District
Fifteen Educational Foundation
Programs
District Fifteen Educational Foundation
2009 Mini-Grant Selections Announced
Foundation Awards 23 Mini-Grants to D15 Teachers
The District Fifteen Educational Foundation recently awarded more than $33,000 to District 15 teachers through its 2009-2010 Mini-Grant program.
Since 2004, the Foundation’s Mini-Grant program has awarded District 15 teachers with 78 mini-grants totaling more than $126,000. 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.
- Acquisition and application of technology.
Technology grant applications must state the technology’s specific use and how it will be utilized in the classroom—how it will be applied toward instruction. Program funds include student development projects or systems not normally financed with taxpayer dollars.
In the programs category, grant recipients were:
- Margie Bucsa and Miriam Mezo of Conyers Learning Academy for their “Family and School Educational Support Program.” The goal of this program is to provide support for parents of students in CLA’s new classroom that blends bilingual early childhood special education students with bilingual at-risk students from the Early Childhood Developmental Educational Center. The program will do this by offering twice monthly bilingual parent education workshops developed by an early childhood special education teacher and an ECDEC parent coordinator.
- Kelly Buczkiewicz and Sharon Dooley of Carl Sandburg Junior High School for their AVID implementation program. AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. It is a data-driven initiative that focuses on a specific student population with a history of being underserved, and it’s goal is to make college an achievable reality for this group of students. This is the first year AVID is being incorporated into Sandburg’s curriculum, and this grant will assist the school in getting the program off the ground.
- Joanna Angelopoulos of Gray M. Sanborn School for her “A Study of Play” program. The goal of this program is to use objects such as blocks, paper, clay, sand, beads, and string to develop students’ understanding of geometry through play over the course of their elementary years, and to enhance their developmental skills through imagination and creativity.
- Susan Esbrook, Jennifer Moore, and Celeste Seavey of Gray M. Sanborn School for their “I-PICK Books” project. This program is intended to show students how to pick the right book for themselves. Through it, these teachers will be able to purchase more classroom books that meet the varied interests, needs, and reading levels of the diverse array of learners they serve.
- Lauren Lukowski, Connie Towry, and Grace Rios of Gray M. Sanborn School for their project titled “Empowering Families of English Language Learners in Closing the Literacy Gap.” The focus of this program is to aid parents of ELL students by providing them with skills and strategies they can use at home to complement what their children are learning at school.
- Kristie Charles, Meredith Cloud, Deb Kelly, and Karen Surdynski of Hunting Ridge School for their project titled “Technology and Resources: Enhancing the Literacy Experience.” This program’s aim is to provide students with materials, tools, and current technology that will allow them to reach federal No Child Left Behind legislation’s goal for all students to meet or exceed state standards by 2014.
- Carrie Viso of Kimball Hill School for her “Promoting Reading Strategies” project. This program will supplement a portion of Kimball Hill’s school improvement plan that focuses on the monthly teaching of different reading strategies to students. This grant money will be used to create a bag of books and resources specific to each month’s reading strategy that teachers can use with their students.
- Janet Stack, Stephanie Hernandez, and Julia Haney of Kimball Hill School for their project titled “Together We Can/Juntos Podemos.” This program’s goal is to help children enjoy and practice literacy with their families by providing family friendly classes to help parents connect with their child, school, and community. These classes will give parents hands-on experience at using the literacy strategies that are taught daily in their children’s classrooms.
- Laurie Scarpelli of Lake Louise School for “Musical Keys Piano Lab.” This program is designed to teach fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students to play beginning piano, and, in doing so, build upon the proven relationship between learning to make music and spatial-temporal reasoning. The money will go toward purchasing enough keyboards for an entire class to take part in lessons at the same time.
- Arlene Stix of Plum Grove Junior High School for her program titled “Integrating Reading and Technology in the Gifted Reading Class.” This program will provide gifted reading classes with a variety of titles considered classic literature, and enhance the classes’ reading experience by providing a variety of opportunities to publish responses to literature using online reading journals and focused prompts.
- Karen Aprile and Tracy Templeton of Winston Campus Elementary for “AIME Literacy through Cooking.” AIME stands for Alternate Instruction for Meaningful Education, and students in these classes have special needs and unique learning styles. They often benefit from a multisensory approach to learning that incorporates auditory input, visual cues, and hands-on experiences, all of which are encompassed in activities that feature cooking.
- Erica Solis of Winston Campus Junior High School for her hands-on science education program. Her program’s aim is to make higher-level scientific concepts more meaningful to special education students through the presentation of hand-on materials and projects.
