Schools foundation surprises teachers with spring grants
The Homewood City Schools Foundation gave several Homewood teachers a special Spring Break send-off this morning with surprise presentations of their spring grant awards.
The foundation solicits grant applications from teachers twice per year and gives out awards for projects that offer innovative learning tools and resources. Foundation Director Mary Scott Pearson said this spring's grants totaled $50,655.
On Friday morning, foundation representatives and principals knocked on classroom doors in all five of Homewood's schools to share plaques and checks.
The funded grant requests include:
Edgewood Elementary
- Learn. Play. Osmo. — Ashley McCullars, Detra Gilliam, Susanne Church, Carrie Baguley, Susan Hanson, Lauren Bowers and Carla Palmer applied for this grant to buy Osmo kits, which are educational iPad games, for the first grade classrooms.
- OG is a Go —Assistant Principal Laura Tate's grant will allow three teachers to attend Orton-Gillingham comprehensive training and four teachers to attend intermediate training. Orton-Gillingham is a teaching strategy that employs multiple sense to help students understand language.
- Out of This World — Fifth grade teacher Lora Haghighi's students will participate in a challenge to engineer, design and build lunar buggies and landing pods, including testing their creations. The grant includes reusable materials to be an annual project.
- Building Bridges to Meaningful Play — Hoar Program Management, which is overseeing construction projects across Homewood City Schools, selected and funded this grant recipient. Andrea Krueger, Mary Thomas and Emily Wilder will receive building materials for hands-on lessons with science, technology, engineering, art and math. Students will be able to design and build structures while also observing construction work underway at the school.
- Team Up for English — English Language Learners (ELL) teacher Nona Thomas will use her grant to purchase TEAM toolkits, which offer activities to help students in all grade levels with learning, speaking, reading and writing English.
Hall-Kent Elementary
- Outdoor Classroom — Jennifer Cohn, Principal Kiana Coleman and Penny Owens plan to create a sensory outdoor classroom for experiential learning. The grant covers the material costs, but volunteers will create the classroom. It will be maintained by the fifth grade classes and Hall-Kent Helpers program.
- ISME Orton-Gillingham Comprehensive Training for Kindergarten — Hall-Kent's kindergarten teachers will also learn about the Orton-Gillingham method for multi-sensory learning, thanks to this grant application from Abigail Hancock, Kornelia McDaniel, Stephanie Brant, Laura Williamson, Mary Catherine Moore and Donna Firnberg.
Shades Cahaba Elementary
- Summer Reading Grant — The program targets reading intervention and ELL students to prevent loss of reading skills over the summer. Through the grant, Shades Cahaba will provide each student with a "personal library" of books to read and exchange throughout the summer, as well as journaling activities.
Homewood Middle School
- Using IXL in 8th Grade Math and English to Meet Each Student’s Unique Needs — The IXL online learning tool will be used to provide specialized activities for students who are performing below grade level or those who are ready for higher challenges. It is tied to state standards. Eighth grade math, English, ELL and special education teachers will get IXL licenses through the grant, which was written by Kevin Wolfe Hughes, Becky Morton, Georgia Miller, John Cannon, Kaitlyn Gornowicz, Laura Thuirer, Jennifer Powell, Linka Pace, William Mattison and Rae Patterson.
- Exploring History Through Graphic Novels — Desiree Thomas and Jordan Sterley will receive a classroom set of five graphic novels for sixth grade history teachers, as a way to present history in a new way and help struggling readers.
- Virtual Book Club — This club was started in fall 2018 as a way to promote book club participation online for students who may be too busy with extracurriculars to attend club meetings. The grant, written by Leslie Tanner, Erin Meacham and Stacey Browning, provides books for the club's students to use at no cost, and the books will be in the library for general use at other times.
- Empowering English Language Learners for Academic Success — This dual grant for HMS and HHS will pilot an interactive ELL program for reading, writing, speaking and listening. It will also help students prepare for the annual English proficiency test. Claudia Sale-Casolino, Jenny Harvey and Georgia Miller applied for this grant.
Homewood High School
- Updated Technology for the New Chemistry and Physics Labs — As part of the renovation of the high school's chemistry and physics labs, this grant will fund the purchase of digital Probeware tools for monitoring and collecting scientific data. Kelly Reaves, Jenny Firth, Bridges Swift and Victor Nichols applied for this grant.
- Biology Lab Equipment — The biology lab will also be upgraded thanks to Suzanne Eason's grant award, which will purchase beakers and flasks for hands-on activities.