Joanne Glenn: Cultivating Future Innovators, From STEM Education to Cybersecurity Careers at Angeline Academy

Prepare to step into the future of education with Principal Joanne Glenn of Angeline Academy of Innovation as she unveils a groundbreaking STEM program that's redefining the school-to-career pipeline. This episode promises a peek into a world where high-wage, high-skill careers in cybersecurity, engineering, and entrepreneurship are just a diploma away. Joanne, an esteemed guest with a visionary approach, shares the secrets of equipping students with industry certifications that pave the way for success without the traditional college detour. As a former high school math teacher turned virtual education pioneer, I recount the transformative potential of a flexible curriculum that's shaping young minds for roles in artificial intelligence and beyond.

We go beyond the classroom walls, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between Angeline Academy and the vibrant Pasco County community. With the county's landscape ripe for educational innovation, we discuss strategies for managing the influx of students through internships, dual enrollment, and a magnet school application process that's as unique as the curriculum. Our conversation with Sandra Ragusa, the nexus for business and academy collaboration, offers insights on how local enterprises can tap into the talent fostered within these innovative academic programs. Tune in for an episode that not only charts the course for the next generation of technical leaders but also lays out a blueprint for the evolution of technical education itself.

Angeline Academy of Innovation is a dedicated STEM magnet school that launched in August 2023 offers a unique learning environment that empowers students in grades 6-12 to take charge of their learning with an active, technology-infused experience.

Angeline Academy of Innovation's career academies provide an integrated entrepreneurship pathway within three high-demand fields: biomedical sciences, cybersecurity, and engineering.  Students earn industry certifications in their pathway courses, complemented by a rigorous college-preparatory core academic program which opens doors to colleges, high wage careers, and/or service in a branch of the military after graduation.   

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Sedita.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Hello out there and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, mike Sedita. We're recording episode number 160 and we have the pleasure of being joined today by Joanne Glenn. She is the principal of Angeline Academy of Innovation. Joanne, how are you doing today? I'm great. Thanks so much for having me on. We're so glad to have you on.

Speaker 2: 0:31

I am very interested in learning about all the great things you guys are doing at your school. A little bit about the Good Neighbor podcast and what we do, just so you understand how we got here today. The Good Neighbor podcast started back in 2020 during COVID, when you guys were shut down and everybody needed to be socially distant and we couldn't get in the same room with each other as a way for schools and businesses and charity groups to get their message out to the community. And here, four years later, we have podcasts in Atlanta and Virginia and Philadelphia and all over the country. I'm lucky enough to be the person here in Tampa that gets to speak with folks like you. So, first and foremost, tell us a little bit about Angeline Academy of Innovation.

Speaker 3: 1:16

I'm happy to. It's one of my favorite topics to talk about.

Speaker 2: 1:19

And I bet you talk about it every single day, nonstop Talk about it every single day, nonstop.

Speaker 3: 1:25

Indeed, I do so. Angelina Academy of Innovation is a Pasco County public magnet school. We serve students at the secondary level, that's grade six and up, who have an interest in studying STEM. So science, technology, engineering and math. So science, technology, engineering and math. Our pathways within our STEM academies include cybersecurity and applied computer science, engineering and applied robotics, bio design, which includes a biomedical focus right now, and then entrepreneurship, and so students who have an interest in deepening their study of these focused areas could consider enrolling here. At Angeline, our students are given a very specialized series of courses where they can earn industry certifications, and by the time they leave us at the end of 12th grade, they have credentials that businesses and employers pay their own employees to earn. We also have a really strong college prep academic focus as well. So students who maybe don't want to enter the workforce directly but would rather go on to study at a college or university, are on solid ground here as well, and leave with a good understanding of the pathway and the courses that they would continue to study in college.

Speaker 2: 3:05

So let me ask you this is really like the model, like when I was a kid growing up. The technical quote unquote technical college taught kids auto mechanics and wood shop and plumbing and electrical and the trades. Like you were learning the trades. Is there a component of that at Angeline or is that not part of any of the verticals of curriculum?

Speaker 3: 3:29

So here at Angeline we don't have some of those pathways Our sister schools at Kirkland Ranch and Wendell Crinn Technical Schools do. We simply don't have the space. We're located on a very small piece of property in the heart of the Angeline community, and so, rather than offering the 15 pathways that those two schools are able to support, we have just four day technical and I keep doing air quotes.