Technology grant recipients were:
- Kelly Buczkiewicz of Carl Sandburg Junior High School for “ELL Elmos.” For ELL students, oral instructions can be difficult to follow. Many of them rely on visuals to help them understand their work. An ELMO document camera and projection system will help ELL students bridge the gap between oral instruction and understanding.
- John Stoesser, Matthew Schmidt, Kathryn Reynolds, Marla Horwitz, and Terence Clark of Carl Sandburg Junior High School for “SMART RESPONSE—Social Studies KIDS.” This program will provide technology to turn the school’s social studies classrooms into SMART RESPONSE KIDS communities that will provide every student a voice, and every teacher up-to-the-minute knowledge of the will and understanding of his or her class. This is done through the use of SMART RESPONSE SYSTEMS students will click and cast their votes.
- Debra Goode of Gray M. Sanborn School for “Fostering Fluency with Pocket Camcorders.” This project will use pocket camcorders to allow teachers and students to videotape students’ oral reading. Those recordings will be used to create a yearlong video diary of students’ oral reading progress, and to plan instruction based upon miscues identified in the recordings.
- Mary Mathey of Jane Addams School for “It’s a Snap.” This grant will provide digital cameras and a photo printer that will allow students to engage in the progressing field of digital photography, and to explore the numerous possibilities of imagery making.
- Kim Nagy of Jane Addams School for “Oregon Trail.” This program will provide hands-on technology that will build upon concepts learned in history instruction by allowing students to build real-life decision making, problem solving, and writing skills as they immerse themselves in the history and geography of the United States’ westward expansion.
- Kathleen Skoller of Kimball Hill School for “Discovering the Power of Images, Art, and Reading Through Technology.” This program will provide students with digital cameras so they can practice and develop important life, art, and reading skills, such as perceiving, valuing, prioritizing, connecting, and questioning. By reflecting on and sharing their perceptions and preferences, students will discover the power of art and reading strategies, as well as self, environment, and community connectedness.
- Nicolle Mallon and Kelly Olivero of Lake Louise School for “iRead.” Like an iPod, iRead enables students to listen to books by themselves or with partners, and re-visit the story by fast forwarding the device to wherever they left off. Accompanying books will provide students will multisensory story experiences and a chance to manipulate the iRead devices.
- Lesa Northam of Plum Grove Junior High School for a rolling instruction center. This grant will allow Plum Grove’s physical education teachers to purchase a Mimio board with wireless components, a laptop, projector, and sound system all on a portable cart so they can provide students visual learning aids no matter what instruction space they’re using. The equipment will allow them to show diagrams of fields, positions of players, overlays of muscles, video clips of specific skills, and other visuals for their instructional goals and objectives.
- Susan Baez of Plum Grove Junior High School for “We Flip for Video.” This grant will allow the school to purchase 10 flip video cameras to be used by classes to incorporate visual media into their curriculum.
- Robert Moffett of Winston Campus Junior High for “Podcasting from the Music Classroom.” This technology will allow students to process and communicate their own ideas by combining the spoken word with artwork and music in online broadcasts of their own creation.
- Jennifer Buelow of Walter R. Sundling Junior High School for “Tablet to Accompany MovieMaker.” Windows MovieMaker’s digital storytelling software allows students to write, narrate, and ultimately illustrate their own stories. But, paired with Wacom Intuos4 medium pen tablets, the software allows students to bring their stories to life by manipulating pictures and creating unique illustrations.
For more information regarding the mini-grant program, please contact foundation chairman Dave Seiffert at 847-858-4948, or Tina Huss, administrative assistant, at 847-963-3160.
A special way to Thank a Teacher…
The holidays are a wonderful time to recognize special people who make a difference in your and your children’s lives. If you are looking for a unique way to honor teachers and school staff at this time of year, consider the District Fifteen Educational Foundation’s “Teacher/Staff Tribute” program.
Contributions received will be used to fund programs such as teacher mini-grants and technology for District 15 schools. This year, the Foundation is focusing on raising money for its teacher mini-grant program and for additional technology items requested by teachers and staff.
Use the Teacher/Staff Tribute form to designate a contribution of any amount in recognition of a teacher or staff member. Each person named will receive a letter from the Foundation acknowledging the gift that was made in his or her honor.
All contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law, and you will receive a letter acknowledging the gift for tax purposes. If your company offers a corporate matching gift program, please be sure to include the appropriate forms.
About the Foundation
The mission of the District Fifteen Educational Foundation is to acquire resources to be used for programs and projects to enhance and supplement the educational experience of District 15 students.
The Foundation is an autonomous 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that supports programs not funded by the traditional tax-based educational system.
Questions? Call Tina Huss, 847-963-3160, or e-mail husst@ccsd15.net.
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