SOUTH POINT— Jayshree Shah, founding director of the Tri-State STEM+M Academy at the Point Industrial Park in South Point, explained that in addition to local students, the new school will welcome students from across the state and region. But there is a catch for those out of state students. They have to pay tuition that in state students do not.

After holding a board meeting earlier this week where the fees were set, Shah explained that tuition for out of state students will be set at $6,000 per year, in addition to any supplemental items or services the student’s family might need to fund. If out of state students had any special needs that required assistance or adaptive equipment, she explained, that cost would have to be covered by the student.

“(The costs are) based on a formula the Ohio Department of Education uses,” she said.

Ohio students, however, would have their costs covered by the state, like students in any other public or charter school. Shah prefers to describe the school as a “public school,” shying away from the charter school label. The system the school functions under, however, is primarily that of a charter school. While the school is located in Lawrence County, it does not fall under the control of the county or local South Point school boards. Instead, the STEM+M academy is controlled by its own independent governing body.

The county does have a STEM academy, in the Collins Career Technical Center. Shah, however, has a more regional view for the Tri-State STEM+M Academy, and hopes to have sister locations, working together, in West Virginia and Kentucky in the future.

The school has already begun partnerships with local universities. They will have a series of Summer Bridge Programs this year, effectively academic camps, with partners from Ohio University, Southern State Community College and Shawnee State University. They are also working to get Marshall University involved in one of their planned projects for this summer and hope to build partnerships with Kentucky-based universities as well.

“We would like to work with ACTC (Ashland Community and Technical College) and Morehead State University as well,” Shah said.

One of the summer projects, a furniture design and on-site fabrication project that connects students in STEM programs across the state via the internet to design furniture that will be fabricated in a portable fabrication lab at one of the schools, exemplifies what Shah said is one of the main goals of the program and its regional view. That is, cultivating and keeping talent in the area.

In a more technologically connected world, she said, people working in these fields don’t necessarily need to move away from the region. Not only can individuals in some fields work remotely for companies, companies looking for areas to locate don’t necessarily need to locate near large urban population centers any more. This is one reason why they are happy to be located in the Point Industrial Park as well, she said.

“When it comes time for internships,” she said, “we’re right here.”

Shah said that she hopes programs like this helps stem the brain drain that rural areas often suffer from, as well as help revitalize the region and encourage investment and entrepreneurship.

They also hope to offer programs like a technologist-in-residence, to give students an opportunity to interact with people actually working in their fields, as they help those students focus their individual career paths.

The school currently has 35 students enrolled, Shah said, but they hope to grow that to around 100 by their March 31 registration deadline. They will have three more informational meetings, at 7 p.m. on Feb. 7, March 7, and March 28, at the Point Industrial Park, prior to the registration deadline.

The summer bridge programs will be open and available to any area high school students. The Fab Lab furniture fabrication program and an environmental survey program, in conjunction with Shawnee State University and the Wayne National Forest, are free to students through grants. Applications for the summer programs are available on the school’s website, tristatestem.com.