Posted November 27, 2020

Nashville, TN—Today, the Tennessee Department of Education announced over $700,000 in additional grants will be awarded to districts to fund science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and middle school career and technical education (CTE).

Funding is provided through Governor Lee’s Future Workforce Initiative, which is aimed at increasing access to CTE and STEM in the classroom. The Middle School STEM Start-Up Grants will be awarded to schools in 25 districts, and schools in 15 districts will be awarded CTE Career Exploration Grants, with a total of 89 schools receiving grants. To view a list of grant recipients, click here.

"Ensuring our students have access to high-quality STEM and career and technical education is essential to building college and career readiness, and that work really begins before a student even enters high school,” said Commissioner Penny Schwinn. “Tennessee has worked diligently to align STEM and CTE coursework to provide students with clearer pathways when transitioning from middle to high school. This is such important work to helping all our students have access to post-secondary opportunities and be put on a pathway to success.”

The Middle School STEM Start-Up and CTE Career Exploration Grants build upon the Best for All strategic plan to support all students exploring career paths and having access to post-secondary opportunities. Additionally, these grants directly support the goal of the Future Workforce Initiative to add an additional 100 new middle school STEM programs by 2022.

“Cumberland County CCTE is very appreciative of receiving both STEM and Career Exploration Start-up grants,” said Dr. William Maddox, CTE Director of Cumberland County Schools. “Cumberland County has 3 teams of teachers that offer classes in STEM, Agriculture, and FACS that travel each day and serve 9 different K-8 schools. The STEM grant will allow our traveling teachers to provide VEX robotic instructional material at additional schools. Cumberland County has also invested in Naviance software in order to implement career exploration in the 7-8 grades. The Career Exploration Start-Up grant will allow us to place computer carts in CCTE classrooms in order for students to use Naviance in career exploration. Thanks again for giving Cumberland County this opportunity to better serve our students.”

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