Freshmen at Davie County High School have a potentially exciting awakening to the new program that will be continued for the rest of the school’s time: STEAM. STEAM has little information open to the current students at the high school, but the gears are set for it to start next year, and the clock is ticking for what happens to current upper and underclassmen and how this changes the course of STEM.

For over a decade at Davie County High School, students have been given the opportunity to join STEM, a “school within a school” that provides students with opportunities for volunteerism, enrichment trips, and much more in order to earn STEM Distinction. How does STEAM affect the current STEM program, and what changes will be made to the school as a whole as it steers in the direction of STEAM?

STEM has been going on since 2012, 56 years after the school was founded. STEM itself is known for not only group work, but how it ‘emphasizes connections’ between the main subjects of STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. It hopes to create well-rounded people from within the community.

On the STEM website, it asks a few questions at the bottom of the home page to represent what their motivation is: 

• “What is your plan to impact the community—local, national, global?”
• “What can you do this week, this month, this year, next year to make an impact?”

These are part of the goals of the STEM curriculum, along with others.

“STEM students are more likely to have time management skills and a determination/motivation to succeed on any task. They typically are success seeking, meaning they may want a really good grade in all of their classes,” says Brandi Swisher, a non-STEM art teacher at Davie High.

So, in the eyes of some at Davie High, STEM is a successful program that builds students into people ready for the world outside of school. But things are about to change, and most people don’t know how.

Future STEM students don’t have much to go off of when visiting the STEM website. Once on the ‘Future STEM Students,’ page, rising freshmen are welcomed with a vague text box that only tells the reader that STEM is being revised. It doesn’t tell how the STEM program is being revised, leaving students at a loss. 

“So what we’re doing with our STEM program is we decided that all our freshmen need to come in and be acclimated to the STEM process,” Michael Pruitt, principal at Davie High, says. “At the end of the day, STEM, the stuff that STEM was doing in the classroom is good, 21st-century teaching practices for everyone. So it shouldn’t just be reserved for  those that apply, for those that want to get into it.”

Pruitt notes that anyone who wanted to get into STEM would apply in eighth grade, a time when students have limited information that’s based mostly on what teachers or peers tell them.

“All of the freshmen that are in that STEM program, are all the people that are in our STEM program because they applied before they even stepped foot on our campus. So what we want to give them is real choices,” he adds.

This will mean that rather than students only being able to reach for STEM Distinction, they will be able to branch into a Distinction that specializes in their passions. These different Distinctions (as on the STEAM flier) are:

• STEM: The basic, current Distinction Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. ‘This includes robotics, TED, mechatronics, drafting, computer science, Ag., science, Adobe.’
• Career: Expertise and Leadership– This will include business, culinary/foods, masonry, carpentry, teaching, and any other class specifically geared towards a career.
• Global Awareness: Leadership & Literacy– This includes language classes, humanities classes, or leadership classes (including JROTC).
• Arts: Performing and Visual: The name states the obvious—it specializes in any arts or performing arts classes.

All of these different types of Distinctions allow people to grow and make connections in ways that aren’t necessarily about science, technology, engineering, and math; now people can grow in art, leadership, and any careers offered by the high school. People can become something that doesn’t fit them into a box.

To earn Distinction in any of these subjects, a student must complete four or more courses beyond the graduation requirement in that subject. All of these subjects will have an honors program, and Arts will require two of the courses to be at an advanced or honors level.

Pruitt calls this “a degree at the high school level.”

Looking at STEAM versus STEM, there will be differences not only in the different types of Distinction but also in the types of teaching itself. STEM’s teaching style of “Strategies That Engage The Mind” (not just Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) will be taught and applied to all teachers at the high school. These ‘21st-century teaching styles’ allow students to learn how to communicate and collaborate with others.

“We’re looking to raise the rigor of all of our classes, and also give kids that want the challenge an opportunity,” Pruitt adds.

Despite all of these changes, however, DCHS honors the promise they made to the STEM classes of 2025, 2026, and 2027. They will still be able to strive for their current STEM Distinction status, but the new STEAM program will only begin with the class of 2028. While STEAM begins with new classes of 2028 and beyond, STEM will continue for next year’s sophomores, juniors, and seniors. With both programs continuing simultaneously (for a time), different experiences in FLEX, such as people who come to present for Career Week, will be counted as Lunch & Learns.

With this year coming to a close, Davie High sees a new horizon with enhanced learning, opportunities, and passions rather than a ‘one size fits all’ mentality.