ABOUT US
St. Louis School (SLS) provides a comprehensive, high school preparatory education in the context of the Roman Catholic faith. A co-educational, parish school within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, SLS serves students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade with a current population of 521 students.
Established in October 1923 to serve the local Clarksville farming community, SLS has grown from its humble beginnings to its current configuration of three pre-kindergarten homerooms, two homerooms each for kindergarten through eighth grade, and an enrollment of more than 500 students. SLS boasts a wonderfully diverse student population, reflecting Clarksville’s current identity as a multicultural suburb between Baltimore and Washington. The school's advancement during its distinguished ninety-three-year history is reflected in its two time 2010 and 2017 recognition as a National Blue Ribbon School.
The school’s rigorous academic program challenges all students and engages them in active learning and in cross-curricular study while appealing to their diverse learning styles. Opportunities for acceleration enable many students to begin their high school years in advanced/honors classes, while students with learning differences strengthen their skills and grow in confidence supported by the faculty.
St. Louis School continuously explores opportunities for its students to shine. Promoting STEM education through an interdisciplinary approach where the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) standards are integrated into all subject areas, including Reading, Writing, Art, History, Social Studies, and so on. SLS offers practical, hands-on engineering and technology experiences across the curriculum. 3D design, printing and coding are particular student favorites. SLS is especially proud of its designation by the USA Science and Engineering Festival as an X-STEM school, a designation that acknowledges the many ways St. Louis enables students to explore STEM subjects not only during class time but through exciting, extra- curricular opportunities like Design and Build, CyberSTEM, and FIRST Lego League. As an X-STEM school, St. Louis welcomes top scientists from across the country who participate in the Nifty Fifty speaker series. SLS participates in the Howard County and Maryland STEM Festivals, and showcased its STEM activities by hosting a booth at both the 2014 and 2016 USA Science and Engineering Festivals in Washington, D.C., as the only elementary school from the Archdiocese of Baltimore to do so.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Executive Summary
St. Louis School is a PreK - 8 Catholic school located in Howard County, Maryland, approximately 20 miles west of Baltimore. We serve a racially and culturally diverse student body with a current enrollment of 521 boys and girls. A dedicated staff of approximately 50 education professionals implement our school mission, “Through our commitment to Catholic values and academic excellence, St. Louis School exists to educate lifelong learners who transform the world through intellect, love, justice and peace.” This is the guiding principle for everything we do.
At St. Louis School we follow Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) standards and curriculum provided by the Archdiocese of Baltimore. In addition, we have created and continue to enhance an interdisciplinary approach to incorporate STEM across traditional subject boundaries. Although we expect our students to master core STEM areas, we also believe students must gain effective reading and writing skills in order to successfully interpret and communicate effectively. They must also have an appreciation and understanding of the arts and culture in order to plan, create and collaborate on successful designs. For instance, they must possess an understanding of historical context to accurately engage in inquiry and logical reasoning for the future.
All St. Louis School students are provided hands-on learning experiences that promote and support our STEM curriculum at an age and developmentally appropriate level. One of our most successful experiences for students is their participation in computer coding. Primary grade students are introduced to coding concepts in order to promote logical thinking and goal-oriented problem solving using unplugged hands-on activities, basic software tools and apps, Ozobots, LEGO WeDo kits and websites like Hour of Code. In Third Grade, students are introduced to Scratch, a drag-and-drop block-based programming tool created at MIT, for a deeper understanding of computer programming logic structures. They begin creating their own individualized programs using sequential instructions, loops and selection functions. In Middle School, our students are introduced to Python, a text-based programming language, and are given opportunities to write simple drawing programs and guessing games.
Encouraging risk-taking and accepting failure as a learning modality is an area that we continue to work on and hope to continue to develop. We find that both students and adults often struggle when the desired result is not achieved immediately and we encourage learning from failure and perseverance to reach a solution. We embrace a growth mindset and reflect on lessons and opportunities where students can grow in their learning while understanding that failure is an essential part of the design process.
The faculty at St. Louis School (SLS) regularly receives professional development to support the seamless integration of proven STEM education methods into the classroom. Through regular scheduled planning, our educators are provided opportunities to stay current on STEM practices and receive ongoing training in the use of technology. We use the Archdiocese of Baltimore curriculum as a guide to deliver quality integrated, authentic, real-world instruction, as well as partnering with our community to provide opportunities for STEM enrichment and college and career readiness. Our long-standing partnerships with community organizations and stakeholders such as the United States Naval Academy, Discovery Education, the University of Maryland, the Maryland STEM Festival and the USA Science and Engineering Festival allow us to continuously improve and enable student growth with real-world applications.
We use an inquiry-based problem solving approach to reach our students, expand the classroom experience and prepare them for the future through field trips and our ongoing STEM Speaker Series. We are fortunate to have a very supportive parent community and School Board and have collaborative relationships with various experts in STEM fields. We reach out to these parents and partners for various STEM based activities, in all grade levels, multiple times a year for things such as assemblies, clubs, robotics competition teams, STEM/Engineering Family Fun Nights, field trips, funding, guest speakers, opportunities to share what we do at community events and STEM Summer Camp. We invite everyone in the community to participate in events, presentations and hands-on experiences.
St. Louis strives to promote non-traditional participation in our STEM programs, with a current focus of increasing female participation in our Robotics and Cyber STEM afterschool programs
In order to continue to promote female involvement, we are providing female leadership role models through the recruitment of two new female robotics coaches and have confirmed our first female military officer, Maryland Army National Guard Brigadier General Janeen Birckhead, as the keynote speaker for our annual Veteran’s Day event honoring members of the military.
SLS is committed to STEM education for both students and faculty. We believe ongoing professional development and exposing students to a variety of hands-on experiences will best serve the community and our nation in the future.