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Now that the 2022-2023 school year has come to a close, STC Pittsburgh is in a period of reflection, growth, and improvement.
This year, we served students and collaborated with educators in numerous classrooms and local organizations, including ARYSE, Butler Area School District, Brashear, Clairton, Northgate, Passport Academy Charter, Woodland Hills High School, and additional limited engagements with other local schools. In our time with students, we delved into the e2e Bridge Curriculum and worked on developing our personal voices, crafting our stories, exploring career personality types, learning about hidden STEM jobs, designing impactful resumes, and improving our interview skills. And now that the summer season has begun, it's time for us to think back critically on our experiences, so that we can take what worked, improve what didn't work as well as hoped, and find new ways to galvanize youth into blazing their own successful career path. While the year wasn't without challenges, it was an honor to be able to work closely with students all over Western Pennsylvania and help inspire and shift the professional mindsets of the next generation of change makers.
In addition to our classroom work, STC Pittsburgh has also supported a range of other projects, programs, collaborations, and initiatives. We set up and attended a site tour of New Century Careers for students at City Charter High School, we conducted mock interviews at Woodland Hills and Butler. We attended the BUILD Entrepreneurship presentations and the A+ Schools Partner Summit. We attended Senior Presentations at Passport Academy and provided feedback for student projects. We collaborated with Procopia to develop an organizational strategy that ensures our future success for years to come. We're also getting ready to teach a workshop on communication skills this summer at Penn State University's Summer Readiness Institute."
Over the past few months, we also developed, planned, and executed a successful Design Day Challenge with the Dragon's Den in Homestead, which is a non-profit Challenge Course in Homestead, as the design client. As a part of the Design Challenge process, we focused on recruiting local middle schools to participate, including Langley, Duquesne, Penn Hills Charter School of Entrepreneurship. We held the event on May 23rd, and the middle school students made some thoughtful, thorough and creative design choices and showed off their enviable presentation skills. Most exciting of all, the Dragon's Den received a grant from the Grable Foundation in order to bring student design ideas into fruition!
Furthermore, several local STC Pittsburgh partners were honored with the RFK Education Awards in May, and we wanted to make another shout out to Vas Scoumis, Kristen Sirbaugh, and Isaiah Teets as our Leader, Teacher, and Student awardees. We're so proud of your accomplishments.
Finally, over the course of this school year, the Pittsburgh Team has expanded, and over the summer we are looking to expand the team further, hoping to recruit at least one more part time educator and a corporate engagement specialist. While we look back with gratitude and pride, at STC Pittsburgh, we know the best is yet to come--which is why we are already deep into planning for the upcoming school year, with new collaborations being established and the hope of strengthening our current relationships with the school communities we serve and support. Thanks to everyone at the schools we mentioned for their support over the past year. Here's to even better things in 2023-2024! Check out some awesome Design Challenge photos! (Faces hidden to protect student privacy.)