OC STEM Initiative - Growing STEM Learning and Teaching in Orange County, CA
Simply stated, it’s about creating that “AHA” STEM moment for those who didn’t know they had an interest in or capacity to succeed in a STEM based career, leading to an expansion of the college & career ready STEM pipeline.
“AHA” moments occur when a competent, caring professional encourages, inspires and supports a student emotionally and academically. The Initiative has been designed to do just that.
The Initiative is comprised of key stakeholders from education, business & philanthropy, using Lead STEM Practitioners and an algorithmic-based web interface as a connector, to leverage resources to effect systemic change. We have assembled a community to create that special moment, and to provide a pathway to ensure it is not lost.
About You
About You
First Name
Gerald
Last Name
Solomon
About Your Organization
Organization Name
OC STEM Initiative, fiscally sponsored by OneOC
Organization Website
Organization Phone
(949) 760-4400
Organization Address
2101 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., 3rd Floor
Organization Country
United States, CA, Orange County
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States, CA, Orange County
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
OC STEM Initiative - Growing STEM Learning and Teaching in Orange County, CA
What change do you want to bring to the world?
Simply stated, it’s about creating that “AHA” STEM moment for those who didn’t know they had an interest in or capacity to succeed in a STEM based career, leading to an expansion of the college & career ready STEM pipeline.
“AHA” moments occur when a competent, caring professional encourages, inspires and supports a student emotionally and academically. The Initiative has been designed to do just that.
The Initiative is comprised of key stakeholders from education, business & philanthropy, using Lead STEM Practitioners and an algorithmic-based web interface as a connector, to leverage resources to effect systemic change. We have assembled a community to create that special moment, and to provide a pathway to ensure it is not lost.
What are the primary activities of your project?
The Initiative is built upon a continuum framework of STEM learning and teaching. Its foci are:
• Network Development – engaging diverse stakeholders interested in PreK-Higher Education
• Early Learning Engagement – project based science & spatial based math play/learning activities preparing students for elementary school.
• Lead STEM Practitioners (LSP) Implementation – a cadre of STEM professionals dispersed amongst Orange County’s 28 K-12 public school districts to assist in managing entry points into the system.
• Business Professional Engagement – using the National Lab Network framework, the Initiative uses a web-based interface for stakeholder STEM engagement, soon to be followed by broader utilization of multiple social media platforms.
• Out-of-School Time (OST) STEM Optimization – partnering with California Afterschool Network whose goal is to provide quality STEM education in the out of school time space to 1,000,000 plus elementary school students by 2020, and annually thereafter.
• STEM Advocacy at Regional, State and National Levels – partnering with California STEM Learning Network (CSLNet), one of the six Gates-states initiatives, along with other regional efforts in California, for regional information sharing and advocacy.
The inter-connectivity of these activities provides a unique and comprehensive approach for true systemic change, involving an entire community to address the STEM learning continuum from PreK - Higher Education.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
• While many STEM initiatives focus on one grade level, underrepresented group or singular subject matter, this Initiative brings together key stakeholders representing divergent yet integral components of the community and the learning continuum (PreK – Higher Ed). These partners are uniquely cognizant of the access and equity issues the community faces in developing a diverse responsive STEM educated workforce. The coalescence of such disparate partners offers, for the first time, a comprehensive approach to effecting systems change along the entire education continuum.
• The use of LSPs provides the critical linkages for information and program flow learning, teaching and professional development.
• The STEM business sector is an active partner, providing resources and “real life” experiences to all stages of the continuum. This type of collaboration fully leverages private resources which are often ignored, or under-represented.
• The Initiative is vertically integrated into a broader statewide and national framework to leverage assets to support a functional layering of resources, providing a real systems approach.
• The Initiative includes a strong virtual (web) platform upon which to build its future activities.
This Initiative optimizes community resources, engages them in all facets of the process, and holds the community as a whole thus responsible, and accountable, for outcomes.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
STEM is at the core of Orange County life, from its Fortune 500 companies to its more than 50 educational institutions housed within 34 diverse cities. Orange County’s Workforce Indicators Report 2010-11 states: “Orange County’s jobs of the future will require a higher number of STEM proficient students than is currently being prepared.” Scott A. McGregor, CEO of the Broadcom stated, “If we can help keep students excited about science, mathematics and engineering, we are helping to insure that Broadcom and other great companies will benefit from the work of these future scientists, engineers and innovators.”
