Thanks to generous support, thousands of Marshall County students in Grades K through 12 will have access to Project Lead The Way’s STEM curriculum starting this fall!
The Marshall County match for this initiative was raised from a combination of business and industry, economic development organizations, local nonprofits and individual philanthropists including:
Argos Town Council
Bourbon Town Council
Bremen Redevelopment Commission
Culver Redevelopment Commission
First State Bank of Bourbon
Marshall County Community Foundation, Inc
Marshall County Economic Development Corporation
Plymouth Redevelopment Corporation
Ralph and Louise Mason
St Joseph Regional Medical Center, Plymouth
United Way of Marshall County, Inc Universal Bearings, LLC
Weidner and Company P.C.
Wiers International Trucks
Northern Indiana was selected earlier this year to become a model region for Project Lead the Way (PLTW), providing all K-12 schools both public and private in a five-county area with the opportunity to implement PLTW’s rigorous, world-class STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs. The partnership with Elkhart, Fulton, Kosciusko, Marshall and St. Joseph counties created a $4.4 million matching grant pilot program to offset startup costs.
Looking at the implementation of new programs for the 2014-2015 school year has the Argos Jr/Sr High starting the Gateway program and in the Bremen Public School the Gateway Program will begin in the elementary and middle school while Biomedical Science will start in the high school. Culver High School will launch an engineering program and Plymouth elementary schools and Riverside Intermediate school will start the Launch program. Plymouth will also start the Gateway Program at Lincoln Junior High and at the high school a Biomedical Science program and engineering program. Triton Elementary will start the Launch program and in the Jr/Sr high school the Gateway program and a Biomedical Science program.
In addition to providing every student with access to PLTW, the regional partnership with PLTW engages the local community, business and industry to help develop a robust talent pipeline for business and industry.
Year one results in Marshall County show the number of Project Lead The Way implementations increased from 4 to 15 and from 2 to 5 school districts. The number of students with access to PLTW curriculum increased from 18% to 64% and from 1,698 students to 5,757 students.
The United Way of Marshall County and Marshall County Economic Development Corporation joined PLTW and regional partners in announcing the application process on March 1. The match funding is available to schools through 2016. Schools in the 5-county area began applying immediately. The first regional training took place this past week in South Bend.
