[May 18, 2013] Nonprofit surprises Kerrville teachers with $24,000 in classroom grants Tweet May 18, 2013 (Kerrville Daily Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Eight Kerrville school teachers were surprised Friday when representatives from the Kerrville Public School Foundation interrupted their classes to hand out more than $24,000 in grants for the teachers to use for classroom projects and teacher training not funded by the Kerrville Independent School District general operating budget. "Thank you so much; I'm so excited, I appreciate it so much," said Marilyn Mitchell, a Tom Daniel's Elementary teacher who, along with some of her third-graders, was presented with a $1,191 grant by KPSF representatives during classtime on Friday morning. Mitchell's students erupted with enthusiastic choruses of "Yay" and "Thank you." Mitchell will use the funds to send a team of third-graders to compete in a Lego League robotics competition in San Antonio. The funds will cover transportation, T-shirts and some needed materials. Mitchell's robotics students have been building and programing lego robots using kits bought with a separate $2,500 grant from Time Warner Cable. She said each of her robotics students has learned two or three different programs. The spatial and logical reasoning required to program a robot travel in a circle is quite difficult, Mitchell said. She said boys generally exhibit more advanced spatial reasoning than girls, but she said giving the girls a head start really paid off. "I was so proud of the girls," Mitchell said. "By the time our robots have arrived ... it was so exciting to see the girls step up and really take charge." Mitchell runs the Challenge lab at Tom Daniels. When a three- five-year-old child demonstrates mastery of a subject area in a class, he or she is sent to the lab for further learning, rather than continually provided with lower level coursework. The labs, which exist on every elementary campus, also are used to incentivize and reward learning and are not used in tabulating final grades, said Jamie Fails, KISD spokeswoman. Mitchell said this year's crop of students challenged her to find something hands-on, which led to the robotics activities. Fails said the grant money is much appreciated during a time of less state funding, which has many teachers using their own money to buy classroom materials. Other KPSF grant awardees this year include: --$2,990 to Peggy Thompson, to use in sending every 4th grader at KISD on field trips to the Kerrville Riverside Nature Center year-round. --Two grants to Christi Ahern; $1,298 to buy books tailored to the reading levels and interests of those sixth graders at BT Wilson who are behind in reading skills, and $1,191 for handheld electronic dictionaries. The dictionaries can find the definitions of words students can't quite spell. Recent changes in standardized tests allow students to use dictionaries during these exams. --$2,514 to Holly Brite to fund professional development courses for math teachers at Nimitz Elementary. --$777 to Martin Lenard, for the purchase of CDs used to instruct band students ages six to eight in proper tone quality specific to each instrument. --$4,985 to Rebecca Huchton, for supplemental science curriculum materials. --$5,000 to Jessica Cowart, to fund science programs for high school students involving the testing of soil and water. McCullough said some local government entities involved in soil and water protection may make use of tests conducted by these students. --$3,500 to Kelly Wedding, for the purchase of toys used to teach physics concepts such as electrostatics to kids of high school age. The largest donations to KPSF this year came from the payroll donations from KISD staff and sponsors of the recent KPSF Great Duck Race Weekend, said Barbara Johnston, KPSF executive director. Other large donors include the Nelson Puett Foundation, Ray C. Fish Foundation, MG Building Materials, Wells Fargo Bank and Time Warner Cable. "I'm very honored to be in a position where I can take the generous donations of our community and our district and be able to put those in the classroom," said Denise McCullough, KPSF vice president of programs and allocations. "It impacts every kid in KISD, which is a really neat thing we can do." The foundation, a nonprofit established about 25 years ago, has generally disbursed about $25,000 in grant money each year to Kerrville ISD programs and teachers, McCullough said. The foundation's 15-member volunteer board is composed of volunteers, some of whom have kids taught by KISD. The group, whose maxim is "Stronger Minds, Brighter Future," offers financial assistance not available through state or local funding. For more information about the foundation, contact Johnston at [email protected] or 257-9282. ___ (c)2013 the Kerrville Daily Times (Kerrville, Texas) Visit the Kerrville Daily Times (Kerrville, Texas) at www.dailytimes.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]