Speaker 2: 4:05

If you're listening to this, you're not seeing me doing air quotes. If you're watching it, you are. This is the modern day technical college. So the big question, and just a little bit you know breaking down the fourth wall here a little bit. I am a little bit familiar with the schools that you have in your system. I do have an affiliation with Wendell Crenn a little bit with some of their programs, so I'm familiar with at their school some of the cybersecurity offerings that you guys have are like getting kids that are getting out of 12th grade that are employable at like right out of high school, correct, that's correct.

Speaker 3: 4:38

So it's exciting because what many employers are telling us is that they're not necessarily as concerned that students have a university degree. They are really much more concerned about what our students know and are able to do, and they are willing to back that up with some really solid entry-level salaries in these fields.

Speaker 2: 5:01

You know, it is really crazy to think. You know, like I'm aging myself a little bit. I'm going to be 52 in a few months, but when I was coming through school, through high school, it was you need to either go in the trades or, you know, college, college, college. And today's day and age, college isn't necessarily that that like main track that people go on. Because kids go to college they get $150,000 into debt and they're paying it off and they're close to retirement age, 30 years of paying off college debt. So this type of track, do you see it becoming so much more popular? Simply because it's giving these young adults the skills to get where they need to be I don't want to say immediately, but pretty rapidly as opposed to going and getting a four-year degree just to try to find a job at that point.

Speaker 3: 5:56

I do think it is more attractive to young people who know very clearly what they want to do. These are high wage, high skill careers, and employers who are making offers to the graduates of our career academies here in Pasco County are willing to pay for post-secondary education if they've got candidates that are ready to get started, you know, and have marketable skills that they can capitalize on. And those industry credentials are that portfolio that tells a potential employer that these students are the real deal, they have done it, they can show you how to do it and you're not going to maybe have that learning curve that would delay them becoming, you know, productive and positive members of a team.

Speaker 2: 6:52

Okay, so you have. You said four programs, if you could. I mean I don't want to rank them, I mean, but I do kind of want to rank them in a sense that from a enrollment standpoint, not necessarily what's more popular or what's more lucrative, but currently, as we sit here on this podcast, what is the enrollment levels of each of those programs and what is the total enrollment at the school?

Speaker 3: 7:16

So this year, which we are just winding down, our very first year, we have about 800 students at this time, grades six through 10. New schools tend to not open with 11th and 12th grade. We grow into those and that gives us a chance to, you know, kind of get things set up so that we're ready to graduate students. In our first school choice window for next year we accepted 500 more. So we anticipate settling in between 13 and 1400 students.

Speaker 3: 7:52

And in terms of our pathways, our most sought out pathway right now in terms of enrollment is our biodesign pathway.

Speaker 3: 8:04

It is specifically right now a medical focus. One of the unique characteristics of our school is that it is situated right across the new Ridge Road extension from the new Moffitt campus called Spiros. So we have a large number of students who are very interested in a medical related career. And biodesign is a broader umbrella term because it encourages students to integrate not just medical knowledge and training but to leverage the problem solving and skill set from engineering. So students in the biodesign pathway may look at, you know, sustainable building practices, wearable implantable technology, and kind of expand out so that they're not necessarily only targeting a medical career per se, only targeting a medical career per se.

Speaker 3: 9:10

So that is our most popular pathway right now, but our engineering pathway is a close second and I think that that is probably because it is a fairly traditional and well-understood pathway and it's a lot of hands-on and like building. We have a strong robotics foundation, so our students are learning about automation and manufacturing and building competitive robots. But what's interesting to me about the way the initial enrollment has fallen this first year is that the cybersecurity field is actually one of the fastest growing fields around the world and I think that as we look at working with our middle school students who haven't yet selected a pathway, we want to make sure that they understand what the cybersecurity and applied computer science field has to offer, because they may not have, you know, family members who work in that field and they may be overlooking a great opportunity.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Yeah, so it's funny. There's a couple of things out of everything you just said there. So your first graduating class is going to be 2026.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Yes, that is right.

Speaker 2: 10:23

And how big of a radius do you pull from? I mean, can kids all over Pasco County, if they're in Dade City or Newport Ritchie, come into the school if they qualify or meet, whatever the level is?

Speaker 3: 10:36

That's an excellent question. So our district has established, we'll say regions established, we'll say regions. So there's an east region that begins around the Cypress Creek area and extends to the eastern side of the county. Students who reside there go to Kirkland Ranch Academy of. Innovation. They have the same programs that we do and more.

Speaker 2: 10:57

And you guys are kind of in the middle.

Speaker 3: 10:58

We're the central pathway, so we go from approximately Cypress Creek over to the Hudson High area in the north end and A little further south. We kind of go as far over as, like Oakstead. Sun Lake area and then the western side. They go to Wendell Crinn, and you know so there are nationally recognized first magnet high school, and so you know there are good options in every area of the county that offers these programs.

