Falmouth STEM Boosters June 10,2014
Continued Funding of Science Department Laboratory Technician position
History of position – This non-union position was put in place as part of contract negotiations 25-30 years ago. Science classes are different from other classes with a lot more prep needed. Started out at 25 hours/week, 30 h/w under Peter Clark, increased to 35 h/w under last superintendent. Current position is held by Felicia McGinty who has vast and valuable institutional knowledge about the STEM programs.
Her main responsibility is to help teachers make up solutions for labs, gathering supplies, equipment, organizing glassware. Does lots of clean up after labs.Felicia knows where equipment and supplies are stored at FHS and Lawrence, and all this saves the teachers a tremendous amount of time. Loss of this position will probably result in teachers doing FEWER SCIENCE LABS which is especially problematic as more and more AP science classes are added.
STEM Labs - Felicia does a lot of work in the STEM lab at the High School, basically overseeing the STEM lab space. There are 4, soon to be 5, STEM teachers, and they share a lab space. In a situation like this, things can get messy pretty quickly.
Tremendous help with purchase orders. Felicia keeps track of supplies, what has organizes this space, inventories supplies and cleans up. She does the purchase orders, looking through catalogs to get the BEST PRICES.She saves the science department A LOT of money by efficiently keeping track of what is needed and ordering the materials at the proper times.
Felicia maintains the chemicals for both Lawrence and the High School. Proper storage and labeling of chemicals is essential from a safety standpoint. This requires time and specialized knowledge the teachers do not have. She has been organizing the chemicals at Lawrence, and this is a huge, ongoing project.
Felicia helps students with their science fair projects. She locates equipment, chemicals and supplies. Supervises students while they are working in the lab. Science Fair is one of the crown jewels of the Falmouth Schools. It is a STEM activity that no other public school on Cape Cod has.Also, Felicia assists the Science Fair Coordinator by helping with set up, clean up, photocopying, assembling judges’ folders. She helped the Lawrence School teachers as well. Science fairs are VERY LABOR INTENSIVE!
Felicia chaperones on field trips, and does instruction on field trips. Felicia also does science instruction in special needs and preschool education classes.