STEM Beyond School, funded by the Oregon Department of Education’s Innovation Funds, will be entering its fourth year. SBS provides a Community of Practice that builds connections and capacity of out-of-school educators to provide high-quality, hands-on STEM to their historically underserved students in grades 3-8. SBS offers high-dose professional development tailored to the needs of our OST educators so they can create engaging programming that is relevant to their students and their interests, incorporates Next Generation Science Standards practices, and extends learning experiences into out of school and their community. EMSP has been a key partner in this grant program, supporting student programming at two new sites through ODE’s LOI program last year. Due to funding changes, the total SBS budget only supports sustaining the PD Network; student programming is no longer funded, though we are pursuing funds elsewhere.

The next cohort of out of school educators will begin in January 2020 and run through May 2021. Over 17 months, educators will have access to STEM webinars, learning communities, continuous improvement tools, all-program events, regional learning, and a network of their peers to support STEM capacity. For the full PD experience, educators can apply for a limited number of stipends to pay for their time and travel. Applications will be released soon. Webinars and online resources are open to all OST STEM educators but require pre-registration for webinars to ensure we support the best experience possible.