Woodland Hills spotlights expansion of VEX robotics, "future ready" student leadership and district AI plans

Students from Woodland Hills High School and district staff presented the Future Ready Leaders project and a district STEM update at the May 21 board meeting, showcasing near-peer mentorship, regional field trips and plans to broaden coding and AI education across grades K-12.

Kevin McGuire, the high-school librarian who co-leads the Future Ready Leaders team, said the program seeks to make the district's state-required future-ready reporting meaningful and student-driven. "How do we make sure what we do at Woodland Hills prepares students for when they leave Woodland Hills?" McGuire asked at the microphone, describing a year-long project that asked students to evaluate programming and design a peer-mentoring initiative for Dixon STEAM Academy eighth-graders.

Students described their project work and what they learned. Jordan Parsons, a senior, said participation helped him "come out of my shell senior year" and inspired him to pursue teaching. Student teams handled planning, marketing, surveys and small-group visits; they also organized field trips to Penn State Greater Allegheny, UPMC facilities, the Bricklayers Union training site and Chatham University to expose students to a range of careers.

Tina Dietrich, director of team and innovation, updated the board on VEX Robotics and district STEAM goals. Dietrich said the district's VEX program recently sent teams to Worlds, and the district intends to expand coding, computer science and AI education into lower grades. "We're gonna look at bringing in AI...we want to bring that down into the elementary schools as well," Dietrich said, noting an executive order promoting K-12 AI education and that VEX has released an AI-enhanced platform the district plans to pilot.

Administrators and teachers described concrete next steps: establishing a cross-grade teacher team to craft a three-year STEAM plan, seeking community and alumni partnerships (Dietrich named Mitsubishi and local engineering alumni as partners), increasing club and competition opportunities, and exploring an activity period at the middle school so students can practice robotics and STEAM skills without sacrificing after-school activities.

McGuire and staff also noted that Goodwill and the Consortium for Public Education worked with the students; the district said those partners helped arrange work-experience pay for some student participants through Department of Labor connections. Board members praised the student presentations and the district's efforts to broaden participation; one administrator described VEX Worlds as "the Super Bowl of robotics." District staff said they intend to continue the program and expand elementary-team participation next year.

The board took no formal action on curriculum changes; the presentation was informational. Administrators said they will continue summer planning and engagement with teachers and community partners to implement the STEAM expansion and will report back to the board on pilot results.