Escanaba teacher, Matt Oney, to receive STEM grant from state

Matt Oney is one of two teachers in the U.P. to be chosen for a state Certificate of Excellence. This means Oney will get a $10,000 grant each year for three years.

"I am absolutely honored that the Department of Education has chosen me as one of the recipients of this particular grant,” Oney said.

"It's an honor for him to be chosen and it's an honor for us to have a staff member who was chosen for this,” Escanaba Public Schools’ Superintendent Dr. Coby Fletcher told TV6 News. “It's wonderful for our district in a lot of different ways. Mr. Oney is representative of all the good things that are happening around here."

The grant will go towards expanding the school's STEM program and also to help other teachers in the area build theirs.

“The students are going to benefit from Mr. Oney having access to purchasing some new materials that are going to allow him to do things in his classroom that are even more innovative than what he already does,” Superintendent Fletcher added. “It also gives him the opportunity to develop some of those so that he can take them out to other areas so they can do some of the same things for their students.”

He thinks it’s important to share those techniques so students across the U.P. can experience a better program.

“When I wrote the grant, the proposal was aimed at training high school science teacher in molecular biology techniques,” Oney said. “This summer the plan is to do a four-day workshop at Bay College for high school biology teachers to do molecular biology specifically."

He plans to host different workshops around the area over the next few years.