$40,000 Awarded in Classroom Grants in 2014

October 2014
The directors of the Education Foundation for the St. Vrain Valley are very pleased to announce that at its October 28, 2014 board meeting, 64 classroom grants totaling $40,000 were awarded to individual teachers and educational programs throughout the St. Vrain Valley school district.
The grants support a vast array of innovative academic programs including such projects as:
- Spark Discovery Preschool students learning inquiry-based problem solving while studying the life cycle of plants;
- Timberline elementary and middle level students investigating the September 2013 flood and learning from experiments on various aspects of this local disaster;
- Longs Peak middle schoolers learning about engineering design and computer coding by building and operating robots;
- Imagine Charter history students using miniatures to simulate and develop an understanding of WWII battle theories; and
- Frederick High starting a literary magazine where students district-wide can submit their writings for publications. Forty-one (41) elementary, 20 middle and high school, and 3 district-wide programs were awarded grants.
President Eva Gaudio expressed her excitement about the Foundation’s ability to “support teachers across the entire district who are effectively engaging their students through innovative programs focused on increasing academic performance. I am also very pleased that the Elevations Credit Union was able to support financial literacy education at 7 district schools by providing funding for field trips to Young Ameritowne and the Junior Achievement Financial Park at the end of these programs.”
Northridge Elementary principal Lorynda Sampson and her staff were particularly enthusiastic about receiving a number of grants at the celebration. The school received support for programs including an online art gallery, hands-on math manipulatives for preschoolers, and historical and scientific reading materials for English Language Learners. Lorynda thanked the Foundation for its ongoing support of the needs of her students, commenting that “the teachers at our school are working very hard to level the playing field for our high poverty students and support for these programs will really make a difference.”
The Education Foundation extends a special word of thanks to all of the individuals, organizations and businesses in the community that make these grants possible by supporting the work of the Foundation with monetary contributions.