On Monday, June 4th from 8:00 a.m.- 9:00 a.m., the Oak Ridge Schools semi-annual advisory meeting will be held at Oak Ridge High School amphitheater. The address is 1450 Oak Ridge Turnpike. The amphitheater is located at the top of the grand staircase, on the right side of the hallway. All members of the Oak Ridge and neighboring communities are invited to participate.
We will ask two very important questions of our education leaders and local industry leaders: 1.) What can Oak Ridge Schools do to better prepare our students for our local industry workforce? 2.) What can Oak Ridge local industry do to better support our schools in this preparation? We value the dialogue for continually improving our programs based on these two questions.
Our special guest will be Mark Buckner of Oak Ridge National Lab Power and Energy Systems.Ā He spans both sides of the education and industry realms as lab employee who is our dual enrollment mechatronics and robotics instructor for Roane State Community College. He is also the Oak Ridge High School FIRST Robotics mentor. He will be speaking to us about the value of FIRST Robotics participation for students.
In a guest column, Mike Wehrenberg, chairman of Tennessee FIRST Robotics sated that FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was created to connect K-12 kids to the real world problem-solving, team-building, and business practices in an exciting, competitive environment that brings all the benefits of an athletic competition with electrical, mechanical, marketing, and business skills. K-12 students who participate in FIRST programs are 700 percent more likely to attend post-secondary education in a technology and business curriculum than a student who is NOT a FIRST team member! The competition brings in over $70M of post-secondary student scholarships from more than 200 colleges and universities. It helps connect more women and minorities to the world of STEM, and it brings skills to our economy that are sorely needed. It is beneficial to our economy and workforce development needs.
We will kick the meeting off with a celebration of grant awards and events that have taken place since our November meeting.
Highlight #1–Key 7
We have just finished awarding a record number of industry certififications (188) to our students, and we are not done. We have at least 3 more possible CNA certifications, and 6 more Pharmacy Technicians waiting to find out results.
2 American Welding Society Welders Certified
2 Pharmacy Technicians Certified
3 AutoDESKCertified Users Certified
5 Certified Nursing Assistants Certified
26 Adobe Certfied Users Certified
61 Automotive Service Excellence Skills Areas Certified
89 Micosoft Office Specialists Certified
TOTAL 188 Earned Industry Certifications
A district record in a single year!
Highlight #2
Dream it. Do it. competition for middle schools, made possible by cooperation between CNS Y-12 and the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce.
Robertsville Middle School – SL Tennessee
Jefferson Middle School – Clayton Appalachia
Highlight #3 New Grant Visions and Purchases
Governor Haslam Grants $19M
for Career and Technical Education Equipment with an Advanced Manufacturing and IT Emphasis
CyberPatriot Room
Pathways to Prosperity Grant
This will allow us to send 9 teachers/counselors/administrators out to Eagle Bend/Magna and SL Tennessee this week. Teachers will tour the plants and work as daily employees all day Wednesday and Thursday.Ā On Friday, we will have a 3-county meeting with staff members from Anderson, Blount, and Knox to create lesson plans for CTE and general education classes that help prepare students for future careers offered right here in our area.
Ā Work-Based Learning Grant
for middle school students in Career Exploration courses:
Discover The Leading Career Exploration Platform | Virtualjobshadow.com
We have been working with local industries to provide job shadowing experiences for students, teachers, counselors, and administrators. We would like to expand upon these opportunities to expose as many people as we can to career opportunities in our area.
One of the ways we hope to do so is to put virtual reality cameras in the hands of our middle school career exploration students and allow them to go into local industries to capture their daily operations. Then, they can create quality VR videos to share with their peers on YouTube. Viewers can use the mixed reality headsets and handsets we have at JMS, RMS, and ORHS to view student work and learn more about jobs that are available right here in Oak Ridge and neighboring communities.
For Futher Thought:
- How would you like to connect with these projects?
- Would you be willing to let students or teachers job shadow in your place of business?
- Are you interested in partnering with our middle schools to allow students to create VR commercials for your business?