Speaker 2: 11:32

So the other thing you mentioned with the biodesign group, it's almost like a pre pre-med, but you're not locked into that category Cause, like I had, a friend of mine you know a hundred years ago, went to Penn state to go pre-med and like after our freshman year, I said, you know, what do you think? And he said, well, you know, I'm switching my major to like biochemistry or whatever it was. And when we talked about it he was like, look, if I get done with four years of college as a pre, you know with a pre-med degree, and I don't decide to go to medical school, I'm kind of like pigeonholed into this thing. So it's great to see the way you guys have this set up. It's almost like saying, hey, look, this is the narrow corridor you can go around, but we're not pushing you down it right out of the gate.

Speaker 3: 12:20

It's almost like a wider lead-in, so you can feel it out Right. Well, we're very aware too that we're preparing students who will enter careers that don't necessarily have names. So a good example of that would be in the artificial intelligence field, which is a part of our applied computer science pathway. You know, nobody five years ago knew what a prompt engineer was. That's a new job. So we want our students to explore, we want them to find ways to combine some of our coursework, because students who have a broad foundational set of skills are going to be able to leverage those in a variety of settings.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Okay, so this I'm going to have a follow-up question to this, but I want to set the foundation with it of this Tell me a little bit about your personal background and your teaching, or you're not teaching, but you're administrating programs that you had no clue were even going to be in existence when you were becoming an educator. So a little bit about your background, so the folks and people that are listening to this understand the professionalism in the education field that you bring to the facility.

Speaker 3: 13:30

So I, by training, am a high school mathematics teacher, so I graduated from the University of Florida in 94 with a degree in pure math, so I am a hardcore geek. But one of the things that I have always used as an educator is technology. So I started my journey as an educator 30 years ago. My kids built websites. They used graphing calculators before those were as pervasive as they are now, and I taught online for many years.

Speaker 3: 14:04

And then I had the opportunity here in Pasco County to open our district's virtual school, pascoe School, and really help provide an adaptable and flexible option for families to include virtual instruction full-time and part-time. And I think that one of the reasons that the opportunity to come back into a building appealed to me is that the vision for this school is to think differently about how we use time and space and resources, that we are leveraging technology in a one-to-one environment. But because I am a STEM person and my own son went through a STEM high school and middle school in Tampa, I understand what this kind of education can offer to students and I believe wholeheartedly that, if we can cultivate the safe risk-taking, the person who says well, you know, I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but let's give it a try.

Speaker 2: 15:15

Challenging the envelope in a safe environment.

Speaker 3: 15:18

Correct. So if we can foster that sort of exploratory, you know, risk taking kind of mindset, that's really what the people who innovate do, right. So they look around and they're like, yeah, this is okay, but what if we just made this adjustment over here? What if we tried it this way? And that's when you start to see things get better. There are also some, you know, funny failures and flops and things like that, but you learn if you're paying attention.

Speaker 3: 15:48

Every single one of those trials teaches you something, and so that's really what our philosophy is giving our kids authentic learning experiences, cheering them on when they want to stick their necks out and try something different, and then, if it doesn't work out, you know, really coming back and saying, okay, but what did we learn from this? When we try again, how are we going to improve? And teaching them that that doesn't mean that you're a failure, it just means that trial didn't succeed. And so that's, I think, because I have walked that walk as an educator, you know, I built a school that originally, as the virtual school, started off as sort of a little niche fringe program serving only 1,600 students, to building the third largest virtual school in the state that won national awards.

Speaker 3: 16:40

I think that my professional background led people to think you know, she might, could just actually do this, and she's the kind of person who's not going to be shackled to. Well, we've always done it this way. This is the only way that that it can get done. So I hope I hope that you know my teachers and my students know that I'll try. You know really anything that they've thought out and got a solid plan in place, we'll give it a go because we're going to learn no matter what. That's the worst case.

Speaker 2: 17:15

You know that's yeah, I mean you learn from every experience, right? Whether it's a positive experience or a negative. Well, you hope that you learn from every experience, positive or negative. And I'll tell you, you said something in there. As someone who managed a call center and worked with folks, when people would come to me with questions, the biggest thing that would drive me nuts when I would say, well, how did you do this? And they would tell me how they did it and I would say, well, why did you do this? And they would say, well, that's the way we've always done it and I banned it. I'm like I don't want to hear anymore. This is the way we've always done it. I want you to tell me what way you think will make this go better, because it's clearly not working or it's working, but it's like working at like a baseline level of how things should work. So I love that and I got to tell you.

