Elmore, Richard F.Blase, Dean Woodring2026-09-1420132013-05Blase, Dean Woodring. 2013. STEM champions: a strategic strengths-based approach to coordinating community resources. Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University Graduate School of Education.https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42756312The STEM Champions project was a focused and strategic approach to coordinating community resources in Cambridge Massachusetts to better serve the learning needs of students in the Cambridge Public School District. The central research questions included “How can we change from a school district that has ad hoc community partnerships to a district that has focused and strategic partnerships?” “How can theories about how organizations work within themselves and across sectors help build a flexible and sustainable group of various organizations that contribute to the learning needs of Cambridge children?” and “What is the best system to organize the assets of various organizations, the developmental needs of children, and the curricular opportunities for learning at each grade?” A large part of the evidence I provide is through the actual work I produced during the course of this project (which was conducted during an embedded 10-month residency in the district). The data set revealed 58 STEM resources in Cambridge that were already involved with individual schools and classrooms. Of those, a comprehensive asset map was created for a subset of 14, and a protocol developed for asset mapping the remaining 58. The subset of data revealed that there is a very high probability for the district to coordinate with STEM resource organizations in Cambridge to meet its goals: to provide real-world learning experiences through partnership with top-notch local resources for every student in every grade each year. This means that a student who graduates from Cambridge Public Schools should be able to engage in some of the world’s best STEM learning each year of their school career. Interviews revealed the importance of relationship-building, communication, and district-level point of contact were important parts of what external resources needed to build a sustainable relationship with the district. Thus, another outcome of the project was the establishment of a Community Resource protocol that can be shared out across the district and sector that focuses on building relational trust, understanding what motivates organizations to change and collaborate, and communicating clearly about how organizations outside a school district can best “match” the needs of student learning within the district.enEducational leadershipCommunity and schoolSchool improvement programsScienceTechnologyEngineeringMathematicsThesis or Dissertation