Sycamore STEM teacher transforms middle school shop classes

SYCAMORE – By all accounts, Sycamore Middle School career and technical education teacher Kevin Boltz has gone above and beyond to give his students access to equipment that some only see once they’ve arrived on a college campus.

In 2023, Boltz received a $24,000 grant from Meta after writing about his desire to “get real technology in kids’ hands” at Sycamore Middle School. Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, also has a data center in DeKalb.

The grant was used to beef up the podcasting equipment used by students in the school’s TV production studio. Equipment also is used in science, technology, engineering and mathematics-focused classrooms.

Jill Anderson, video and TV production teacher for seventh and eighth grade, said Boltz’s successful grant-writing efforts are the reason students have access to state-of-the-art video production equipment.

“Kevin is an amazing visionary,” Anderson said. “Once he has a plan in place, and kind of a vision for it, he’s great at seeking out resources for how to make that happen. He’s a real go-getter. It’s not in the future, it’s ‘Let’s make this happen and let’s build this now.”

Boltz, who’s worked at Sycamore Middle School for the past decade, doesn’t keep the spoils of the grant contained within the department he chairs, however.

“STEM is not just a class, STEM’s a mentality and that’s what we want our teachers to think about,” Boltz said. “We’re already in discussions [like] ‘Hey, how can we have our seventh grade English class? Who’s in here doing podcasts and doing video production projects, using the studio?’”

Sycamore Middle School has a video production room that is only locally rivaled by the Sycamore School District 427’s high school. Anderson said she thinks the class offerings do a good job of preparing students to become involved with Spartan TV, which is the high school’s video production arm.

Video production is not the only skillset covered by the career and technical education courses in Boltz’s department, however.

“STEM is not just a class, STEM’s a mentality and that’s what we want our teachers to think about.”

—  Kevin Boltz

In addition to being taught how to create and functionally use CAD designs for projects, students also can learn how to use different kinds of saws, drills, laser cutters, shirt and hat presses, and 3D and filament printers.

Boltz, currently in his 18th year teaching, said students who go through shop courses at Sycamore Middle School learn hands-on skills that can be applied at home or on a construction site.

Sycamore Middle School Principal Mark Ekstrom said he thinks Boltz is a fantastic teacher who gets students engaged and excited to learn. He also noted Boltz’s grant-writing prowess.

“You take a look at a lot of the equipment in there, Kevin has gotten a lot of it through the different grants out there,” Ekstrom said. “A lot of things in that room were all done by Kevin and his grant-writing skills. That’s all a benefit to the kids.”

Ryan McDonald, STEM and career and technical education teacher at Sycamore Middle School, said Boltz “has made an incredible program.”

“He has designed, from sixth grade all the way up to eighth grade, classes that are very interesting to students,” McDonald said. “They want to be in the classes. A lot of them are hands-on classes that the students love to do.”

Sycamore middle schoolers who take career and technical education classes experience a different kind of pedagogy than they’re often taught with in other subjects. Boltz and his cohort teach that failure isn’t so much an endpoint as an opportunity to ask questions and learn.

“I think the kids enjoy this different approach to learning,” Boltz said. “We take great pride in doing career-based, problem-based learning, where kids are able to be creative. And that’s kind of the foundation of everything else.”