About STEM High School

STEM HS is an OSLN designated high school within Akron Public Schools. Admission is based on an open-enrollment lottery, held through APS each fall.

 

In everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking, teaching and responding differently. The way we challenge the status quo is to provide authentic, innovative and rigorous learning experiences that inspire creativity, foster inventive/critical thinking, and cultivate leadership and problem solving skills, in such a way as to promote wellness and citizenship through science, technology, engineering and mathematics. 

 

Excellence through equity is an important focus of Akron Public School District, we are committed to systemic change of our institutional structures. The goal is to transform, engage, and sustain.

 

LEARNING PHILOSOPHY
Scientific inquiry and technological design are the cornerstones of instruction for our school.  Our learning environments focus on personalized learning and teamwork skills while incorporating engineering, personal finance, music, art, humanities, and other content areas.   Learning Coaches act as advisors where they work with small groups of learners to set goals and identify rigorous coursework to meet those goals.  State-of-the-art technology is used to achieve academic excellence, creative instruction, and 21st Century Skills.

 

In a collaboration with our Academy partner Goodyear, a unique design process drives the work in all classrooms and for all PBLs.

 

PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING
Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects.  PBLs are embedded at all grade levels and CCAA pathway classes with a culminating PBL that is personalized as your senior capstone.

 

In Capstone, our learners become CapSTEM Catalysts! We use a user centered design process to develop a solution to a problem that affects learners personally. After they select their problem, they investigate to understand how people experience it, how it connects to other people, products, and businesses. They use what they learn to dig down to the real problem to solve, so that when they brainstorm solutions, they know that they can impact REAL change. Using creative, open-ended brainstorming, they generate tons of potential solutions that they then analyze against the needs of the people involved to identify the most impactful solution. Combining skills learned in our Pathway courses with tools in our Innovation Lab, they develop prototypes of our solutions. Previous Capstones have led to their developers winning scholarships, cash prizes, essay contests, and admission to honors programs.
 

All STEM courses are honors or AP and provide curriculum alignment to the ACT. Learners are supported in preparation for the ACT from ninth grade on and begin to access university courses that align to their interests under the College Credit Plus (or CCP) umbrella. CCP is a statewide program that allows high school students to take college courses for free during their high school experience. At STEM, we are located on The University of Akron's campus. This allows for easy accessibility to CCP courses for all learners. 

 

We have a very flexible schedule! To align to the courses at The University of Akron, STEM's daily schedule doesn't follow at A/B pattern. Instead, our blocks run on Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday to maximize the potential for fitting in classes at the university. Our Fridays are flexible, allowing learners to meet with all of their coaches, go on field trips or work with community partners! Our calendar is also aligned to the university to allow you more consistent access to university courses! We begin earlier in the school year and end before the rest of Akron Public Schools. A few of our breaks and days off are also different to align with UA.