New Indiana All-Girls STEM School Offers Robotics, Aviation — and Scout Badges

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Amelia Haggard was too shy to talk about her future, but her father wasn’t.

“She’s going to be an astronaut,” boasted David Haggard as she started kindergarten at Indianapolis’ new Girls IN STEM Academy. 

Amelia, just 5 and already wearing a Girls IN STEM shirt, smiled and bashfully buried her face in her shoulder. “She’s just big into science,” Haggard explained.

Parents of the 65 girls who have enrolled in the all-girls elementary charter school told similar stories at its opening on Aug. 1. Their daughters, still too young for serious career plans, but with a spark for one or more of the elements of STEM — science, technology, engineering or math — needed a school to nurture that interest.

Created from a partnership between two highly successful charter school chains — the Paramount and Purdue Polytechnic schools — along with the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, the school aims to give girls a head start in STEM fields traditionally dominated by men.

Girls IN STEM, with the IN a nod to Indiana’s postal abbreviation, is one of a handful of schools nationwide with such a focused mission. Though STEM schools have been growing nationally, there are few enrolling only girls. The U.S. Department of Education and the International Coalition of Girls Schools could point to only three other girls elementary schools with a dedicated STEM focus — Innova Girls Academy in New York, Rise STEM Academy for Girls in Kentucky and Solar Preparatory School for Girls in Texas.

With women making up just a third of the STEM workforce and about the same majoring in STEM fields in college, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and American Association of University Women, experts see a need to start encouraging girls early in a STEM focus. In addition, some experts believe girls can do better in STEM in settings without boys.

A Gallup poll last year of Generation Z — ages 13 to 27 — found many more men than women, 85% to 63% had interest in STEM fields.

There are also racial disparities in STEM nationally, another barrier Girls IN STEM is breaking: 80% of the students in the first academic year are Black, Hispanic and multi-racial, with the remaining 20% of the students white. 

The school is small now, serving just kindergarten through sixth grade, though it aims to add grades seven and eight in the next two years and grow to nearly 300 students.

Principal Chrystal Westerhaus said the school “symbolizes a new chapter in the pursuit of empowerment and opportunity for young women.”

“You may be aware of the alarming data for girls in this very community,” she told parents at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school. “The data concerns you and the data concerns us. We know that our girls are limitless … Here there’s a network of support where girls can inspire one another, share ideas, lead unapologetically and build lasting relationships.”

Along with the regular science classes other Paramount charter schools offer, Girls IN STEM students will also have an extra STEM class every other day, alternating with physical education, to offer more hands-on experiments and instruction.

“We want to make science fun,” said STEM teacher Renee Barlow.

Lead STEM teacher Carolyn Caver said classes would be “very hands-on …They will touch and see and have chances to ask questions on every experiment and every section that they will be doing with us.”

Those lessons will likely include robotics, DNA, the absorbency of polymers used in diapers and other products and the science behind the first flights.

Barlow and Caver have taught at other all-girls programs before, including the Girls STEM Institute, a summer program run by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Students from the highly-regarded Purdue Polytechnic High Schools will mentor the younger students, with the high school hoping Girls IN STEM students will become a pipeline, eventually boosting the female attendance there, as well as at colleges.

The Girl Scouts, who have pushed for a girls STEM school in Indianapolis for years, will take students to STEM lessons at its camp nearby. Girls IN STEM teachers will become troop leaders and the STEM classes at the school will eventually line up with Girl Scout badges in STEM topics like cybersecurity, robotics, engineering and coding, allowing students to earn badges through class.

The school will also designate a character issue the Girl Scouts highlight as its theme for each month, starting with sisterhood in August and entrepreneurship, leadership and service coming soon. 

Elizabeth Knight said her daughter Victoria, 9, wavers between chemistry and her current career interest of becoming a veterinarian. That makes the school worth the 30-minute bus ride from Plainfield, a suburb 15 miles west.

“Victoria is highly interested in science,” said Knight. “She considers herself a scientist and likes doing experiments. And she also is interested in the all-girl environment. She thinks that it’d be a better fit for her in terms of the ability to learn.”

Though Girls IN STEM leaders have high aims, there’s still a lot of work to do. The school opened in a temporary location in a Hebrew school just north of the city while it converts the former Witherspoon Presbyterian Church into its permanent home. The school faced delays winning zoning approval for that site after opponents challenged the need for a charter school in that area. And, there have been complaints the Girl Scouts have traditionally not served people of color well.

Those challenges have the school looking different from other Paramount schools. Typically, the school walls would be lined with prints of fine art as a way of teaching students art of many cultures. Since Paramount can’t drill hundreds of holes in the wall of a temporary home, that will have to wait until art and Girl Scout materials can go up at the permanent school.

In addition, teachers still need training as troop leaders and in the Girl Scout science curriculum, which will come after the school settles into the year.

As a former Girl Scout and her daughter currently a Brownie, Knight said she was “thrilled” to see the school partnering with the Scouts. 

“I would have picked it without Girl Scouts,” said Knight, “but it added to its prestige.”

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