On June 20^th, four teachers from Venango Catholic High School, St. Patrick’s and St. Stephen’s Elementary Schools traveled to Loyola University in Chicago to participate in the UPSTREAM Conference. “A Paddle and a Plan” was the theme of the 2018 conference presented by The Diocese of Buffalo. STREAM, an NCEA Best Practice Model, stands for Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Art and Math. Participants included Debbie Mitchell (St. Stephen), Julie Parquette (St. Patrick), Katie Chandley (Venango Catholic High School), and Shani Baughman (Venango Catholic High School).

The conference highlighted the most effective components of the STREAM Education Initiative piloted at 25+ schools within the Diocese of Buffalo since 2014. The initiative has been implemented in 100+ schools across the country with great success. The program delivered a 21st Century STREAM principled agenda for teachers around the eight principles of STREAM and how to create a 21st Century STREAM culture within the classroom and school.

By sending a team of St. Stephen’s, St. Patrick’s and Venango Catholic High School teachers, the local schools envision a vertical alignment of content, skills and knowledge PreK through 12^th grade. This core team will provide, via the teacher as trainer model, professional development and support for faculty and staff at all three schools. Such efforts support a cost effective model to train all of the faculty for school wide implementation vertically and horizontally.

This article was published in the Venango Area Chamber of Commerce’s July 2018 edition of the VenangoWorks! Newsletter.