INDIANAPOLIS — The Eastside Catholic School Partnership (ECSP) was formed in 2010 to strengthen Catholic education on the Eastside. The partnership includes Scecina Memorial High School and three elementary schools, Holy Spirit, St. Therese of the Infant Jesus (Little Flower), and Our Lady of Lourdes. The parish priests, the principals, and Scecina’s president meet regularly to collaborate, plan, and share resources.
A recent significant gift to the partnership will directly help their students by bolstering the schools’ education efforts in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The gift of $225,000 is from a Catholic family who wishes to remain anonymous and who wants to help the schools increase their STEM education efforts.
This gift allows Our Lady of Lourdes, Little Flower, and Holy Spirit to implement Project Lead the Way (PLTW) in Kindergarten through 8th grade. Project Lead the Way is considered an industry leader in STEM education. PLTW will enable the eastside students to gain hands-on experience in STEM, working through several exciting modules geared toward inquiry, project-based learning, and discovery. Some of these include Automation & Robotics, Medical Detectives, Science of Flight, and many more.
Scecina will begin a Computer Science curriculum and create an additional computer lab with the gift. This gift will help leverage the investments Scecina has made in their four-year Project Lead the Way biomedical sciences curriculum and a new healthcare careers course they are developing with the leadership of Community Hospital East and will launch this fall.