Schools foundation gives record amount of grants for 2019-20

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The Hoover City Schools Foundation this year is giving out a record $64,000 in grants, thanks to successful fundraising initiatives, Executive Director Janet Turner said.

The foundation this year gave out 31 grants totaling $49,380 in its regular round of grant awards, compared to 16 grants totaling $22,000 last year, Turner said.

Additionally, the group is giving out five grants of about $3,000 apiece to groups of teachers and students working on special projects through the foundation’s SeedLAB program.

The record number of grants was made possible primarily because the foundation’s signature fundraising event in April, Denim and Dining, netted more than $50,000 this year, greatly outperforming the previous three years the event has been held, Turner said.

“It was close to double what we had done in the past,” she said.

Plus, the foundation had continued support from the city and corporate donors and a successful “Commit to 36” campaign, in which the foundation asks people to donate $1 for each of the 36 weeks in the school year, Turner said.

Turner said it’s a good thing that fundraising went well because the foundation also had a record number of grant applications this year. There were 89 letters of interest seeking a total of $139,000, she said. The foundation asked 42 of those to submit applications and ended up funding 31 requests.

This year, there were several grant requests from teachers looking for ways to help students who have special sensory needs, such as students on the autism spectrum or other students who need sensory breaks during the day.

Grant money will help pay for things such as a sensory wall, which is a wall decoration with various textures, colors and shapes. The sensory input of looking at or touching the wall can be very calming for some children, allowing them to focus better or relieve stress or anxiety, some pediatric therapists say.

The foundation also had numerous grant requests dealing with robotics and coding. “Coding continues to be a big focus in all grades, K-12,” Turner said.

The SeedLAB program pays for selected teachers to attend a two-day design-thinking workshop during the summer to brainstorm ways to tackle special projects. SeedLAB grant recipients get up to $3,000 to develop and implement their ideas, plus money to cover substitutes for two days during the school year so the teams can spend dedicated time collaborating on their projects.

This year, for the first time, the foundation gave a SeedLAB grant to four members of the foundation’s student board and challenged the students to find ways to encourage others to use social media in a positive way instead of the negative ways that sometimes surface.

A team of teachers from Bluff Park Elementary will try to find ways to help support students who have experienced trauma, such as the loss of a loved one or pet, Turner said. Another team from Bluff Park Elementary is trying to come up with better ways to implement positive behavior intervention strategies.

A team of teachers from Gwin Elementary is working to find ways to help girls with low self-esteem, while another team of teachers from Rocky Ridge Elementary and Hoover High is exploring ways to create a more inclusive school climate that helps all kinds of students feel welcome and valued. For example, the teachers may look for ways to make reading lists and library collections more relevant to students from a variety of cultures, Turner said.

The foundation has allocated $25,000 in total for this year’s SeedLAB program, Turner said.

Here’s a look at the projects that received regular grant money this year.