Unfortunately, community trends in STEM learning are decreasing. Fewer students enroll in upper level STEM courses, pass Advanced Placement exams or perform at proficient levels. What is especially disconcerting is the ethnic disparity in both enrollment and performance. Hispanic students comprise 45% of the 500,000 K-12 population, with a disproportionate rate of under-enrollment and under-performance.
Poverty has increased in number and proportion with 44% of school enrollment participating in the free and reduced lunch program, a 24% increase since 2000.
This comprehensive effort, of bringing together diverse and disparate facets of the community, offers a unique platform to address the demographic and related inequities to education and workforce development.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
Gerald Solomon has served as the Executive Director of the Samueli Foundation since 2008. During his tenure, he has developed long range collaborative initiatives in a variety of areas, including: creating a countywide health funders network to focus on community health and resilience, to developing this comprehensive STEM strategy, along with founding the nascent national STEM Funders Network. Mr. Solomon has a diverse executive leadership background, having served as CEO of several highly successful and nationally recognized non-profits and for-profit organizations.
In February, 2010, the Samueli Foundation, under Mr. Solomon's guidance and the formal endorsement of the National Academy of Engineering, funded the first ever national gathering of 150 leading researchers, academicians and foundations for a three day conference on the continuum of STEM education. As the Chairman of the "STEM Summit 2010: Early Childhood Thru Higher Education", Mr. Solomon was asked what the Samueli Foundation hopes to achieve: “Philanthropy is one of the last frontiers where it is okay to take a risk and fail. And one of the things we can do in philanthropy by these risks is to become a catalyst for innovation.”
Multiple conversations were germinated at the Summit, leading to development of the California STEM Learning Network, and the idea behind this OC STEM Initiative. Mr. Solomon realized that a collaborative layered model engaging community and addressing the learning continuum could be a formidable catalyst to effect systemic change for students and future STEM professionals.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Early successes include: $225,000 grant from the Children & Families Commission of Orange County for program and planning costs and $50,000 from Broadcom Foundation for social media and website development. The Samueli Foundation has funded 1 ½ FTEs. Additionally, it has created an Advisory Committee of content experts to guide it including: Discovery Science Center, Science@OC, National Lab Network, Tiger Woods Learning Center, MIND Research Institute, Orange County Department of Education and OCTANe Foundation for Innovation.
Program outcomes thus far include:
• 50% of the school districts and 56 businesses have registered online to participate
• Establishing pathways to school districts for program implementation
• Launch of our website (www.ocstem.org)
• Through our work with the California Afterschool Network, we have ensured our region will become one of two California centers for a new afterschool STEM program to reach 1,000,000 students annually by 2020
• The Initiative is a governing partner for CSLNet ensuring vertically integration throughout California
As the Initiative grows, we will be contracting with Dr. Deborah Vandell, Chair of the UC Irvine’s Dept of Ed for program evaluation services, and to help develop the model and tell our story to share with other STEM initiatives around the country.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
1,001- 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
The Initiative will be the hub of STEM learning and teaching. Key areas of growth include:
• Building a sustainable network of diverse stakeholders, identifying STEM learning and teaching gaps, and strategically making responsive decisions.
• Developing an evaluation component. The outcomes derived will also feed vertically up to CSLNet, providing integration into their metrics, and supporting other regional efforts in California.
• Creating an “army” of LSPs into each school district to champion STEM learning and teaching.
• Mapping STEM programs along the education continuum optimizing impact.
• Ensuring that businesses engage in STEM learning, leading to effective workforce development connecting real life STEM examples into the classroom.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Building networks are, by their nature, organic. As such, it leads to potential conflicts in cultural and program options. To mitigate the chance of the network losing focus, a fully engaged governance structure with broad and diverse stakeholder representation is being developed to provide the guidance and input required.
Developing a strong evaluation component, using University of Irvine's Dept of Education expertise, will be a key to the network’s success. Again, relying on the network’s governance, coupled with diverse stakeholder engagements, will ensure the appropriate metrics are developed and analyzed, leading to necessary program evolutions.
Another potential challenge could be be to maintain continuity and consistency countywide. The use of LSPs will address that issue. The LSPs will work within each of the districts to help garner teacher support and interest for the programs.
And to keep students, in and out of school engaged, optimizing the use of a virtual (web) platform will be critical.
Tell us about your partnerships
The Initiative is the product of collaborations. It integrates regionally and statewide into the California STEM Learning Network (CSLNet), which is a part of the multi-state Gates initiative working alongside the National Governors Association work as well, establishing integrated shared information and learning pathway to maximize inputs and outcomes.
The Initiative also created a unique partnership with the National Lab Network, leveraging the virtual web space, connecting K-12 teachers and student needs with businesses, providing real life experiences that demonstrate relevance that can lead to that “aha” moment of inspiration that makes the difference in a student’s life choices.
