Washington High School recognizes the need for continuous improvement which is why as a leadership team we meet to review and discuss ways to improve STEM integration across the school. As previously mentioned, our school saw the need to expand our STEM and make it unique by transforming from a cohort model to a whole school approach with a AgSTEM focus. Our Principal, Dr. Coaxum-Young  was so inspired by the work and significant contributions of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver that after studying the issues of food insecurity, socio-economic barriers and environmental issues plaguing the Westside of Atlanta, she sought to add a 21st century approach to BTW’s STEM program. After collaborating with all stakeholders (parents, instructional staff, leadership team, and partners) Washington High school birthed the AgSTEM vision at BTW so students could combine farming techniques with STEM skills to innovate new products and processes to the agricultural industry, equipping them to build, educate and support the surrounding community. In alignment with the cluster-wide STEM initiative, our STEM coordinator, Ms. Cobey-Williams spent a great deal of time helping to revamp the culture of STEM at Booker T. Washington. In the spirit of continuous improvement, we saw the need to modify our original mission and vision (see below): 

 

 

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We later change the world “students” to “legacy builders” to represent our commitment to continue to help our scholars be mindful of the opportunity and the responsibility they have to serve their community as students of THE Booker T. Washington High School. We also have revised our STEM related course offerings to include more AP courses (AP Chem, AP Computer Science) the expansion of STEM inclusive elective courses such as: Epidemiology, Statistics, AgriScience courses,  progression of Math courses (Algebra I to Algebra II). In order to support our literacy, focus we also added the Contemporary and Composition course to replace British Literature to give our students a view into more modern texts structure relevant for life.

 

Opportunities for Improvement

As the first AgSTEM program to be in the metro area we recognize the need for our STEM leadership team to visit schools across the nation with similar demographics so examine what they are doing well and see how we can model those initiatives. We also want to continue to engage our partners and stakeholder to give input as to the needs of the community so that we can ensure we are producing students that can and will rise to the occasion.

 

 

 

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