2019-20 GRANTS

  • Girls Engaged in Math & Science: Led by Geri Evans at Bluff Park Elementary, $2,000 to expose girls to female role models in medicine, technology, engineering, aerospace and other subjects, and involve girls in science, technology, engineering and math activities.
  • Multi-sensory Reading & Language: Led by Miranda Riley at Bluff Park Elementary, $360 to buy a reading program that uses a multi-sensory approach to teach struggling readers.
  • Yes WeDo, with Lego Robotics: Led by Geri Evans at Bluff Park Elementary, $2,000 to help students develop problem-solving skills and use spatial reasoning, math, reading and computer science skills while building and coding robots.
  • Coding with Microbits: Led by Meghan Denson at Brock’s Gap Intermediate, $1,600 to teach coding through the Python computer language and solve real-world problems and gain experience with debugging and text-based programming.
  • Bringing Making and Creating to the Library: Led by Renee Stewart at Brock’s Gap Intermediate, $2,000 to create a Makerspace in the library where kids learn by creating things.
  • Robotics Engineering: Led by Kristi Donald at Bumpus Middle School, $1,980 to use robots to help students with problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration.
  • Full STEAM Ahead: Led by Carol Lollar at Bumpus Middle School, $2,000 for a weather balloon engineering project in which students build and monitor instruments and collect data each day.
  • Wisconsin Fast Plants: The Full Cycle: Led by Austin Wilson at Bumpus Middle School, $2,000 to purchase materials to grow plants quickly so students can observe the life cycle of plants and cross-pollinate plants to see how genes are passed from one generation to the next.
  • Go Code Go: Led by Krista Fehler at Deer Valley Elementary, $2,000 to purchase four robotics kits for K-2 students to learn and strengthen beginning coding and programming skills.
  • Let’s Get Rolling with Coding: Led by Anna Gray Koch at Deer Valley Elementary, $1,400 to buy robots so older students can help younger students learn coding and programming.
  • Anything you can do WeDo better!: Led by Rudy Frey at Deer Valley Elementary, $1,980 to buy five Lego WeDo robotics kits so older student leaders can help introduce K-2 students to coding and robotics.
  • Let your code Sparkle: Led by Jamie Nutter at central office, $2,000 to help students partner with the city of Hoover to program ornaments on the city’s Christmas tree.
  • Putting the E In STEAM: Led by Melissa Willcox at Green Valley Elementary, $2,000 to purchase 12 problem-solving kits and expose students to more engineering opportunities.
  • Sensory Breaks: Led by Lyndsey Baxley at Green Valley Elementary, $2,000 for materials to create an interactive sensory hallway so students can use sight, touch and sound to engage in complex, multistage tasks.
  • All A “Bot” It: Led by Staley McIlwain at Green Valley Elementary, $2,000 to introduce students to coding with a robot that students can program with wooden blocks with barcodes.
  • Battle of the Books: Led by Alisha Chiaramonte at Green Valley Elementary, $2,000 to buy diverse books to expose students to a variety of authors, characters, genres and topics as they play games, answering questions about the books.
  • Brain Buckets: Led by Maria Beard at Greystone Elementary, $1,000 to purchase engaging math, reading, writing and problem-solving activities for students who finish assignments early.
  • Math Madness: Led by Jill Foshee at Gwin Elementary, $750 to engage students in math games before school to build mastery of math facts and strategic and critical thinking.
  • STEAMing Through Robotics: at Gwin Elementary, $2,000 to use robots, Lego sets and other tools to help solve real-world scenarios and demonstrate an understanding of engineering in a fun way.
  • STEAMing with Big Brother: Led by Jasmine Fenderson at Gwin Elementary, $1,930 for a program where fifth-graders use robots to mentor second-graders in problem solving and critical thinking.
  • Close Reading with Microbits: Led by Laura Cater at Gwin Elementary, $1,500 for a program using coding skills to teach students to think deeply about a text and strengthen reading comprehension.
  • BEE-Boting: Led by Aja Ralph at Gwin Elementary, $1,340 for a program where students program robots to help learn about phonics and story sequencing.
  • STEM Skill for Science Data: Led by Janet Ort at Hoover High, $2,000 to buy environmental sensors and components to build low-cost handheld sensors for a pilot study regarding particle pollution and specific pollutants.
  • Create with KIBO: Led by Abra Wallis at Riverchase Elementary, $1,960 to buy a robot that lets early elementary students explore and apply programming skills.
  • Growing Through Sensory Exploration: Led by Katie Thompson at Riverchase Elementary, $1,500 to expand the school garden to include a therapeutic area for sensory exploration.
  • Brainspring Phonics: Led by Catherine Sanford at Rocky Ridge Elementary, $2,000 to purchase additional phonics materials and use multi-sensory techniques to improve reading skills.
  • Start Strong with Phonics: Led by Erica Robinson at Rocky Ridge Elementary, $500 to buy phonemic awareness, phonics and word study games to practice foundational reading skills.
  • Physics of Hot Wheels: Led by Jennifer Bradley at Spain Park High, $350 purchase Hot Wheels tracks and accessories for labs and demonstrations of physics concepts, including speed, velocity, gravity, Newton’s laws, displacement, energy and force.
  • Solder Me Awake: Led by Scottie Wilson at Spain Park High, $1,075 for soldering materials so students can gain a better understanding of computer and electrical engineering, including DC circuits, printed circuit boards, electrical components and schematic drawings.
  • Sensing Our World: Led by Scottie Wilson at Spain Park High, $955 for a project whereby students gain hands-on engineering and computer science experience, creating programs to take measurements and data, using sensors and signal conditioning.
  • Sensory Boards and More!: Led by Ann Elizabeth McInvale at Trace Crossings Elementary, $1,200 to address behavior, occupational therapy and multi-sensory concerns that negatively affect students.