Speaker 2: 18:03

You know, going out to Wendell Crenn and being out there with some of the students in Linda Bourne's class and seeing how they collaborate with one another and the way the environment high school is, it just blows my mind. It's like going again. We're kind of about the same age. If you graduated in 94 from college, we're probably about the same age, um or near to it, and um, like my high school experience and then going there, it's like being like when in planet of the apes, when charlton heston gets dropped on the, the island on the planet and everything is just totally bizarro world.

Speaker 2: 18:37

My classes just weren't like that. It was a bell rings. You walk to a class, you sit down, you open your book at the desk, you listen to the lecture, you take the note, and that just wasn't. It was such a collaborative, like neuron firing, that it just. It really is refreshing to see how that's done. Is there still at the schools? At your school, is there still a traditional, any traditional? Like there's no pep rallies, there's no football team, there's no, any of that. Your students aren't those students.

Speaker 3: 19:14

Well, you know, I would push back on that Wendell, crinn and Kirkland Ranch don't include athletics, but my school does include band visual arts. We have performing arts. Our students wanted to have drama and thespians and we actually have an athletic complex being built along 41 here near Connerton, and so we actually will have an athletics program to complement our academics. We will not have football or baseball.

Speaker 2: 19:51

I wasn't saying that as a knock on, I was just saying that it's just a different experience. I mean, it's just a different. It seems like the kids that are there like my high school there were kids that didn't even really want to be there.

Speaker 2: 20:03

You know what I mean Like it was just kind of like we're here because it's public school and this is what we have to do, but everybody just seems like they want to be there and there's a more purpose-driven in their environment and what they're doing, and that's great. I mean, I just love the fact that seeing an environment where kids and maybe this I'm assuming this is also accurate is there's and I forget what the term they use but where kids are actually going towards their high school diploma but also earning college credits to where, by the time they finish, they'll have a certain amount of credits towards an associate's degree or, I think, one of the programs they could actually get an associate's degree level right.

Speaker 3: 20:46

Is that accurate? Yeah, we all have dual enrollment programs in our high schools. That's exactly right. So students have that opportunity to earn college credits and, depending on how much they fit into their schedule, they can actually earn an AA degree right alongside their high school diploma.

Speaker 2: 21:05

So all right. So we've talked a lot about the school, a lot of about the programs and the things that go on there and how you got to this point. You know you're, you've already you're a readily admitted, openly admitted math nerd, that you like that stuff. What do you do for fun? Do you do play Jeopardy, follow Jeopardy on TV or do you like to do you like to snowboard or ski? I know snowboarding in Florida. Are you a big Gators fan? Do you go watch games? Do you like that stuff? What are you into when you're not in school?

Speaker 3: 21:37

So a couple of different things. Aside from math, I actually read a lot fiction and nonfiction. I also really enjoy music. You'll find me attending concerts or live music, and so I like a wide range of experiences, you know, but I am not a huge pro sports fan, definitely in the college camp, for sure.

Speaker 2: 22:17

I love to see up and coming athletes doing it. Okay, so you're a Florida fan, We'll kind of let that slide. We won't get into too much of that stuff, but concerts. When you say concerts, do you have a genre of music that you that you like to go see live? Is there a genre or any particular type of music?

Speaker 3: 22:32

I actually have a pretty eclectic music taste, so I do like some electronic dance music and alternative music. So you might find me at Pet Shop Boys or Erasure. You might find me at they Might Be Giants. But I also do like pop music and this will probably surprise a lot of students. I actually really like rap music and listen to that and have a playlist that's on regular rotation as I drive All right kids.

Speaker 2: 23:03

So when you're listening to this Good Neighbor podcast, you know you definitely want to make sure. Miss glenn is into rap, so bring up your stuff. I am actually going to see heart coming up here very soon. So I'm going to the concert at amly on friday which we were recording this earlier in the week. Um, and then my girlfriend is a is like a music like lunatic. We're going to see santana and alanis morissette and like she has a whole concert thing set up for me and one of the the nice things about being here in Tampa is having the fairgrounds and having access to those shows and being happy, you know, being able to get, like you know, general admission type stuff, which is which is nice. Do you live up in that? You know 41, 52 area? Do you have like a big commute to the school?

Speaker 3: 23:51

Well, for many years for most of my career in fact I lived in the Citrus Park area of Tampa, but I recently relocated up here to Hudson.

Speaker 2: 23:59

Yeah, it's a better. It's a better move. It's a better move.

Speaker 3: 24:02

Well, my kids are grown and flown for the most part, and so you know it. It seemed like a good time to downsize and kind of simplify.

