There was good news from the 2025 Ohio STEM Innovation Summit in Columbus this week. It was the third annual gathering for educators, leaders and partners dedicated to advancing high-quality STEM education in Ohio.
Of the 11 schools statewide to earn the five-year redesignation as a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) or STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) schools, four are from the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland.
Schools from the diocese earning the redesignation are:
- Mater Dei Academy in Wickliffe, STEAM (at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish)
- St. Ambrose School in Brunswick, STEAM
- St. Joseph Parish School in Amherst, STEM
- St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, STEAM.
The awards were presented on June 3 and accepted by Karen Trunk, Mater Dei principal; Lisa Cinadr, St. Ambrose principal; and Erin Faentanini, St. Vincent-St. Mary principal. St. Joseph School was unable to send a representative to the program.
St. Vincent-St. Mary is the only high school in the state to achieve a STEM redesignation.
“I am so proud that our diocese had four of the 11 designations,” said Tracey Arnone, associate superintendent of schools, who was among the diocesan representatives at the event. “This is an extremely challenging award to receive and it shows that our schools are forming students who will be prepared to lead for the future.”
According to the Ohio STEM Committee, which is supported by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and the Ohio STEM Learning Network, these designated schools “implement best practices in STEM and STEAM education to challenge, prepare and empower their students.”
In addition, Incarnate Word Academy in Parma Heights and the Cleveland Museum of Art won Partner of the Year honors. IWA previously was designated as a STEAM school.
Other schools in the diocese to earn the STEM designation include St. Mary School in Chardon and Gesu School in University Heights.
STEM and STEAM education takes an integrated approach to innovative teaching and learning, where rigorous academic concepts are learned through real-world, problem-based experiences. STEM- and STEAM-designated schools have well-established partnerships with businesses, nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education and other entities in their communities to prepare students for post-high school success. The Ohio STEM and STEAM School Designation was created to award and recognize schools that are exemplars of this work.
Faentanini and Ryan Pjesky, STEAM director and science teacher at St. Vincent-St. Mary, also led a session, “Building STEM Culture Through Design Thinking” at the summit.
Their program took participants on an experiential story-telling journey while using the design cycle to learn about design thinking. They shared their journey of fully embracing and integrating design thinking in order to build a STEM culture, ultimately leading to their school’s redesignation as the only STEM-designated Catholic high school in the state. The session went into detail on the use of design thinking to tackle the Ohio STEM Designation Rubric, while also developing teacher and student buy-in.