FROM STEM CURIOSITY TO CAREER-LEVEL SKILLS El Dorado’s focus on STEM and STEAM begins early. Through Project Lead the Way, offered from pre-K through fifth grade, students explore science, technology, engineering, and math in hands-on ways. All three of the district’s elementary schools have been recognized as Project Lead the Way Distinguished Schools, a reflection of both access and consistency. In elementary grades, students attend STEM “specials” multiple times a week, building comfort with the tools and language of science and technology. By middle school, the work takes on a more careeroriented flavor. Career and technical education pathways are introduced earlier, and students can experiment with coding, 3D printing, basic computeraided design, and other technical disciplines. The progression continues in high school, where the district now offers around a dozen CTE pathways spanning areas such as media and graphic design, industrial arts, FCCLA and culinary, health science, and a full audio-visual program that streams games, produces graphics, and manages media production. Technology is not confined to computer labs; it is embedded across the curriculum. Importantly, those pathways are not static. Every two years, the district conducts a comprehensive needs assessment, aligning program offerings with both student interest and local economic needs. That process has led, for example, to the addition of a sports medicine strand within the health science pathway, reflecting demand for athletic training and wellness professions, and to the creation of a law, public safety, and security pathway in response to student interest and local opportunities linked to the nearby correctional facility and government agencies. “We look at the data and adjust,” Davis says. “We’ve added classes where interest and opportunity are strong, and we’ve put others on rotation to make room. The goal is to give students meaningful 342 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 07, ISSUE 01
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