IF YOU COULD WAVE A MAGIC WAND & MAKE ONE POLICY CHANGE TO SUPPORT GIRLS IN STEM, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Clockwise from top left: Anbu Subramaniyan, Sabari Raja, Andi McNair, Jennifer Harrison (moderator), Ana Porras, Nicole Jackson.

We recently had an opportunity to ask five inspiring, successful, incredibly admirablwomen in STEM careers for their thoughts on education policy:

“If you could wave a magic wand and make one specific policy change in every K-12 school in the United States, what would it be? And how could that one action bring about subsequent change?”

Read on to see what they said.

“I just want to wave a magic wand and take the fear of math and science away. That’s all I want to do. Take the fear of math and science away.”

Anbu Subramaniyan is the quality manager for the Metal Stamping Division of General Motors in Arlington, Texas, where GM’s full-size utility vehicles such as Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon are assembled. Anbu also serves as the chair of Women In Manufacturing (WIM), an employee resource group at GM. Through WIM, she leads several community outreach programs, working with local schools through programs such as Junior Achievement, Virtual Classrooms, mentoring and STEM workshops. She is also the Dallas Chapter Lead for Isha Vidhya, a nonprofit organization focusing on rural education in India.

A native of India, Anbu earned her bachelor’s degree in engineering from the National Institute of Technology, India; and her master’s degree in engineering from the University of Tulsa. She also holds a certified manager of quality certification from the American Society for Quality.

ANA PORRAS

“Step away from so much testing and standardized testing. Testing works for people like me, but it doesn’t work for most people. A few studies have also demonstrated that the way we test can also be to the discredit of girls in STEM specifically. Along with what Nicole said, if we can also figure out some other more holistic ways to test a student’s knowledge, by project based learning, maybe learning in groups.

Another thing that we haven’t talked about is that technology and the problems we can tackle with technology are so big that we need to cultivate the ability to work in teams with our students, because that’s just how the future is going to work. No one person can tackle every problem. And the way we test right now, we’re not really developing any of those skills.”

Ana Porras is a Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research experience encompasses a wide variety of topics ranging from tissue engineering to the gut microbiome and global health. Ms. Porras has completed a BS, MS, and PhD in Biomedical Engineering. During graduate school, she obtained a Delta Certificate in Teaching and Learning with an emphasis on inclusive pedagogy.

Originally from Colombia, she is passionate about multicultural and multilingual communication in both formal and informal settings. She is an advocate and active participant in organizations and communities that foster diversity in STEM.

ANDI MCNAIR

“Anytime a kid can learn and experience STEM through their passion, it is a game changer. It’s authentic and it’s real. And it makes learning so much more than just learning through a test or filling out a worksheet. And so, passion-based learning is a real thing, it’s a real conversation in education right now and I think the more we can get momentum behind that idea, any type of project based learning across curricula.”

Andi McNair is currently a digital innovation specialist at ESC Region 12 in Waco, Texas. She

has spoken nationally at many conferences, education service centers, and worked with many school districts to provide innovative learning experiences for their students. Andi was named one of the Top People in Education to Watch in 2016 by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences. She has published Genius Hour: Passion Projects that Ignite Innovation and Student Inquiry, A Meaningful Mess: A Teacher’s Guide to Student-Driven Classrooms, Authentic Learning, Student Empowerment, and Keeping it All Together without Losing Your Mind and is in the process of working on her third book to be published soon. She absolutely loves sharing her passion for innovative education with other educators that want more for their students.

SABARI RAJA

“Entrepreneurship has to be part of middle school and high school. That is the quickest way for students to really apply a lot of skills. I always say the biggest learning that I’ve had has been in the last seven years since this idea became a product, which became a company. The amount of learning that I’ve had in my adult life has been immense. Giving that opportunity to students covers a lot of things that you want.”

Sabari Raja has a strong track record in building and launching successful education technology products in markets around the globe. Prior to starting Nepris, she worked for 15 years with Education Technology division of Texas Instruments to lead product and content strategy, publisher relations, business development, partnership and alliance ecosystem for new edtech products. Sabari has an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from India, Masters in Computer Science from Louisiana State University and graduated Beta Gamma Sigma with an Executive MBA degree from Cox School of Business, SMU.

