The Longview ISD Foundation handed out more than $35,000 in grant funding Wednesday for various education initiatives.
Foundation director Kay Ray awarded 18 Great Rewards for Great Ideas grants to teachers totaling $30,518 and $4,976 worth of Campus Initiative Grants to principals.
The programs fund items not included in the district’s operating budget.
Great Rewards for Great Ideas Grant Program
Grant winners received funding from the Longview ISD Foundation ranging from $100 to $2,500 for innovative classroom projects and programs that will enhance the quality of education for all students in Longview ISD.
This year, the twenty-second anniversary of the Great Rewards for Great Ideas Program, $49,605.93 was requested through 26 grant applications. The Foundation funded 18 grants totaling $30,518.56. The Foundation funded 13 elementary grants for a total of $24,110.41 and 5 secondary grants for a total of $6,408.15.
Since the beginning of the Great Rewards for Great Ideas Program in 1996, the Foundation has funded 644 grants totaling $656,613.20. These grants have enhanced Longview ISD’s academic programs as well as music, art, technology, counseling and guidance, career education, health and physical education, and character education programs.
For the complete list of this year’s grant recipients, visit the Longview ISD Foundation’s website at LISDfoundation.org and click on Great Rewards for Great Ideas on the menu bar at the top of the page.
Campus Initiative Grant Program
Working with Sue Wilson, the principal of Hudson PEP Elementary School, Janet Adams, counselor at Hudson PEP Elementary School, applied for and received funding for an initiative unique to the Hudson PEP campus. The initiative funded complements and aligns with the school’s Campus Improvement Plan and the District Improvement Plan.
Mrs. Adams received $2,530.00 for her grant titled “FOCUS.” Aligned with the district’s goals of meeting state standards and improving performance at the state level in math and science, this grant is designed to improve students’ attention and attention stamina, develop memory skills, working memory, and spatial memory, and improve auditory processing that increase the ability to follow directions.
During the first two weeks of school, Mrs. Adams will identify students who will benefit from the FOCUS program. This program will directly affect students with focusing issues, teaching them to begin tasks, maintain focus on tasks, and complete tasks on time. Students who can achieve these skills will also improve their memory and self-esteem, allowing them to achieve success.
Indirectly, Mrs. Adams believes this program will affect classroom teachers who will then spend less class time redirecting unfocused students and reteaching them. The materials to be used, Play Attention, were invented by a classroom teacher to help his own students who believed that children can improve their attention, cognitive abilities, and behavioral problems. Mrs. Adams plans to expand this program in coming years to help more children.
Denise Frederick, principal of Johnston-McQueen Elementary School, applied for and received $2,446.90 for an initiative unique to her campus. The initiative funded complements and aligns with the school’s Campus Improvement Plan and the District Improvement Plan.
Mrs. Frederick is on a mission to make all students at the campus become life-long readers. Having received a grant in 2015 to develop a reading culture on the Johnston-McQueen campus by transforming the campus library, this grant provides more funding to transform a traditional library into one that is a relevant, vibrant hub for today’s learners by creating learning zones based on Thornburg’s Primordial Learning Metaphors for 21st Century Learners.
The purpose of the grant, “If You Give a Child a Space, You Launch a Life-long Reader,” is to create a library space, a pre-kindergarten/kindergarten zone that will capture the eye’s delight and provide young children comfortable seating and a broad diversity of books and activities they can explore and enjoy. This campus grant will be unique to Johnston-McQueen Elementary School because it will provide a differentiated, collaborative reading zone for the school’s youngest readers on a campus with a traditional school program.
Through the special reading zone and fifty-two new library books, the initiative will encourage reading readiness and development as measured by the Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI), increase book circulation among pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students, and establish an anchor resource for a future family literacy center.
Since 2008, the Longview ISD Foundation, Inc. has funded 27 campus grants for a total of $70,735.
