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Education Foundation Hands Out Project Grants

Posted on: Monday, 13 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Daniel Perry, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas

Mar. 13--McALLEN -- City students in the upcoming months will visit a chicken farm, make their own shoes and create compasses.

The trips and activities will be done because of 11 McAllen Education Foundation Inc. grants recently awarded to educators at nine McAllen school district campuses. The foundation gave out more than $27,900 for use in the present school year and the 2006-07 academic year.

The foundation is a nonprofit organization affiliated with the school district that began handing out money to worthy teacher and campus-driven projects since the 1996-97 school year. The foundation is made of an 18-member board of local education supporters.

"We don't know what projects are coming in from the teachers," said Stephen Crain, a McAllen attorney, board president and fund-raising committee member. "The ranking committee ranks the projects by interest and then we look at how much money we raised. We just go down the line until the money we raised is used."

The largest amount went to the McAllen school district's Instruction and Guidance Center, which will spend $5,000 on flowers, shovels, hoes and other items for a gardening project aimed at teaching relaxation and teamwork.

Ann Allen and Kay Grier, eighth-grade teachers at Cathey Middle School, will use the foundation's smallest award of $282.50 to go toward a student field trip to Austin this spring.

Memorial High School communication graphics teacher Regina Reyna and home economics instructor Maggie Treu received $4,337 for a blanket and graphics project about 150 students will be part of this November and December. The blankets will be 5 feet long and 5 feet wide and contain photographs and custom-made graphics. The initial goal is to complete 25 blankets for children stricken with cancer.

"I would hope they (students) take from this some insight on other children's challenges and opportunities that may be less fortunate than they are and allow them to utilize the skills and knowledge they learn in our classes in a creative way," Reyna said.

This is the second consecutive foundation grant Reyna has won. Last year she received financial help for a project enabling students to design graphics to put on top of cakes.

Next year's second-graders at Roosevelt Elementary School on the city's south side, along with their parents, will participate in a program called "Three for the Road: Families and Students Together." The initiative involves parents working with their children at home improving reading skills by using journals and hand puppets. The school will spend $4,440 on pens, English and Spanish language books, paper and other materials.

Anna Barreda, Roosevelt's literacy coach, said first-graders have become familiar with ways to improve their reading skills this year. She said she wants the students to continue their work next year.

This is the first year Roosevelt has received a foundation grant. Barreda said the money helps implement ideas staff members learn about at conferences or in education periodicals.

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Daniel Perry covers Edinburg, education and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4454. For this and other stories, visit www.themonitor.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Monitor (McAllen, Texas)

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