NICOLE JACKSON

“Move away from having such constrained curriculum and move toward intriguing students, by exposing them to things very early on and letting them pick a path. People who are excited and emotionally compelled for something, tend to pursue it … You see an impact when you can let students be engaged and pursue STEM naturally on their own, as opposed to just shoving STEM down students’ throats, trying to convince them that it’s cool when they don’t see why it’s cool.”

Nicole Jackson is a technologist and a Health IT SME (subject matter expert) specifically working alongside Android, iOS, and Web developers and technical strategists in a highly competitive work space. Ms. Jackson keenly identifies and cultivates new talent in the health IT field and encourages young talent to be their best. Ms. Jackson is also a veteran of the US Armed Forces, a cellist, a mother and a proud wife.

Thank you so much, Anbu, Andi, Sabari, Nicole and Ana. Your leadership and example are exactly what we need to prevent society, families, and even schools from discouraging girls to find and follow their passion in STEM areas.

ESA SERVICES INCLUDE SCHOOL CRISIS RESPONDERS By Joan Wade

Educational Service Agencies (ESAs) across the country provide various support and services for the school districts in their region. One of the most critical functions is Crisis response work that many ESAs engage in with their schools. Crisis response is essential to keep the educational setting stable and free from disturbance. Learning can only take place in a safe environment. AESA members ensure that educational environments are fortresses of safety, and acceptance has become an important service.

One such example is in the heart of Texas, where a team of professionals with experience in school leadership, counseling, mental health, safety, and communication has come together to respond whenever a call comes in after a devastating event or loss of life occurs. Crisis calls often confound the efforts of educators and interrupt the learning environment for students. They utilize specified tools, resources, and best practices from an arsenal of strategic responses to assist the impacted school district as they mitigate what is understandably a visceral and very personal response to a tragedy.

The National Organization of Victim Assistance (NOVA) protocols are useful for debriefing with small groups in most cases, and the After A Suicide Toolkit for Schools is also useful when warranted. Resources from the National Child, Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) for Psychological First Aid and the American School Counseling Association (ASCA) and other supports, chosen based on varying factors that impact each given situation.

Often, the collaboration is based not only on evidence but also on experience with crisis calls regarding human losses that range from accidents or terminal illnesses. On extremely rare occasions, the loss of a person may be to a homicide, but all too often, the loss is suffered when a student or teacher dies by suicide. The lessons learned from so many crisis interactions with districts in the region have resulted in stronger partnerships and relationships, knowing that caring for people is the heart of ESAs, the unified mission for all schools.

School districts in this region and across the country have come to utilize crisis response services to make critical decisions involving their response to media and consult how to address memorials. Consultation and support are provided to help schools structure the first day back on campus after a fatality, consider the resumption of class schedules and school events, and assist with referrals for affected students and staff. One school crisis response specialist has learned many lessons and leads this effort for seventy-six independent school districts and ten charter schools in the heart of Texas.

You can read more about the work of a Crisis Responder in The Tenets of Care: A Perspective from a School Crisis Responder by Jenipher Janek, M.Ed., LPC, Education Specialist III/Coordinator, Education Service Center Region 12.

Joan Wade, Ed.D. Executive

Director for the Association of Educational Service

Agencies (AESA), is a life-long educator with more than 30 years of service in public education. In addition to teaching, she has worked as a library media specialist, Technology

Coordinator, and Distance Learning Director.

By Bryan Contreras, Vice President, K12 & Education Partners, myOptions®

From the fruit orchards of Texas’ Rio Grande to the tomato fields of south central Florida, back to the pecan groves of the Gulf Coast, the cotton fields of West Texas and the lush strawberry and apple lands of Oregon, I come from a Mexican-American migrant family shaped by the history and economics of our nation. Our family’s grit and determination to break out of intergenerational poverty has not been easy, and this fight is far from complete, however, the bedrock of my family’s accomplishments is built on my paternal grandparents’ deep-rooted beliefs in education. Their combined will and vision pushed us through obstacles, too many to mention here, and toward heights where dreams, hard work and miracles intersected. crops and seasons across this great land, living day to day, like vagabonds seeking stability and a place in our nation’s promise for the American dream. Much like chasing this dream and the harvests of our labors, my family’s educational experiences felt just like our migrant journeys - unstable, unpredictable, and at times limited. Across generations, we experienced school segregation, busing, de-segregation, bilingual education, and many compromised policies that tried to stitch together our communities’ needs and the solutions from educational policymakers.

