Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
MCPS to pilot GoTech career-connection labs after regional grant; $150,000 allocated per school
Loading...
Summary
MCPS will serve as lead applicant and fiscal agent on a GoTech launch grant that provides $150,000 per participating school to upfit middle-school career-connection labs; the pilot will start at Christiansburg Middle School and includes simulators, CNC routers and robotics modules.
The Montgomery County Public Schools board heard a detailed presentation on Sept. 2 about a regional GoTech launch grant that will fund career-connection labs in middle schools, with MCPS serving as lead applicant and fiscal agent.
Megan Atkinson, administrator of CTE and business partnerships, told the board the grant provides $150,000 per school to upfit classroom spaces into labs that expose middle-school students to career pathways such as precision machining, welding simulation, robotics and health-care technology. She said the division will pilot the lab at Christiansburg Middle School this year and that MCPS helped draft the application as part of a five-division consortium.
Atkinson said the lab includes nine modules and described plans to use CNC routers for precision machining, welding simulators (supplied by industry vendors) and VEX robots plus a robotic arm for assembly-line exercises. She emphasized outreach and industry partnerships, noting that the GoTech program’s mobile outreach bus and regional employer engagement were used during teacher training.
Board members welcomed the grant and raised questions about implementation. Several asked how the labs will be integrated into the school day and whether data will be tracked to see whether middle-school exposure increases high-school CTE enrollment. Atkinson said the labs will fit existing technology courses (Intro to Technology; Inventions and Innovations) and that programming will be leveled by grade (6–8) after the initial year. She added that MCPS’s precision-machining pathway at the high school strengthens the local pipeline.
Next steps: administration will prepare a supplemental appropriation request for the finance department to accept the GoTech funds, to be considered at the next board meeting. Staff said they will bring more detailed budget and scheduling plans once the appropriation is approved.
