Covington Catholic High School is named a Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Distinguished School based on performance standards including providing broad access to transformative learning opportunities for students through PLTW.
Just 133 schools across the country - and only six in Kentucky - received the designation.
"It is a great honor to recognize Covington Catholic for their commitment to students," said Vince Bertram, president and CEO of PLTW. "They are a model for what school should look like, and they should be very proud of ensuring students have the knowledge and skills to be career ready and successful on any career path they choose."
The PLTW Distinguished School recognition honors schools committed to increasing student access, engagement, and achievement in their PLTW programs. To be eligible for the designation, CovCath had to meet the following criteria:
- Offer at least three PLTW courses;
- Have 25 percent of students or more participate in PLTW courses, or of those who participated in PLTW, at least 33 percent took two or more PLTW courses;
- Have 70 percent of students or more earn a Proficient or higher on PLTW End-of-Course Assessments, or 10 percent of students earn the AP + PLTW Student Achievement.
Cov Cath, the only Catholic high school in Kentucky to have a PLTW STEM Program, has been partnering with PLTW since 2015-16 and currently offers four PLTW Engineering courses: introduction to engineering design (IED), principles of engineering (POE), aerospace engineering, and engineering design and development.
PLTW's curriculum provides Cov Cath students with unique opportunities to work collaboratively, identify problems, apply what they know, persevere through challenges, find unique solutions, and lead their own learning, with an emphasis on hands on activity, projects and problem-based learning.
"STEM education is critical for our future and we have embraced it as a key element in our pursuit of excellence in all facets of our learning community," said Covington Catholic STEM Director Bob Lind. "PLTW has been implemented in over 10,500 schools and 340 have been recognized as distinguished schools. It is reaffirming that we are doing the right things at Covington Catholic."