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St. Charles 303 highlights districtwide elementary STEM rollout and student projects
Summary
District 303 presented an update on its new elementary STEM pathway, featuring Project Lead The Way curriculum, hands-on learning, and an April 22 district STEM night; teachers reported strong student engagement and shared early assessment results.
St. Charles Community Unit School District 303 on Jan. 13 updated the board and the public on the first-year rollout of a districtwide elementary STEM pathway, including curriculum choices, classroom practices and early assessment results.
The STEM team said the program replaces the previous Empower approach and uses Project Lead The Way (PLTW) curriculum across elementary grades. Tanya Hernandez, lead STEM teacher, said teachers devoted extensive unpaid time over the last year to adapt materials and to write curriculum for the new pathway. "This team ... are a committed group," Hernandez said.
District staff framed the STEM work as part of the district strategic plan’s instructional-coherence priority, noting the pathway is intended to provide a guaranteed and viable curriculum and common end-of-unit assessments that let the district monitor progress across grades. The presentation highlighted that the district began administering a science assessment (referred to as "inner orbit" in the presentation) last spring; presenters singled out fifth grade, the first grade that takes the Illinois science assessment, and reported that 70% of fifth graders were meeting standards for earth and space science on that measure.
Teachers offered classroom examples of the PLTW lesson structure—activities, investigations, projects and problems—and described specific units and materials. Amy Dixon, a STEM teacher at Richmond, described a unit sequence that begins with teacher-led activities to build vocabulary and background, proceeds to investigations, and culminates in an open-ended problem. She gave an example in which second- and third-graders learned to use weather measurement tools, tested soil for water absorption, and then designed flood barriers to protect a hypothetical garden.
Jenna Turner, STEM teacher at Wildrose, shared examples of hands-on learning across grades: kindergarten and first-grade instrument-building (light and sound unit), second- and third-grade VEX robotics kits and fourth- and fifth-grade space-museum projects produced as end-of-unit problems. Teachers said most instruction is hands-on, supplemented with technology such as Nearpod and Chromebooks when needed; one teacher estimated roughly 75–80% hands-on with technology support used for simulations and interactive lessons.
Presenters described the year’s unit sequence by grade bands: K–1 (light and sound; spatial sense; sun, moon, stars), grades 2–3 (weather; forces and interactions; programming patterns), and grades 4–5 (patterns in the universe; matter and reactions; ecosystems). Teachers invited the board and community to an all-district elementary STEM night on Tuesday, April 22 at Redling Middle School to showcase student projects.
Board members praised the work and asked about continuity, workload and specific traditions (for example, whether classroom life-cycle activities such as chicks or butterflies remain part of instruction). District staff and teachers said some traditional activities are no longer in the guaranteed curriculum because standards have changed; however, individual teachers may still incorporate life-cycle lessons if they align to standards and teacher comfort. The board emphasized that the new pathway provides consistent, systematic science experiences across elementary schools.
Presenters credited facilities staff for classroom resources and principals and central staff for support. The board and presenters described the rollout as a substantial shift from prior practice and noted teacher collaboration through professional learning communities (PLCs) and ongoing curriculum refinement.
Board members and teachers described the rollout as work in progress: teachers reported high student interest (including voluntary extra work by students on projects) and said the district will use the newest assessment data to track cohort progress from elementary through high school.
The presentation was informational; no board action was taken on curriculum during the meeting.
