Minuteman High School's Girls in STEM accepts a Grand Prize at National SkillsUSA Conference

By Judy Bass

Minuteman High School in Lexington accepted a Grand Prize for its Girls in STEM program and a Minuteman student earned a silver medal during the 51st Annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Louisville, Ky., from June 22 - 27, 2015. SkillsUSA allows students in career and technical education to participate in a host of challenging technical and leadership competitions.

Minuteman’s Girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) team was honored with the top award from SkillsUSA’s Student2Student Mentoring program. Students Sarah Joseph (Class of 2015, Arlington), Kaleena Gulledge (Class of 2015, Watertown), Julia Ruderman (Class of 2016, Arlington), and Alison Beucler (Class of 2017, Medford) represented Girls in STEM at Minuteman, along with teacher advisors Becky Quay and Sarah Ard.

The school’s Girls in STEM Club mentored seventh- and eighth-grade girls, informed them about STEM opportunities, education and careers, and provided them with outstanding female role models. Girls in STEM and Minuteman were each awarded $500 to continue their work.

Sarah, Kaleena, Julia and Alison gave a presentation on Minuteman’s Girls in STEM program at one of the SkillsUSA University sessions. The event was attended by teachers, advisors, and industry representatives interested in how Girls in STEM was established and how it operates.
Collin Kelly of Sudbury (Class of 2017) was awarded the silver medal in the Action Skills competition in which students demonstrate a technical skill to a panel of judges. Collin demonstrated the proper technique for the monitoring and maintenance of ammonia concentrations in a fish tank.

The Community Action Project team of Caitlin Monagle (Class of 2016, Wellesley) and McKenzie Hartman (Class of 2016, Sudbury) finished fourth, just out of the medals, for their project stenciling storm drains in Wellesley. Danny Lessard (Medford) competed in the Postgraduate Plumbing category and finished in the middle of a talented group of contestants.

Michaela Ganimian (Class of 2016, Stow) attended the Conference as a SkillsUSA State Officer-elect and served as a voting delegate, as did Sarah Joseph and Kaleena Gulledge.

Accompanying the Minuteman student delegation as advisors were Director of Career and Technical Education Michelle Roche, Environmental Technology Teaching Aide Alice Ofria, Plumbing Instructor Kyle Romano, Environmental Technology Instructor and SkillsUSA Co-Advisor Terry Regan, Ms. Quay and Ms. Ard.

Students Alison, Julia, Caitlin, McKenzie and Collin, along with Mr. Regan, Ms. Ard and Ms. Ofria, joined in the Community Service project by painting, cleaning up, weeding, and maintaining the community gardens at the Youth Build campus in Louisville.

Team Massachusetts also fared well at the Conference, winning 41 medals - twenty gold, four silver and seventeen bronze - for the sixth-highest medal total in of any state in the country.

The scope of this event is impressive. According to information from SkillsUSA, there were over 6,000 contestants, each of whom was a gold medalist at the state level. Nearly 1,100 medals were awarded, along with 480 recognition awards. One hundred contests took place, judged by 1,100 professionals from business and labor.

Minuteman, an award-winning regional high school, excels at preparing students for events like this. Its graduates have a competitive edge in the new global economy due to their high-quality career and technical education, coupled with a rigorous grounding in mathematics, English, science, and social studies.