San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
District’s ‘STEAM Zone’ is forging last link
Edgewood ISD will restructure schools with A&M-S.A.’s help
Edgewood Independent School District will restructure two of its schools this summer to finalize a pre-K through high school pipeline for students interested in a STEAM-oriented education.
The reorganization was cemented by the Edgewood ISD board’s unanimous approval Thursday evening of a partnership with Texas A&M UniversitySan Antonio that will turn Winston Elementary School into the Winston Intermediate School for Excellence.
By August, Winston will change from a standard elementary for pre-K through fifth grade into a school specifically for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) in grades 3 through 5. In turn, Gardendale Elementary, currently pre-K through 5th grade, will switch to just pre-K through 2nd grade.
The changes will finalize a yearslong process to develop a “STEAM Zone,” one of four innovation zones within the district meant to provide options for schools that are dedicated to specific areas of interest. Edgewood plans innovation zones for STEAM, leadership, public service and performing arts within the next couple of years.
“This is once again our continued effort to be very strategic in bringing choice and options for our parents and our schools, much like the more affluent districts do,” Superintendent Eduardo Hernández said. “Our goal is to have our students attend schools that are driven around purpose and around interest.”
Parents who want their children to attend schools in the STEAM Zone will be able to enroll them at Gardendale or Perales Elementary, which is for pre-K through 5th grade, and students
at Gardendale will be able to move on to Winston after the 2nd grade.
Those students can then enroll in middle school at the Brentwood STEAM School of Innovation, and then at John F. Kennedy High School, which has a PTECH (Pathways in Technology Early College High School) program.
Current Winston staff were given the option of reapplying to stay at the school after it undergoes its transformation, and most have said they want to stay, Hernández said. Teachers for the lower grades that will no longer exist at Winston may move to Gardendale. The current principal at Winston will be staying, as have the principals at Edgewood’s other partnered schools.
“Choice is as much for students and families as it is for our employees,” Hernández said. “(Teachers) are not just going to show up here because they have nowhere else to go. You’re going to come here because it fulfills your purpose, too.”
Carl Sheperis, dean of A&M San Antonio’s College of Education and Human Development and one of the coordinators of the Winston partnership, said the collaboration is one of several at the heart of Edgewood’s
efforts to implement high-quality curricula and programming by comanaging schools with outside partners.
Edgewood and TAMUSA already have partnerships for the Burleson School of Innovation and Education and the Gus Garcia University School.
“This partnership allows us to continue to bring in outside, expert knowledge to continue to add to our efforts to provide a good, high quality education for our kids,” Hernández said.
The university and Edgewood are working together to hire teachers and administrators at Winston and to shape the STEAM curriculum, which was created by A&M San Antonio faculty and will be centered around literacy-based design and project-based learning.
Students will have access to robotics kits, 3D printers and aquaponics systems and will learn data analysis, computer programming and public speaking, among other subjects, Sheperis said.
“We’re able to bring a wraparound approach where the entire university structure can wrap around a public school and provide supports,” he said.
With Thursday’s action, both partners have signed off on the deal. It could earn additional state funding if it is approved this spring by the Texas Education Agency under Senate Bill 1882. The 2017 legislation provides incentives for school districts to contract with outside entities like nonprofits, charter networks and universities to manage schools.
Hernández said it is too early to tell how much additional funding Edgewood could receive, although it would be enough to at least fund the robotics program. The university also could earn an estimated $383,000 per year from the state, most of which would fund programs at Winston, Sheperis said.
The partnership also makes the university eligible for other funding opportunities, and it recently received a $4 million partnership grant from the federal government that will go toward supporting faculty research.
In addition to expanding in-district school choice and bolstering Edgewood’s STEAM offerings, Hernández said the partnership could help improve collegegoing rates in Edgewood, where more than 90 percent of students are considered economically disadvantaged.
The idea is that by having A&M San Antonio at the center of Winston’s academic landscape, students will grow up knowing about the university and feeling like it is more accessible to them.
“It starts to identify the university to the lower grades so that there’s a relationship between the family and the university,” Hernández said. “What we’re doing is creating a collegegoing culture in our homes.”
If approved by the TEA, the partnership will be Edgewood’s seventh under SB 1882. Only San Antonio ISD has more in Bexar County.
SB 1882 partnerships last 10 years and are renewable. Edgewood can end the partnership after two years if the university does not meet certain success metrics, Hernández said.