Chief Education Officer

Chief Education Officer, Denise Peoples was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Ms. Peoples attended California State University, Fullerton where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications with an emphasis in Marketing. She was awarded a scholarship to UCLA’s Anderson School of Business where she obtained her certification in “Management Development of Entrepreneurs’.

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​Prior to opening the 501©3 nonprofit, 21st Century STEM, Ms. Peoples owned an Executive Search firm for many years placing STEM professionals in positions such as Nuclear Engineers and Technology professionals all over the country. She could not understand why it was such a struggle to find talent in the United States. This discovery led her to take a deeper dive into the “Why,” which revealed a knowledge and achievement gap in STEM subjects such as Math and Science in the U.S., which needed to be addressed. At that moment, her passion and purpose was revealed, and she closed her brick and mortar and opened 21st Century STEM and never looked back!

 

Since then, her travels have taken her all over the United States speaking to esteemed educators who share their perspectives, acknowledging that teachers have content knowledge, but struggle to make cultural connections with children in Math and Science. Additionally, she noticed that most of the teachers did not look like many of the students they taught, making it difficult to make Math and Science fun, engaging and rigorous. She recognized that teachers teach how they were taught, which can be good or bad for students.  

 

Intentionally leveraging her background as a Master Recruiter, she began to hire Math and Science instructional coaches that look like many of the children present in 95% of the schools she served. Math and science coaches began to join forces with 21st Century STEM on a quest to make learning culturally relevant and responsive, equity-based, inquiry-based, applying social emotional learning strategies, rigor, and most of all FUN by using 21st Century innovative pedagogical methods. In doing that, 21st Century STEM continues to bridge learning gaps in math and science and our qualitative and quantitative data proves it as we continue to see students’ math scores soar in less than 8-12 weeks by at least one grade level!

 

21st Century STEM combined with STEMulate Learning has a goal to help one million children find their love of Math and Science by supporting both teachers and students.

  

WE WON’T STOP UNTIL OUR KIDS REACH THE TOP!

#21stCenturySTEM.org / #STEMulateLearning.net