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Boardman teachers receive grant money to help improve classrooms
By TIM CLEVELAND
Four Boardman Schools teachers applied for and received a total of $4,500 in grants from the Boardman Schools Fund for Educational Excellence.
The teachers were each awarded $1,500 in a ceremony Dec. 10 in Superintendent Frank Lazzeri’s office at Center Middle School.
The teachers who received the grant funds were Glenwood Middle School technology teacher Tim Harker, who will purchase LittleBits tools to encourage collaboration, teamwork, problem solving and promote design thinking process; Center Middle School science teachers Whitney Resch and Sharon Carchedi, who will purchase iPads to create a classroom technology learning station; and Stadium Drive Elementary second-grade teacher Brittany Krestel, who will purchase more than 100 audio books for a classroom listening center to improve reading fluency, accuracy rate and voice inflection.
The Boardman Schools Fund for Educational Excellence (BSFEE) has been in existence since 2009 and provides funding for projects to further the educational experience of students. Specifically, the group has an interest in funding projects which “help students develop their talents and interests through the creation of an environment which nurtures high achievement and educational excellence.” The foundation is guided by the Community Foundation of Mahoning Valley.
“The BSFEE began as a means to fund projects that the district cannot afford to fund,” Lazzeri said. “The teacher grant program was initiated because of the Fund Directors’ desire to positively impact as many Boardman students as possible.”
Every September the BSFEE Board sends out an announcement to all teachers asking them to apply for a teacher grant. Lazzeri said every anywhere from 10-25 teachers submit grant applications each grant cycle. A sub-committee of three [BSFEE] board members screen all grant applications and then refer the best three or four applications to the entire nine-member Foundation Board for review. Those three or four teacher grant finalists present to the entire BSFEE Board, who then vote on what grant requests will be funded.
“The Boardman Schools Fund for Educational Excellence helps fund innovative teacher ideas,” Lazzeri said. “With limited school district resources the BSFEE funds these teachers ideas that the district cannot normally afford to fund.”
Lazzeri said the original timeline was to distribute the grant money to the teachers by mid-January.
“However, we have requested the funds from the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley [our umbrella organization] and are hopeful to have the funds distributed before our winter recess,” he said.