Grant supports STEM program for Texarkana

TEXARKANA — Gov. Asa Hutchinson has announced that the Texarkana School District has received a $14,787,921 federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The money, which will be given over a five-year period, will be used for the Texarkana School District’s Montage Project, a program using science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as STEM. Those programs will continue from the district’s elementary schools to College Hill Middle School, North Heights Junior High School and Arkansas High School.

The federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant, the only one given to an Arkansas school system this round, is one of 32 the Education Department gave across the country this year.

As governor, Hutchinson has worked to develop and spread STEM programs throughout Arkansas.

“We started this initiative because it is important for the jobs and skills that are needed for the future,” he said of computer science education. “Right now, we have 5,500 students in Arkansas taking some type of computer science courses. We want to see that number go up.”

Texarkana School District Superintendent Becky Kesler said providing students with those technical skills has brought many challenges, and that with these additional funds, they’ll be able to overcome those.

“We are currently preparing our students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technology that hasn’t even been invented to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems. Our educational system is tasked with preparing students for a rapidly changing world where it is difficult to predict what challenges lie ahead,” she said.

“As more and more and more businesses become digital, the demand for workers with highly technical abilities is increasing faster than they can be supplied. For students to be successful in the future, they must learn to be thinkers and problem solvers.”

Kesler said “the possibilities will be endless” with the grant and that students will be able to choose from courses including programming, game design, interactive storytelling and digital art, along with those in engineering and manufacturing.

Classrooms will also be transformed to look like work spaces in technical companies.