Challenges Met in Inaugural Year of the Waukesha STEM Academy

From the start, Principal Ryan Krohn and others knew this year was going to be tough for the fledgling Waukesha STEM Academy (WSA).

There were a number of challenges for the school to overcome. Whether or not the school was successful in meeting all those challenges depends on who you ask.

The big-picture challenge the school faced was reorganizing two schools with strong identities – Saratoga and Randall elementary schools – into one school split into two buildings with a focus on science, technology engineering and math (STEM) in a project-based learning environment.

“Everybody has a mental model about what school is and what school looks like and it was very tough to break down those mental models to try to create something new, truly letting go of the past and opening ourselves up to the new opportunities," said Principal Ryan Krohn. "That was really our biggest hurdle in the beginning.” 

Additionally, in the first four months, the school experienced an “implementation dip,” Krohn said. Communication and organization seemed to be the main areas of challenge for families and students. Teachers were stressed, too.

“They’ve jokingly said that they feel like a first-year teacher where everything is new again," Krohn said. "They’re thinking about each lesson at a new level, thinking and creating like never before.” 

However, things gradually began to even out as some of new things the school was trying began to take effect.

"The momentum started to shift from a tougher transition into finding bits and pieces of success to go forward,” Krohn said.

In terms of providing students with more opportunities for project-based learning of STEM, Krohn is satisfied.

“I feel we reached some of those goals," he said. "Did we do it to the level we wanted? No. Did we do it to the way that it’s going to look in two years or three years? No."

Parent view

When asked, most parents seem relatively content to have made the choice to send their children to WSA. Others switched schools during the year or are choosing not to return next year.  According to Krohn, 21 students left this year.

“In the beginning, there were some problems with disorganization and communication,”  said Michele Johnson, parent of three.

“But we sat on our hands and thought, ‘This is their first year and they’re trying to get themselves going,’” she said. “After a while we saw that the kids were thriving. The last half of the year went smoother.”

The family will be returning to WSA next year.

For the Johnsons, the decision to send their children to WSA was easy because of their location and the interest of her two older children to attend a STEM school. Still, they had some concerns about their decision.

“We were nervous about being the guinea pigs for a new school, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity,” she said. “What the STEM school was offering was bigger and better than what other schools and districts were offering.”

What WSA was offering that was different from other schools was a project-based learning environment with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math. Also emphasized are the modern-day “survival skills” of collaborations, innovation, problem-solving and communication.

One of the goals is to bring “science, math and literacy to life and be able to work in a group, present or share your findings,” Krohn said.

Krohn is proud that they were able to develop a schedule that allowed for project-based learning every day.

“We wanted them to really apply their learning daily, weekly and through projects," he said. "When I look at what’s been created for each grade level and the amount of time they are getting to do application of learning, I feel we exceeded where we wanted to be at year one for application opportunities.”

Some ways this was implemented was through guest speakers in the classrooms or field trips to places in the community.

“We’ve tried to be real purposeful that as teachers, we’re not the keepers or experts of this information anymore," Krohn said. "The information and the experts are out there."

Community experts

For instance, when seventh graders were studying chemicals, science teacher Chris Luther arranged a classroom visit by the Waukesha HazMat team, who came with their protective gear to talk about how they deal with chemical spills and why certain chemicals are hazardous.

“They were the experts and could engage kids in a way that chemicals made sense to them,” Krohn said.

Another example of how the school is using project-based learning when the fourth graders worked with the Department of Natural Resources to become a registered trout farm, raising the fish and releasing them in Minooka Park.

These cooperative efforts with community groups and organizations, called partnerships, are a crucial part of the WSA. To provide these types of opportunities, WSA has also worked with Miller Park, local animal farms, floral companies, Channel 58 when learning about the weather and Carroll University with engineering.

For parents Bill and Amanda Tenwinkel, the variety of speakers and opportunities has opened up their daughter’s eyes to the possibility of different careers.

“She’s starting to think outside the box more,” Amanda Tenwinkel said.

The year has been a bit of a “mixed bag” for the family, who also cite communication as an area of frustration. On the plus side, though, their daughter is being challenged.

"She's progressing well," she said.

They aren’t sure about the amount of work their daughter is doing – two assessments on the second last day of school and work over the preceding weekend when children at other schools were mostly done.

“We joke that she went from elementary school to high school,” Tenwinkel said.

But overall they’re happy with WSA and plan on returning next year.

About the people are coming back next year and those who have left, Krohn is philosophical.

“They’ve seen what it is and what it’s not and they’ve been a part of what it could be," he said. "Those that have left have done the same thing. They’ve made a choice they believed in."

Next year

Continual upgrades seem to be in the future for STEM.

“STEM 2.0 is also symbolic of the fact that we know we can do better than we did this year," Krohn said. "It also opens the door for STEM 3.0. It keeps us in the mindset that each year will be different but the same."

The plan for next year is to “keep our identity but to definitely make some improvements, make some upgrades, built along the same philosophy, just to take it to the next level,” Krohn said.

Students and families can look forward to more projects and partnerships, a better-aligned curriculum, and the introduction of an online learning hybrid model, according to Krohn.

If all goes according to plan, next year WSA will be bigger and better. The school will be at capacity at both buildings with more than 800 students between the two schools, plus they’re adding another administrator. Rose Glen Principal Chris Kluck is moving to the Randall campus next year.

And, as with this year, they anticipate challenges and even actively seek them out.

“I think we’re going to anticipate challenges for as long as we’re a school," Krohn said. "We’re looking for some of those challenges – looking to challenge our grading and assessment practices, looking to challenge our school calendar in hours, our delivery model for instruction math, to challenge the notion of grade levels."

School finances

Another area of challenge for the new school could be financial due to changes at the state level. As a charter of the school district, WSA falls under same staffing and budget ratio as other Waukesha schools.

“The notion of funding is always on our minds. The one nice piece about being a charter school is that we have some flexibility in how we do business,” Krohn said.

For him, it will be another opportunity, a word that has been used in almost as much as challenge in discussions about the school.

“The funding formula for education does create its challenges, but there are some real opportunities that lie in the change we’re experiencing," Krohn said. "I think we’re pretty creative.

"It’s our time to innovate, to create and to really engage in this. That is our challenge. And I’m confident we can come up with some really good solutions."

Whatever the outcome, Krohn thanks the school district for trying something new, to the parents who “took a risk” in sending their children to WSA and to the students that came in ready to take on a challenge.

“We’re all educational engineers, whether we know it or not,” he said.