Operation Education: Area high schools earn national recognition for STEM curriculum

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WSBT) — Several schools in our area have earned national recognition for their STEM curriculum.

Many schools in our area, kindergarten through high school, use Project Lead the Way curriculum.

Only a few are being recognized this school year for their work reaching students.

Riley High School

Austin Pflugner is using the last couple weeks of his senior year to finish up a major project.

"I'm pretty close. I have most of my wiring and code down," said Pflugner as he looked closely at his project.

Next week, Pflugner will present the device he designed, built, and programmed during his Project Lead the Way Engineering class at Riley High School.

"This has taught me a lot about problem solving and working through, along with the technical skills of just, like, building with electric equipment," said Pflugner.

Pflugner will head to college after graduation.

"My dream job would be some sort of game designer for which I could use my engineering skills to design aspects of the game. Probably, I'm also going to become some sort of engineer," he said.

His goal is because of what he learned at Riley High School.

"We like to think we're preparing students to be successful after Riley High School. So whether they want to do college or trades or military, we're here to support their path and their success after school," said Project Lead the Way Engineering teacher Seth Ponder.

This school year, Riley High School has earned the Project Lead the Way Distinguished Program Recognition.

Because of its work educating students with hands-on, project based STEM curriculum and the number of students it is able to reach, this is the 6th year in a row Riley High School has been recognized with the national honor.

"They're learning their math and their sciences and their language arts in the other classes, and here's where we apply them," said Ponder. "Also, we want these students to leave here having essential skills so everything from being able to be a good communicator, working with each other."

Project Lead the Way is an organization that develops hands-on, project based STEM curriculum, and trains teachers and schools how to implement it.

Riley High School Project Lead the Way instructors like Ponder and Kristen Haubold, who teaches computer science, work to give students hands-on, real world experience.

The goal is to prepare each student for whatever comes next by giving them relevant skills that they can use no matter where they end up.

"Transferable skills, I mean being able to fail, being able to look at a problem and kind of take it apart into smaller pieces and figure out, 'Okay, how do I solve this?' Being able to take a large task and break it down into manageable steps," said Haubold.

"It's helped me realize what I really want to do," said Riley High School senior Julian Olan.

Teachers and students agree this type of learning and classroom approach helps guide individual students toward their interests and toward learning about themselves.

"It is very helpful, especially shown I can't see what I'm doing and understanding the future. If I'm going to be building stuff, I'll need to have hands-on experience," said Pflugner.

"I'm really thankful they had this because I get to do stuff like this," said Olan.

Other Schools

There are districts, schools and classrooms throughout Indiana and Michigan that use Project Lead the Way.

The curriculum is available for pre-K through 5th grade, 6th grade through 8th grades, and high school.

Project Lead the Way Distinguished Program Recognition celebrates districts and schools that have gone above and beyond to teach students and increase access.

No other high school in our area has received the recognition for as many consecutive years as Riley High School.

Riley High School earned the PLTW Distinguished Program Recognition every year since the 2019-2020 school year.

Throughout the state of Indiana, only Brownsburg High School, Noblesville High School nd Westfield High School have earned the recognition more.

For the 2024-2025 school year, Mishawaka High School, Penn High School, and St. Joseph High School in South Bend were also given the Project Lead the Way Distinguished Program Recognition.

Several kindergarten through 5th grade schools in the area earned the distinction this school year, including all School City of Mishawaka elementary schools and Holy Family School in South Bend.

Holy Family is a kindergarten through 8th grade school.

Holy Family also earned the PLTW Distinguished Program Recognition for its 6th through 8th grade program this school year.

Besides Holy Family, at the grades 6th through 8th level, only Warsaw's Edgewood Middle School earned the distinction this school year in our area.