Some amazing school counselors and mentors, whom I believe are “equity heroes,” brought to life educational opportunities and changed the trajectory of my family. Cornell, MIT, Phillips Exeter Academy, and self-made entrepreneurs (now affectionately called “start-ups”) are now woven into our family’s fabric. I wish I could say these accomplishments were based solely on

our dedication and determination, but the educational playing field required “equity heroes” to help give us access to opportunities, along with their unwavering support as we courageously challenged ourselves to pursue something so foreign and unproven in communities like ours.

I am proud of my personal journey which includes public secondary education, private independent boarding school, public four-year university and private four year graduate studies. This rich set of educational experiences, along with my personal Mexican-American truths, provided me with a great foundation to build upon as I set forth into college counseling to help shape a better future for students who live in communities much like that of my family. I wanted to be one of those mentors or “equity heroes” I admired so much.

Fifteen years ago, I jumped into my college counseling career where I lived in multiple databases dazed by columns and rows trying to figure out how to stitch together data, student information, tracking transcript follow up, and checking off completed items…all in the name of completing college applications. I grew frustrated and tired as I witnessed my students fall through the cracks after all the incredible hard work my team and I invested in each student and family; I knew that a better system would be required if our students were going to complete their degrees. The super powers of “equity heroes” can only go so far.

The team that I had assembled worked tirelessly. However, the pace to keep up with all our students, especially their sets of unique needs, really forced us to innovate our data ecosystem, both out of necessity and opportunity. We needed to accelerate our efforts through technology if we were to hit our ambitious goal of closing the achievement gap. So we embarked on a mission to find existing data tools, secure data partnerships, and build new tools. At the end of the process, we had designed a data-driven approach to college and career counseling by using seven different databases, sprinkling in some sharable platforms; we were ecstatic.

Our belief was that students, families, mentors, and counselors needed to be empowered with the same data and information traditionally found in the teacher’s gradebook or counselor’s files for success to be achieved in the college planning process. In a recent article published in The 74, Jon Deane (CEO, Great Schools) writes about parents’ needs for greater transparency and a holistic view of their children's growth. This is the same concept that validated our strategy for the first generation students we served. We committed to data transparency and sharing it in real time with families - which we knew was lots of hard work and required investment of our team’s time. But in the end, this would keep the families informed and make our work easier and more efficient. We took the leap and dove into the work.

We learned a lot, like the fact that working in seven different “systems” while trying to maintain meaningful connections with students, parents, and college counselors soon became another exhausting experience. And it was

there at the crossroads of “necessity and opportunity” where “grit, determination and technology” intersected, yet we were determined to help design technology tools to meet student, parent, and mentor needs in the college planning process. We knew that the technology would need to evolve once again.

I am honored to be part of the myOptions team that brings together all these “learnings” and data-driven practices. Our mission to ensure that all students have equal access to the critical planning resources for college and career, and that educators and mentors do as well, is brought to life in myOptions and myOptions Encourage™. This brand-new educator platform, myOptions Encourage, launched in September. With it, schools do not have to worry about finding budget dollars to add a “best in class” college and career planning tool to their suites of resources.

So what did we build? We designed solutions that:

1.Make it accessible and easy for students to join…its completely free

2.Provide great tools, checklists, and links to scholarship opportunities

3.Connect students to colleges and universities

4.Allow students to invite parents, mentors, and counselors to connect with them.

5.Allow students to request critical documents, like transcripts and recommendation letters, to be sent to colleges and universities through this platform

Through this new technology platform, we give all mentors the ability to connect with students, collaborate with them in the college planning process, monitor their progress, and gather critical reports to help prioritize their needs. At Encourage’s core, we have also included college application management tools, like the ability to send documents electronically to colleges and universities on behalf of students. We believe all this will offset the issue of incomplete college applications, falling off of their mentors’ radars, and helping families become active in their children’s college planning processes.

School counselors, college counselors, teachers, and mentors create a unified assault on the achievement gaps that low income youth face across our nation. Their supernatural “grittiness” and “perseverance” push the boundaries of what is possible. There are huge opportunities for counselors, mentors, program leaders, and managers to accelerate their work with free resources, like myOptions Encourage, and empower their students to be educated decision-makers. Ultimately, for all of us, our final exam as educators is to make sure students have equal access to opportunities, and that these opportunities lead to productive lives for each student and their families.

LEARN MORE AT http://myoptions.org