ASHLAND — Eleven Ashland county teachers and educators will be receiving some financial help for classroom programs that range from robotics to fine arts, courtesy of the Ashland County Community Foundation’s (ACCF) and the Ashland City School Foundation’s (ACSF) spring mini-grants that were announced on Monday.
ACCF gave out $10,490 to eight educators while ACSF gave $5,559 to three teachers in the city. The full list of grant recipients is below.
Ashland City Schools Foundation grants
- Nancy Boyer, Ashland High School, received a grant for “Visiting Artists at Ashland City Schools Fine Arts Show.”
- Neil Ebert, Ashland High School, received a grant for “Professional Musician Residency.”
- BreAnn Fennell, Reagan Elementary School, received a grant for “Zooming to the Zoo in Third Grade.”
Ashland County Community Foundation grants
- Steve Coffey, Mapleton Middle School, received a grant for “I Robot- Making the Ultimate Robot.”
- Laura Galleher, Edison Elementary School, received a grant for “Self-Regulation Tools for Students with Special Needs.”
- Shari Harlan, Edison Elementary School, received a grant for “We Love Books!”
- Amy Nelson, Ashland Middle School, received a grant for “The Collaborative Classroom.”
- Shelby Pummell, Edison Elementary School, received a grant for “Social Emotional Learning.”
- Monica Ralph, Mapleton Middle School, received a grant for “Students Making an Improved Learning Environment – S.M.I.L.E.”
- Whitney Snyder, Loudonville High School, received a grant to update the eighth grade English Language Arts classroom library.
- Bryan Spade, Mapleton Elementary School, received a grant for “Ready… VEX GO!”
One of this round’s mini-grant recipients, Mapleton Middle School teacher Steve Coffey, plans to use his grant money to allow his students to design, build, and program robots.
Students will be able to use over 160 mechanical parts and 80 types of electronic modules to build “anything they can imagine,” according to Coffey’s grant application.
They’ll also have a chance to learn two programming languages that are taught at Mapleton High School and command the robots with simple drag-and-drop functions.
Every September and January, the foundations accept mini-grant applications from local teachers who need money to pay for classroom projects that aren’t covered by K-12 budgets, ACCF communications director Courtney McNaull said.
The only requirements for the program are being a teacher in Ashland County and filling out an application. Once the applications deadline passes, the foundations reach out to applicants with any questions they have about what the teachers will use the grant money for.
After that, a committee made up of ACCF trustees, staff, community members and educators decide who will receive a grant and how much they’ll get, McNaull said.
Then all that’s left is telling the teachers.
“(The educators) are really excited when they find out that they have received a grant to be able to do these things that can really provide kind of those aha moments for students and the kinda things that a student might remember throughout their educational career or may even spark them onto what they might wanna do in the future with their lives,” McNaull said.