Collaboration is at the heart of the Initiative. Key stakeholders continue to be identified and engaged, and even in its formative stage, the Initiative boasts such noted participants as: the Children and Families Commission of Orange County, the Broadcom Foundation, the OCTANe Foundation for Innovation and the Samueli Foundation as funders. From a program a technical support perspective, the partnerships include: the Discovery Science Center, MIND Research Institute, the Orange County Department of Education, Science@OC and the Tiger Wood Learning Center. Stakeholders will be added continually as it evolves.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$100,000‐250,000
Explain your selections
The Initiative’s current budget is based on funding and in-kind support from a diverse group of stakeholders, including:
• Children and Families Commission of Orange County - 3 year $225,000 grant.
• Broadcom Foundation - $50,000 grant for website and social media.
• OCTANe Foundation for Innovation - in-kind support through mobilizing STEM related businesses to engage in STEM activities in the classroom through the web-based National Lab Network partnership.
• Samueli Foundation – 3 years of $125,000/yr for 1.5 FTEs.
• CSLNet - providing in kind support and content evaluation and review.
• UCI’s Department of Education - developing evaluation tools.
• Orange County’s Department of Education – in kind as the connector to the school districts and identifying the Lead STEM Professionals
We continue to reach out to additional funders and partners to grow and sustain the Initiative. We are uniquely fiscally sponsored by OneOC, formerly the Volunteer Center of OC, to leverage community resources and to avoid having to build a non-programmatic overhead/infrastructure.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
As mentioned previously, the Initiative will become the hub for STEM learning and teaching in Orange County. This will be accomplished by the following:
• Continue to identify funding and program partners to ensure sustainability.
• Position the Initiative as a key contributor to the state and national networks.
• Measure impact to strengthen the relationships and encourage programmatic evolution to meet STEM needs.
• Grow STEM education champions within each school district through the Lead STEM Professional (LSP) program. By providing STEM learning and teaching opportunities to teachers, they become not only knowledge experts but they become advocates for STEM learning.
• Continually improve and optimize the virtual (web) platform for learning and teaching, and community engagements.
• Share our model with others to enhance STEM elsewhere.
Partnerships and Accountability
Please tell us more about how your partnership was formed and how it functions. What specific role does each partner play? What unique resources does each partner bring to the initiative?
In February 2010, the National Academy of Engineering hosted, with the sponsorship of University of California at Irvine, Samueli Foundation, Children and Families Commission of Orange County and the White House Writers Group, the STEM Summit 2010: Early Childhood Through Higher Education. The event brought together professionals from education, research, business, out-of-school time, early childhood, and foundations and government representatives to discuss the current state of STEM education along the Pre-K to higher education continuum. It was this event that seeded the OC STEM Initiative, along with solidifying the CSLNet.
In the past year, the Samueli Foundation took the lead in bringing the OC STEM Initiative from concept to prototype to launch by convening initial key funders and stakeholders and providing the seed funding both in dollars and personnel contributions to build and support the Initiative. Initial partners include:
• Broadcom Foundation - a private non-profit public benefit corporation founded to inspire and enable young people to enter careers in STEM through partnerships with local schools, colleges, universities and non-profit organizations. They partner with the Society for Science and the Public to sponsor the Broadcom Masters Competition, national science competition for 6-8th grade students. In the last year, they have provided information about the importance of providing STEM opportunities to middle school students and have funded the development of the OC SSTEM Initiative website.
• California Afterschool Network – a non-profit organization that provides out-of-school time practitioners, advocates, and community members with the resources and tools necessary to build high quality out-of-school time programs in California. The Initiative participates in the California Afterschool Network STEM Initiative, whose goal is to create and implement a strategic plan to increase high quality out-of-school time STEM experiences for California’s K-12 youth. Through this partnership, we will be driver and implementer in OC to provide STEM education learning in out-of-school.
• California STEM Learning Network - a non-profit organization working to catalyze innovation in STEM teaching and learning in the State of California. They collaborate with national, state and regional partners to champion policies and practices that will rapidly scale STEM education innovation. By being in the network, the Initiative is able to gain knowledge, leverage resources, impact policy and provide our model to other regions for potential replication.
• Children and Families Commission of Orange County - county established commission that supports organizations that provide health, education and development services to children and their families, prenatal through age five. Because their expertise is prenatal through age five, they are key in ensuring information on the latest early childhood development trends is shared with the network. They also are providing funding for the strategic planning session and development of the network.
