Photo Courtesy of Tait Stoddard.
Students at Liberty Park Middle School experimentwith a weather balloon. The project was funded by agrant from the Vestavia Hills City Schools Foundation.
Setting yet another record, the Vestavia Hills City Schools Foundation awarded $142,170 in grants to Vestavia Hills schools this year.
“The [investment] market has been fantastic, so it [the amount of money given] has been going up and up,” said Tait Stoddard, executive director of the foundation.
The money comes from the interest earned on the foundation’s endowment fund, Stoddard said.
A committee receives grant applications from Oct. 1 through the first Friday of December and then chooses which ones to approve. This year, 31 of 39 grant applications were approved, Stoddard said.
The foundation began in 1996 and awarded its first grant in 1999, she said. Each year, the money helps turn teachers’ dreams and needs into reality.
“These teachers have fantastic ideas,” Stoddard said. “We are a way for them to execute those ideas with the extra funding. We fill those gaps.”
During the 2018-19 school year, grants went toward professional development, Google Chromebooks, a weather balloon, volcano projects and other unique ideas at each school. By far the largest request was library books, needed with the conversion of all elementary schools to become K-5 schools, Stoddard said.
About $110,000 was given last year, and with the roughly $142,000 given this year, the foundation has now awarded almost $1.2 million in its history to Vestavia schools.
This year’s grants will pay for:
► IPads and a MacBook Air for the gifted program at each school
► Student podcast equipment for Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights (VHECH)
► Math manipulatives at VHECH
► Library materials at Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge
► A STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) project to create interactive communication boards using Makey Makey and Scratch
► 24 Chromebooks
► A Vex IQ robotics kit
► Seven Lego WeDo Education sets for Vestavia Hills Elementary East (VHEE)
► A new iPad lab for VHEE kindergarten classes
► A Sphero Bolt power pack
► A Do-It-Yourself and Design Tower Garden and STEAM project for Liberty Park Middle School (LPMS)
► A weather balloon project at LPMS
► A water project for Pizitz Middle School
► A digital media class at Pizitz that includes a literary magazine and broadcast ensemble
► Library materials at the new ninth-grade campus
► Lighting and sound equipment for the ninth-grade campus band room
► An acoustic shell for the choral department
► A new iPad lab for Vestavia Hills High School (VHHS)
► A ceramic studio at VHHS
► Expanded math instruction using Bridges in Mathematics for Vestavia Hills Elementary West (VHEW)
► A Swivl Robot for VHEW
► Professional development for VHEW
► The Leader in Me initiative for Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park
► Rebel Tech Gear
► Summer professional development, Do-It-Yourself professional collaboration and a Teacher Leader cohort
► A WEVideo subscription for all students and teachers in grades 6-12.
