PHOTO BY JENNIFER COLTON
Nearly 100 first- through fifth-grade students are studying robotics after school at McNary Heights Elementary this month, while their classmates take on broadcasting, computer science and horticulture.
The Umatilla School District has offered an after-school program for nine years with classes as diverse as crochet and square dancing. This year, however, the classes have a new focus. In July, the Umatilla School District received a $2 million grant to provide science, technology engineering and mathematics programs to students. Grant-funded programs will include new class offerings and programs to connect with professionals in STEM fields.
Through the grant, the “STEM Academy” after-school programs are now free for all students. The first round of after-school classes began Nov. 12, and this week, the programs are well under way. In the McNary Heights library, teams wrote scripts and created characters for videos they are producing – complete with a green screen – in the broadcasting class. In the cafeteria, students monitored the progress of seed growth in horticulture, and, in the computer lab, students ran programs on vocabulary and grammar as preparation for writing and creating books in the coming weeks.
There are eight classes this term and 262 students – 40 percent of the school’s population – signed up, organizer Diana Picard said.
“This year, it is free to all kids in the Umatilla School District, so we are up a bit (in enrollment),” Picard said. “I think they did a lot of advertising, so people knew what it was and there was a lot of interest.”
One class – Junior FIRST LEGO League – maxed out on the number of participants. Sixty students signed up for the class and meet each afternoon in teams of 10 with a high school student mentor.
The 18 mentors, all participants in Umatilla High School’s award-winning FIRST Robotics Competition team, had to apply for the opportunity and are paid and treated as employees.
“They are hired by the school district, so it is their job,” Picard said. “They come in Monday through Friday and they are doing very well.”
Monday, the Junior FLL students worked with their mentors to talk about floods and natural disasters. The older elementary students of the advanced FLL class took over the McNary Heights gym to follow hundreds of steps to create their own complicated objects; eventually, the FLL students will create functioning robots based on pre-set kits. Of the 40 slots available in that class, 37 are full this term.
“We already maxed the Junior FLL and almost maxed FLL. I’d say they are very popular,” Picard said with a laugh.
The current round of classes ends Dec. 20, but the after-school program will continue through the school year with four five-week sessions offered for students to participate in. Each day the McNary Heights students also have a hot meal, a snack and the opportunity for homework assistance.
Students at Umatilla High School and Clara Brownell Middle School are also benefiting from the program with expanded robotics offerings, an automotive class and a hunting and outdoor safety after-school program. About 355 students participated in the program’s first week.