• Discovery Science Center – non-profit organization dedicated to educating young minds, assisting teachers and increasing public understanding of science, math and technology through interactive exhibits and programs. In the last year, they have provided information on STEM education in the out-of-school time settings.
• MIND Research Institute - a non-profit organization that enables elementary and secondary students to reach their full academic and career potential through developing and deploying math instructional software and systems. Their programs are in the pre-school and elementary school settings, so they share information on math learning trends for those age groups.
• OCTANe Foundation for Innovation - a non-profit organization that focuses on advancing biomedical and information technology innovation and entrepreneurship within Orange County. They bring the perspective of STEM businesses and innovators to the network.
• OneOC - a non-profit organization that assist the local non-profit community through volunteer, training, consulting and business services. They provide all financial functions for the OC STEM Initiative, as the fiscal sponsor that allows us to have 501(c)(3) classification.
• Orange County Department of Education - Partners with Orange County school districts to provide over 500,000 students with a world class education that emphasizes standard-based skills in safe learning environments. Their key role is to inform the network of educational trends, as well as take the lead in connecting the Lead STEM Practitioner program to each of the school districts.
• Samueli Foundation - a private foundation that strives to create societal value by investing in innovative, entrepreneurial and sustainable ideas. Their role has been as informal lead in planning the early stages of the OC STEM Initiative. They are also active in state and national STEM education networks.
• Science@OC - a non-profit organization dedicated to developing scientifically literate k-12 students in Orange County through district strategic plans that implement inquiry-centered science programs, effective teacher professional development, leadership assistance and community support. This organization shares information on inquiry based science programs and direct work with teachers.
• Tiger Woods Learning Center - a program of the Tiger Woods Foundation that provides underserved youth opportunities for active participation and hands-on STEM learning in a custom-built education facility. Because the learning center serves underrepresented middle and high school age students, they bring an important perspective to the network.
Each partner actively participates actively to ensure its core capabilities are effectively represented and leveraged.
How are you building in accountability for students' successful STEM learning outcomes? Please provide a summary and examples.
The OC STEM Initiative is in its developmental stage of a comprehensive evaluation plan. It has engaged the pro bono services of Dr. Deborah Vandell from UC Irvine’s Dept of Ed, a noted researcher and evaluator. Conversations have begun to define the tools, and resources needed to develop a robust evaluation system to align the outcomes with the OC STEM Initiative goals. Metrics being considered and developed include:
Goal: Improve STEM education for all Orange County students.
• Outcomes to include:
• Number of LSPs
• Number of LSP led activities planned and resource disseminated
• Number of students involved with STEM activities in both in and out-of-school settings
• Increased excitement or interest in STEM subjects/activities
• Improved performance in math and science proficiency
• Number and types of activities introduced through the National Lab Network program
• Number of STEM professionals volunteering in classrooms
• Number of Pre-K students engaged in math and science
Goal: Ensure all Orange County students are college and career ready in the STEM fields.
• Outcomes to include:
• Number of students entered in the Broadcom Masters Competition
• Increased excitement or interest in STEM subjects/activities
• Improved performance in math and science proficiency
• Number of students enrolled in A-G science and math classes
• Number and types of activities introduced through the National Lab Network program
• Number of STEM professionals volunteering in classrooms
Goal: Develop a skilled and continuous workforce to meet the scientific and technological needs of the employer base of Orange County.
• Outcomes to include:
• Number of students enrolled in A-G science and math classes
• Improved performance in math and science proficiency
• Number of STEM graduates from local universities and colleges.
Needs
Investment.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add needs that may not be listed.
As the Initiative grows, future needs will be identified. At this time, we are seeking investment for the development and launch of Lead STEM Practitioners (LSP, or named if you so desire “Ashoka Fellows”) component which is a critical piece to move forward. This will establish the communication and programmatic oversight and management linkages needed to take the project to full scale to all the school districts and informal/out of school venues. Each LSP would receive a stipend, an iPad or similar device for connectivity, and an intranet to be developed on our website (www.ocstem.org) for convening and organizational support.
Offers
Collaboration/Networking, Pro-bono help (legal, financial, etc.), Innovation/Ideas, Mentorship.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add offers that may not be listed.
As the Initiative evolves, we look to engage others with similar interests and objectives to share ideas, strategies and successes and failures. Engaging in such an informal network can be beneficial for all. We would welcome conversations to share our expertise and knowledge with innovation and collaboration and engage in opportunities where we can work and learn from others. We also see potential opportunities in developing mentorship relationships with other changemakers interested in making systemic changes in STEM education at a regional, state and national level.
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