Learning takes on meaning when students are able to make connections and find relevancy for how that learning impacts the world around them. One way that we are able to promote this sort of engagement with our students is through academic partnerships developed over time with local entities.

Temple has outstanding higher education institutions, and a few examples are Temple College and Baylor College of Medicine. These partnerships enable us to create learning pathways for students to broaden their academic careers. Temple College has partnered with our district to host Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) camps for middle school students and an adopt-a-school program at the elementary level for early STEM opportunities. Together we have also expanded dual credit courses at Temple High School to over 100+ options for our secondary students to engage in rigorous college-level classes. These college courses begin for Temple HS students as early as their freshman year of high school. In addition to dual credit courses, our partnership with Temple College through the Texas Bioscience Institute allows our students to earn their Associates degree before graduating from high school. With the opening of Baylor College of Medicine Temple regional campus this past fall, we look forward to exploring opportunities for future collaboration.

Our community is also lucky to have strong business and industry leaders such as Workforce Solutions of Central Texas and Meta who understand the value of working collaboratively to prepare the future workforce. These days so many of the tools utilized in jobs are highly specialized and technical. Workforce Solutions of Central Texas seeks to help bridge the gap between curriculum and real-world equipment through grants and partnerships. Temple HS is a direct beneficiary of these grant dollars as they were recently awarded state-of-the-art anatomage tables, EKG machines, and mannequins to augment our health science programs in CTE. Meta has also provided industry-level resources for STEM programming across the district PK-12. Engaging with advanced industry-level equipment through direct, hands-on instruction gives them a competitive advantage and keeps our students out in front.

Temple ISD will continue to compete for the best resources and opportunities to support our staff and position our students for success in the classroom and beyond. We truly are so fortunate to have academic and industry partners in our community that see the value of working together to prepare our students for their futures. We want our community to be proud of what Temple ISD provides for our students and want to make sure that you know some of the academic and industry partners that are behind these experiences. It takes a village, and we could not do it without our partnerships.

Sincerely,

Bobby Ott