This story was published by a Voices of Change fellow. Learn more about the fellowship here.
I turn the key to my classroom before sunrise and the technology lab awakens. Screens blink to life and the room settles into a steady hum. From the hallway, I hear footsteps and a rise of voices. It is the first morning of the Summer STEM and Career Accelerator Program at Guilford Preparatory Academy, and the space is ready for real technology work.
Growing up, I did not have the opportunity to attend a camp like this, much less have a technology lab to explore more passions and interests in technology. As a child, I stitched my own summers together and tried to keep my mind busy, but what I truly needed was a teacher who would show up, push me in my academics and open a world I had not yet seen. Years later, I became that teacher for my students.
Our school board chair, Alton Woods, and our director of operations, Annette Lewis, urged me to open the lab and build the Summer STEM and Career Accelerator Program.
When they spoke about this opportunity, it felt like they were describing the dream I had been carrying for years. I could already see the faces of the students who were waiting, students who reminded me of myself — eager for someone to open the door. What happens when a school opens its technology lab for free and trusts students to produce honest work in the STEM field? In June 2021, I turned the key, and since then, I haven’t looked back.
The Future Begins Here
The purpose of the STEM Camp and Career Accelerator program is to expose students to the world of STEM by placing fundamental tools in young hands, helping them learn new skills and build confidence. It is a free program for middle school students from every background — everyone is welcome.
During this month-long program, we design each day so students build technology skills while also developing their character. Students explore STEM and related careers by doing real work, explaining what they built and why it matters.
Each morning, the room is filled with focus and possibility. Students log in, greet one another and set up their stations. One group refines a scene inside a coding platform. Another student maps a clean path for a small robot. The drone team reviews safety and breathes steadily while holding a hover. Nothing here moves by luck, and every action is driven by student effort. The technology and equipment we use work because the students make it work, and that truth begins to change how students see themselves.
Throughout the program, we invite guests in person and on Zoom to make jobs visible and human. A network technician shows how reliable systems keep a school learning all day. An alum shares a short clip from an early college course and says, “Debugging is patience made visible.”
We also include financial education in the curriculum because money choices also shape student futures. Students complete introductory finance lessons, build a basic budget and use a spreadsheet to model life skills they can explain at the kitchen table.
Social-emotional learning is woven through every task as we practice clear communication, calm resets and productive teamwork. Esports matches become lessons in timing, turn-taking and grace in winning and losing. Students learn to introduce themselves, thoroughly explain their projects and ask for help the right way. This translates to college and career readiness, and shows up in the habits that matter.
The Change That Stays
By the end of the program, students have achieved beginner fluency in block-based coding, safe operation of entry-level tools and the basics of personal finance. More importantly, this program prevents summer learning loss from taking root and creates academic enrichment that follows students into every subject as well as the relationships students build with one another.
Following the summer program, strangers turned classmates encouraged each other to sign up for my technology course during the school year. Not only do they walk into classes with a community behind them, but day to day, they show up as role models who are focused, engaged, kind and caring.
Since the program began, teachers have reported improvements in engagement and social-emotional learning among students who participate. Families are also seeing the impact of this program on their students. At the end of the day, car windows roll down, and the voices of family members carry across the curb:
“Mrs. Wade, my child loves this program.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wade. My child believes again.”
An Open Invitation
I carry the stories that show what this work becomes, and this program asks as much of me as it gives. I check batteries, label cords and push updates to students, families and school leadership. I sweep floors and straighten shelves so students enter a room that respects them. I write the schedule and then adjust it when curiosity needs more time. Some days, we step outside to feel the wind and light and force with our hands, then we return and model what we felt with a sensor and a simple graph. I go home tired and grateful, and I wake before sunrise because children are waiting for a place where technology meets care.
I share this story as an invitation and as proof of a public charter school in Greensboro, North Carolina, that creates opportunities with limited resources. We use what we have, we coach with patience and we build a culture that honors hard work and welcomes mistakes. Every school can do the same. Open the door and put technology in young students’ hands. Stay long enough to see who they become.
