineers Lunch n' Learn session
- January 11th: Physical Therapist Bi-weekly Lunch n' Learn Series (Biomed work based-learning opportunity)
- January 11th: Biomed Club/HOSA Community Service Opportunity (3:30-5:30) - Making kits for Be the Match organization
- January 16th: Academy Diversity Listening Session (during lunch)
- January 16,17, 18: Resume workshops for eligible CRI summer internship students (more info below)
- January 18th: ACE Club Begins! (Engineering/Architecture club before school-more information above)
- January 26th: FAFSA Application Drive and Workshop (seniors only)
- January 31: Biomed Fieldtrip: UDC School of Speech Pathology
- January 30th: Mentorship Program Quarter 3 Mixer
- January 30th and February 1: Deal Middle School 8th grade Academy Recruitment events (more info above)
Internship Information
Career Ready Internships
For current eligible juniors (and seniors who have not yet completed a Career-Ready Internship), the next two steps of the Career-Ready Internship Program are below-further details were sent out in an email this past Friday. If you are eligible and didn't receive the Tenacity and Resume workshop details, please reach out to Ms. McClure
Tenacity
For students who already applied, please accept the Tenacity course that has now been added to your Canvas Account. Go to the modules section and work your way through those self-paced lessons (see Friday's email to see what sessions are mandatory to complete). The deadline for the Tenacity course has been extended to January 12th. Please come see Ms. McClure this week if you need any guidance with the course.
Resume workshop
The following step of the summer internship process is for students to attend our annual resume workshop. This will be scheduled in the library January 16, 17, and 18 from 9:00-12:00. Eligible students will receive an invite link to register for the workshop - please sign up ASAP. Students will be assigned to a cohort based on the level of resume-support they need (starting from scratch, need major updates/edits, or just need a second set of eyes on a finished resume).
For our families!! We need your help!
We are starting to recruit professionals who will be willing to come to the school to help students with their resumes! Please check out the link below for all of the information of how the workshop will work and to register. Please share far and wide with your contacts and connections. The more professionals, the better, so we can ensure all of our academy students get focus and attention through this workshop! Any industry is welcome, we just need people who are comfortable with helping students build resumes. A planning call will be scheduled in advance for all professionals who sign up to ensure that the Run of Show will be really clear. It's a fun time and hope to see you on the sign-up list!
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!
We hope everyone had a lovely winter break and we are very excited to be back!
How can you support the academies?
Do you have other ideas for fieldtrip experiences for our Biomed, Engineering, and IT students? We know that our academy families are well-connected to amazing opportunities in the DMV area. If you have a connection or idea for a fieldtrip related to the world of health sciences, engineering or IT, we would love to hear form you! go to https://scimatech.org/connect/
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:
