From Gina Welsh
Marketing Coordinator, Santa Fe TX Education Foundation
If you build it, they will come.
Teachers and students in Santa Fe ISD are realizing this after being awarded with $47,000 in classroom grants on Friday during their annual Grant Parade. Donors, Santa Fe TX Education Foundation board members, the Santa Fe High School drum line, and Santa and his Elf shuttled to and paraded though all five campuses where the hallways were lined with students waiting to see if their teacher would be a grant recipient.
The Education Foundation will celebrate their 10-year anniversary in 2020 and their mission has always been to fund innovative programs in Santa Fe ISD. The Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization dependent upon support of businesses and the community to directly support the teachers, staff, and students in Santa Fe ISD through Grants for Great Ideas and Classroom Wish Lists.
Friday, December 13th, the Santa Fe TX Education Foundation surprised four teachers, for a little over $10,000, at Santa Fe High School for projects such as an operation observation/planetarium and a hydroponic garden. “I am honored to be awarded with a SFTX Education Foundation and have already started collaborating with Math and Science teachers on how we will integrate the Breakout Boxes into our daily curriculum,” said Instructional Coach and STREAM Team Leader Heather Brown. “The boxes and aligned curriculum will be available to all teachers on campus to offer opportunities for critical thinking, problem solving, and engaging learning experiences to our students.”
Santa Fe Junior High received over $9700 in grants for robotics, a ceramics program, and break out boxes.
“The grant received for Robotics by the Education Foundation will make a tremendous difference for our program,” said Kayla Platt, Teacher and Robotics coach. “Not only will it allow us to expand the program to reach more students, it will give us the ability to purchase much needed equipment to give us competitive edge at the tournaments. We cannot express our gratitude enough for the much needed funds! Thank you, Santa Fe Texas Education Foundation!”
Kubacak Elementary received the most grants for a total of seven at over $17,000. These include a range of abilities for our special needs students, virtual reality goggles, break out boxes, Ozobots, library books, clay for art students, and innovative P.E. equipment.
RJ Wollam Elementary received over $5,000 for D.A.R.E. Materials, library books, and a building language photo library. From Teacher Krystal Ostermayer, “It was such an honor to receive this grant,” said teacher Krystal Ostemayer. “The readers will be used to help students build their language vocabulary by connecting real life pictures to printed words.”
Barnett Elementary, Santa Fe ISD’s newest campus, received nearly $4,000 for ukuleles for music classes and library books.
It is important to us as an Education Foundation to invest in these students. Santa Fe has deep roots with many alumni raising their children here and we want to grow leaders for our future generations. We are so proud to give back to the Santa Fe schools, it’s what we do.
