OUR HISTORY
West GYSTC was founded in 1993 and incorporated as a non-profit by community leaders from industry and school systems in the West Georgia area. The umbrella organization which oversees all of the centers in the State was founded in 1989. Since that time, the centers have collectively served as many as 100,000 students per year.
Coordinators of the West Georgia Youth Science & Technology Center have been hired from elementary, middle, and high school levels of science and mathematics teaching. Each one has added his or her own creativity to the programs offered to students and teachers in the service area.
One of the strengths of West GYSTC has been support from the community. This has included grants from the Community Foundation of West Georgia, Southwire, the United Way, Bellsouth, Carroll EMC, and United Community Bank. Most importantly, the participation of area leaders in industry serve on the center’s Board of Directors. Among the businesses that helped to organize the center in 1993 were Southwire, Tanner Medical Center, Greystone EMC, and Georgia Power. Southwire provided legal support for the incorporation, and Georgia Power provided significant funding for large equipment such as the portable Starlab planetariums.
While the original mission of the organization was “To make science, math and technology fun and exciting for young students and their teachers,” West GYSTC has added increasing achievement in all of the STEM fields to its mission. This is accomplished through programming for students and teachers. All programs are standards-based supporting the Georgia Standards of Excellence and the Next Generation Science Standards. Support is also provided for literacy in the content areas as found in the Common Core State Standards.
The original logo of GYSTC was a tri-fold paper airplane, which symbolized the organization’s practice of making hands-on science both affordable and fun. When the organization rebranded 20 years after its founding, the newer logo with the child holding up an atom was adopted. It symbolizes the possibility that every child holds for achievement in science and all of STEM.
OUR COORDINATOR
Fontenot is coordinator of West Georgia Youth Science & Technology Center located in Carrollton, Georgia. She supports member school systems with their science and math needs as well as provides STEM programs for students, Kindergarten through 8th grade. She holds a B.Ed, M.Ed. & Ed.S. in Middle Grades Education with concentrations in Science, Social Science and English from the University of West Georgia. During her 20 years in the classroom at Carrollton City and Carroll County School Systems, Fontenot earned endorsements in Gifted, Reading, STEM and ESOL. Throughout her years in education, she received the Annice Watley Award for Excellence in Middle School Science Instruction. In addition, she served as the Sam’s Club Teacher of the Year and the West GYSTC Teacher of the Year. She also served as Carrollton City School System Teacher of the year in 2015-2016. As a Science Ambassador, she is able to provide support to Georgia’s teachers with the best instructional practices in content knowledge, application and critical thinking through professional learning strategies. She enjoys reading and spending time on the lake with her two children, grandchild and husband.
OUR MISSION
The Georgia Youth Science and Technology Centers, Inc. provides quality programs for teachers of STEM subjects that improve the teaching and learning process at the kindergarten through eighth grade levels.
OUR BOARD
Directors:
- Board Chair – Victor Rundquist, Sr. Development Engineer with Southwire
- Vice Chair – Anna Clifton, Director of School Improvement and Curriculum at Carrollton City School System
- Secretary – James Layton, Carroll EMC Lead Engineer
- Treasurer – Lealon Anderson, United Community Bank (retired)
- Doug Moore, Oak Mountain Academy
- Sarah Graham, Paulding County Schools
- Catalina Wright, Carroll County Schools
- Martin Smith, Carroll EMC (Retired)
- Stephen Moore, West Georgia Technical College
- Laura Dickerson, Haralson County Schools
- Jennifer George, Bremen City Schools
- Marissa Prather, Douglas County Schools
Ex-Officio:
- Amanda Buice, State GYSTC Office