D-15 Educational Foundation Awards 12 Mini-Grants

More than $11,000 was awarded to District 15 teachers in November through the 2011-12 District Fifteen Educational Foundation/Kathy Buesching Memorial Mini-Grant program.

Since 2004, the Foundation’s Mini-Grant program has awarded District 15 teachers with 115 mini-grants totaling more than $170,000. These small grants are intended to allow teachers to acquire resources for programs and projects that enhance and supplement the educational experience of District 15 students.

Mini-grants are awarded in two areas—implementation of programs and/or projects, and acquisition and application of technology.

This year’s mini-grant winners are:

• Valerie Gruenwald and Christine Kujawa of John G. Conyers Learning Academy for their parent support program. This program offers monthly evening support group sessions that help parents deal positively with the behavioral challenges of their children with special needs.

• Joanna Angelopoulos of Gray M. Sanborn School for “A World of Books.” Through this program, her students will extend their sense of the world, build a sense of empathy, and encourage the spirit of giving by creating picture books focused on various themes and collecting educational supplies, all of which will be shipped to teachers in China, Mexico, and countries throughout Africa via the Kids to Kids International non-profit agency.

• Kimberly Jenkinson of Gray M. Sanborn School for “Reading Buddies.” This program pairs Sanborn’s most at-risk readers in the first grade with fifth- and sixth-grade reading buddies. The program will use sets of We Both Read books, which are specially formatted so that alternating pages are written at alternating reading levels.

• Annette Mongoven of Jane Addams School for “Way to Grow!” This grant provides resources for the ongoing maintenance and continued care of a school garden comprised of five raised beds and a compost bin. The garden is frequently used by teachers as an outdoor classroom that provides students with hands-on learning opportunities pertaining to math, science, health, and agricultural and environmental issues. It is also a quiet place where teachers can take their students for reading and writing lessons.

• Molly Mahoney of Jane Addams School for her family take-home games for reading. Through this project, her students will be able to take home a different Frog Family reading game each week. Each game focuses on 24 different reading skills that directly relate to classroom content and to state learning standards, and each game can be tailored to the specific reading levels and language needs of a student.

• Julia Haney, Stephanie Hernandez, and Janet Stack of Kimball Hill School for “YOU make the Difference: Learning without Limits.” This program will show the school’s bilingual families that, despite their time constraints, language differences, and limited resources, they can help their children succeed in school.

• Susan Carlson of Lake Louise and Lincoln Schools for “Elmo says, ‘ELMO document cameras make music students smarter!’” As an itinerant music teacher, she usually shares spare and sparsely equipped teaching space with other traveling teachers. This grant will allow her to outfit that space with document cameras like those found in regular, fully equipped classrooms.

• Karen Aprile and Rona Silverstein of Plum Grove Junior High for their multi-sensory motor room. This grant will allow them to create a classroom environment that will enhance the learning experience of their students, who typically have impaired neurological systems. These impairments make it difficult for them to process and respond appropriately to everyday sensory input. Typical noises and sounds that others can process unconsciously can make them anxious and overwhelmed.

• Jennifer Reilly of Thomas Jefferson School for “Friends Who Like Words.” The grant will allow her to purchase language arts board games, teach student council members how to play them, and send these experts into first- through sixth-grade classrooms during indoor recesses to teach them how to play. Through this program, her students will forge new friendships, enjoy new board games, and build upon their language arts skills.

• Lerry Pollock of Willow Bend School for his climbing wall. The grant will allow for the construction of a traverse climbing in the school’s gymnasium. The wall will engage and challenge kids of all ages, sizes, and skill levels. It will be used to enhance their coordination, balance, muscle strength, and cardiovascular fitness, and held them develop self esteem, personal fitness goals, team building skills, and an awareness of health issues.

• Karen Alderson of Willow Bend School for “ELL Projections.” The grant will equip with the classroom space dedicated to the school’s English Language Learners program with document cameras like those found in regular, fully equipped classrooms.

• Denise Almdale of Winston Campus Junior High for “Promoting Literacy with Below Grade Readers at the Junior High Level.” This grant will allow her to purchase sets of novels in both print and electronic form. This will allow students in her self-contained learning disabled class to read along while they listen to a novel read on a classroom set of iPods.

-Story Submitted by Community Consolidated School District 15