Prescott Middle To Take STEM Designation Further

Prescott South Middle School hopes to use the Tennessee STEM School Designation as a stepping stone for future accreditations.

Principal Trey Upchurch said the school received the designation earlier this month.

“It gives us the opportunity to showcase what we do here in a way that shows the community that we have gone through the process of being accredited,” Upchurch said. “We are also looking at pursuing an advanced-ed accreditation. So as a district we are advanced-ed accredited but we are not advanced-ed STEM accredited.”

Upchurch said the work of teacher Casey Garrison greatly impacted the designation.

“She does greenhouse, she does marketing, horticulture, coding. She does introductory Google courses,” Upchurch said. “Some of those are really the cornerstone of what we do here at Prescott. We are also in the process of, of course, integrating those things into the individual classrooms as well.”

Upchurch said the designation will also help the school apply for future grants.

“It is lengthy. I think we determined we spent about 200 hours total on the application. We had a teacher team that spearheaded it,” Upchurch said. “And they did an amazing job and put in ton and tons of work. A lot of work outside their normal designated hours. It was a pretty arduous process but they did an amazing job.”

Prescott South Elementary School was the first school in the Putnam County School System to receive the designation.

“So last year, this process was began and our elementary counterparts, just right down the halls from us received their STEM designation and this year we were able to receive ours,” Upchurch said. “So this is the first process the state has put in place to designate STEM schools in Tennessee.”

Upchurch said the middle school previously was recognized as a STEM Platform School. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math.