STEM Initiative Puts Emphasis on Science-Related Skills

A new initiative is coming to Lenoir County that has people re-thinking what students need to succeed. It's called “STEM”, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math. This stem initiative is focused around the whole community here in Lenoir County and the people who are trying to build this from the ground up are holding a meeting that about 170 people have signed up for. The hope is to get some input from people on the best way to make this work and start to come up with a plan.

"This has got to be something the community really rallies around for it to work."

Tom Vermillion is the man in charge of making sure the STEM initiative gets off the ground.

"Our whole focus is to bring a bigger focus to those core competencies to our students so that they can be better prepared for the job market when they get out," Vermillion, STEM design team leader said.

Lenoir County is one of a hand full of communities selected to participate, the others are Davie County and the BRAC region. One reason Lenoir County was selected, is Spirit Aerosystems.

"We’re saying how can we provide a work force for them for the future."

"Any job out there today, involves STEM."

Steve Hill is the Director of Secondary Education in Lenoir County. He says for STEM to work, the community has to develop a new way of thinking.

"We were known for tobacco and textiles, again, we should now be known for science, technology, engineering and math."

Because he says tomorrow's workers need to prepare for jobs that don't exist today.

"For our members and our businesses to succeed, they need to have a good pool of employees and of course stem initiative will help that," Laura Lee Sylvester with the Kinston Lenoir Chamber of Commerce said.

But change won't come overnight.

"To see success, you may be looking at three to five years to say, we have all these different things happening in our community but it all started back in 2009 when we started this initiative."

Research shows that 62 percent of jobs require the educational areas stem covers and 21 percent of students are not proficient in those areas. This meeting tonight will hopefully help come up with a blueprint for success that Tom Vermillion says will be in place by December and that plan will serve as a foundation for other counties to build off of. One major source of funding for this national program comes from Bill Gates.