Speaker 2: 24:12

Yeah, I mean, and honestly, that area where you guys are you know you and I had previously talked about some other stuff before this podcast, but that area is so incredible. I mean where I'm at in Wesley Chapel is emerging and growing but it's kind of not capped out but it's pretty full and like out 50, like out 54 towards Odessa is great too, but that has blown up over the last two years but up 41 towards you guys. That is about to just explode. It is going to be what Wesley Chapel was, you know, 10, 12 years ago, 15 years ago. It's on the way. So you're going to have a big influx of candidates coming through. From a capacity standpoint, are you guys able to handle, like you said about what would you say? 1,300 or so is where you think you're going to cap out at. Do you have a limit where you're going to start turning kids away?

Speaker 3: 25:04

So our building is built for about 1,700 students. I think we'll be able to go over that, because I'll tell you that my big, hairy, audacious goal for my juniors and seniors is for them to spend half of their time in a workplace in an internship or taking dual enrollment courses through PHSC or USF, and so I do think we'll have a little flexibility there, but I do think we'll hit that cap and I think we'll hit it well, well before five years. And that's, you know, that's a really good thing, because there are a lot of great opportunities available for kids and I know that we have got a really strong community building up right around us, as you referenced. So I do think that we'll have the opportunity to serve probably closer to 2000 kids before Wow.

Speaker 2: 26:02

So that's an absolute great segue as we start to wind down. The podcast is you know people that are listening to this. They're wondering hey, look, you know why is Angeline Academy of Innovation coming on the Good Neighbor podcast? It's generally businesses, but the big reason why you guys are coming on is building partnerships in the community. So if there's a business owner listening to this, thinking to themselves I mean maybe thinking to themselves maybe I can get relatively cheap labor to start, possibly, but I can give somebody some experience, someone who is looking to get into a field that I might have an opportunity that marries up with the school's curriculum. How do those businesses partner with you guys? What's the best way? How do they learn about, like, what you guys are looking for and how they get to become a part of the school?

Speaker 3: 26:51

Well, I am so committed to building those partnerships. I have a member of my team that is dedicated to just that. Her name is Sandra Ragusa and she is our career specialist, so she would be someone that you could call the school at 813-346-2500 and ask for Sandy or our career specialist, and she'd be able to talk a little bit more about ways that businesses can partner with our school to offer opportunities for our students and just to keep tabs on our growth. But we'd love to chat for sure.

Speaker 2: 27:28

So, sandy, when your phone starts ringing and we're going to say Joanne. So, sandy, when your phone starts ringing and we're going to say Joanne gave out your phone number on the Good Neighbor podcast and we shared it everywhere. So now, when the phone starts ringing, don't blame me, sandy, don't come talking to me. Definitely, talk to Joanne. So, folks, if you're listening to this, I can tell you I've had experience in the school system not at this school, at another school in the Pasco County school system that has these magnet schools that offer these programs to these kids. That gives them an environment to grow and to learn in a place where they are free to take chances and try to make mistakes and grow and really become productive members of society quicker than going to necessarily a four-year university. Now they still can do that through these programs, but this gives them an opportunity to fast start it. The schools are great.

Speaker 2: 28:21

I'm definitely a proponent of it and I love to see people in the community get involved. So, if you're a business owner, so if you're a business owner, we'll give her name again Sandra Ragusa, 813-346-2500. Ask for Sandy, tell them. Joanne said to give her a call and find out how you get involved, take part, give back to your community, joanne, anything else you want to leave the listeners with. As far as that they need to know about the school, or anything you guys have going on and how we can help.

Speaker 3: 28:51

I would just say that if you live in the central area of Pasco County and you have a student who is highly interested in science, technology, engineering or math, keep an eye on us. We would love to have the opportunity to have your child attend and because we are a dedicated magnet school, that means we are a school by application, not location. You would need to apply during our district school choice window in order to have your student attend here and I hope you'll consider it if you feel like it's a good fit.

Speaker 2: 29:24

And lastly, as we close out, when is that window? Because there is a window coming up right now, right, isn't one coming in the next couple months?

Speaker 3: 29:32

There'll be one opening in July, and so we just finished one here in April, and so the next one for the upcoming school year will be in July.

Speaker 2: 29:44

So, folks, if you're a parent with a child that wants to get involved, you need to apply. Look up Angelina Academy of Innovation. Get your application in. Get your kids started today. Joanne Glenn, thank you for being a good neighbor. Thank you for being on the Good Neighbor podcast. I really appreciate your time.

Speaker 3: 30:00

Thank you very much for having me. We appreciate your efforts to help us spread the word.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast PASCO. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPPascocom. That's GNPPascocom, or call 813-922-3610.