Quince Orchard Earns Exclusive Engineering Certification

After years of struggle, Quince Orchard High School will begin offering rigorous courses through a program called Project Lead The Way, which provides course materials and teacher training in science, technology, engineering and math across the U.S.

For the 2012-2013 school year, seven introduction to engineering classes will be offered, and 325 students have already signed up, according to Julie Newcomer, a fine practical arts resource teacher and signature coordinator for the program.

Bringing the program to the school was no easy feat.

In 2009, Quince Orchard engineering teacher Nikki Sumner registered to train at Project Lead The Way, which costs the county $5,000 in training per teacher. Just weeks prior to becoming certified, the county pulled the plug on Sumner’s training due to the high costs involved.  

Sumner would have to settle for teaching just introduction to engineering, the first PLTW course.

However, Sumner died unexpectedly before school started, leaving Quince Orchard back at the starting line. “That threw us all for a loop,” Newcomer said.

A long-term sub was hired to teach introduction to engineering while Newcomer and Quince Orchard Principal Caroline Working regrouped and decided the best route to implement PLTW in the school.

More bad news came at the start of the 2010-2011 school year.

The county informed Quince Orchard that “only a limited number of county schools would be allowed to participate, due to the cost involved,” Newcomer said.

Quince Orchard hired Steve Mikulski, who used to head PLTW efforts for Montgomery County Public Schools. As Newcomer put it, Mikulski “was very well informed on what we needed to do.”

Later that summer, Colleen Kelly, a computer science and math teacher, successfully trained to teach a digital electronics course. Quince Orchard now had some momentum.

County supervisors approved science teacher Paul Dethlefsen and Nelson to teach in biotechnical engineering and engineering design and development in the summer.

Training and classroom certification to teach these courses came with a hefty price. The county allotted $30,000 for Quince Orchard’s teachers to train as well as the approximate $5,000 “start-up fee” for the specialized equipment and software each class requires, Newcomer said.

Quince Orchard students will soon get the full PTLW experience, complete with a local “Battlebot” project, several field trips and speakers, Newcomer said.

“We received FULL certification this year!” Newcomer wrote in an e-mail interview. “Most schools achieve provisional certification the first time around, but we're proud to say that when we do it - we do it right!”