A Successful Opening for New STEM School

Launching a new school with a unique academic program is no easy feat, but the Huntington School District has been successful in its quest to get the Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School up and running for the current school year.

Huntington Superintendent James W. Polansky is serving as the school’s first principal. Rae Montesano, the district’s chairperson of science and instructional technology for grades 7-12 is the STEM coach, working with teachers to offer students a first rate educational program.

“This first month has been a rewarding one for everyone involved,” Mr. Polansky said about the new school. “All have welcomed and stepped up to meet the challenges inherent in a new curriculum and a different instructional approach. Students, staff and parents have taken pride in their new school. Their enthusiasm has been contagious.”

The STEM magnet school features a focus on science, technology, engineering and math inquiry-based instruction and related activities. Class instruction also includes English, social studies and other areas routinely found in the district’s elementary classrooms.

The STEM school operates as a magnet school and is open to students across the district, regardless of their primary school attendance zone. The program has an initial enrollment of 149 students in grades 3-5. More than 300 youngsters applied for admission. District officials hope to open several sixth grade sections in the school next September.

 District parents were given the choice of keeping their child at their regularly assigned school building or placing them in the STEM magnet school. The new program has been a big hit with students, who are being taught by veteran faculty members who had been teaching in other district elementary schools.

 While the Huntington School District recently lost out on a large federal grant it was seeking to provide additional “bells and whistles” for the STEM program, officials have filed applications for various other grants potentially worth millions of dollars. If any of the grants come through, the monies will benefit not only Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School, but other schools in the district.

Huntington regularly applies for grants and has been successful over the past year in securing several worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of those monies are being used at the STEM school as well as in every building in the district. The district is working with corporate partners on several grants.

Although it is brand new, students and parents are already fiercely loyal to Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School. They marched as a group behind a school banner in last weekend’s Homecoming Day parade and have formed a strong and active PTA.

Led by co-Presidents Norma Gorecki and Laura Cheshire and co-Vice Presidents Terry Zboray and Tracy Tucker the organization’s slate of officers also includes Toniann Mangan (recording secretary), Donna Kye (corresponding secretary), Kimberly Hawkins (treasurers) and Andrea Palios and Shaki Coulter, who serve as PTA Council delegates.

“The district-wide commitment to quality education has been instrumental in starting the STEM magnet school at Jack Abrams,” Mrs. Gorecki said. “One hundred percent dedication is what I have been observing at STEM since the beginning of school. Rae Montesano and the faculty have shown incredible dedication. In addition, communication has been the key to our smooth start.  The PTA has received overwhelming positive feedback from both students and parents. My daughters, Julia and Caroline have come home every day excited to share what they have learned!”

The school has a monthly newsletter for parents called STEM Circuit. A family picnic is scheduled for late this week on the field near the playground. Parents of third and fourth graders were invited to the school this week for Meet the Teacher Night and fifth grade parents will be welcomed next Tuesday.

“I have to say at first my son, Nate thought he was going to build a robot the very first week of school,” Mrs. Coulter said. “That did not happen, but he is very happy and comes home excited about what he has learned. They just finished a segment on learning about rocks, where they got to preform hands-on experiments with rocks. It was very exciting for fifth graders! They also got to pick rocks from a collection to take home.”

Students have been busy during the opening weeks of the school year. Third graders learned about the process of lifting heavy objects and read about the effort to raise the Costa Concordia, an Italian cruise ship that sunk last year and that was recently brought to the surface. The youngsters also studied the Periodic Table and learned about atoms and elements and even created a model of an aluminum atom.

Fourth graders are given an experiment/activity that they can do at home with family members. The following Friday the youngsters get together at school, perform the experiment/activity and then discuss their findings. The fourth graders maintain lab notebooks and keep track of activity announcements on a teacher’s e-board. They even followed the debut of Apple’s iPhone 5.

Fifth graders studied sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks and learned how weathering and erosion breaks down the solid objects. They are also taking a close look at minerals. The youngsters utilized the school’s computer lab to create PowerPoint presentations on the U.S. Constitution.

Students have been enjoying the school facility, which includes spacious rooms, an extra-large cafeteria and gymnasium, a dedicated auditorium and an amphitheater in the enclosed courtyard, among other amenities.

“Ms. Montesano is doing an impressive job as the STEM coach with her many other responsibilities,” Mrs. Coulter said. “She has lots of great ideas for STEM.”