Grant: DHS Robotics-$10,000
Campus: Dickinson High School
Director of Project: Sara Malloy
DHS Advanced Engineering students are transitioning to a new program this fall. A fraction of the funding is being used to provide needed equipment for the engineering shop as well as provide a secure tool cabinet for the equipment so that it can be used year after year. The majority of the funds are being used for four robotics team registration through VEX EDR Robotics program, four tournament competition registrations for each team, transportation and supplies. Any remaining funds will be used to support spring student competitions and supplies for individual research projects that focus on engineering design.
Grant: School Wide Literacy
Campus: Lobit Education Village- $10,000
Director of Project: Saleena Butler, Ana Fontaine, Marciela Guerrero, Misty Magliolo, Meghan O’Neal, Katie Schimek, D’Ann Schneider, LaWanda Williams
Literacy Saves Lives: One reader at a Time; is a school-wide literacy program created by Lobit Education Village Academic coaches to improve the academic performance of students in all content areas through literacy instruction.
Grant: Girl Powered Robotics-$5,000
Campus: McAdams Junior High
Director: Heather Jones
MJHS would like to be part of a movement country wide to “smash stereotypes” and recruit more girls to be in STEM through creating a strong “girl powered” robotics team. They would like to create teams that are welcoming to girls, expand the program with a certain population in mind.
Grant: Top 20 Graduates Banquet/Celebration- $3,500
Campus: Dickinson High School
Director of Project: Angela Estes
Congratulate and celebrate with the Dickinson High School top 20 graduates for their hard work and dedication and reward their achievement with a dinner. We will celebrate with the graduate a special teacher that has touched them during their time at Dickinson ISD, as well as their parents, and administrators.
Grant: Character Education- $1,000
Campus: DALC
Director of Project: Kimberly Hagler, Raefernette Saxton, Celeste Stephenson
This program is a powerful teen drama DVD series that examines depression, bullying, dating violence, addiction and other painful troubles many teens suffer. It’s a program that will be an addition to our Why Try (Character Education). These programs are needed to help young adolescents discover that they have the power and the responsibility to make the right choices for themselves.
Grant: Gator Girls Who Code- $1,000
Campus: Calder Road
Director of Project: Jennifer Reid and Angie Aguilera
We are eager to expand our extremely successful robotics program here at Calder. Our 3rd and 4th grade Calderbots have dominated Dickinson ISD robotics competitions and have even won first and second place at a Houston Area EARLY Robotics tournament. For the past four years we have really invested and purposefully developed a culture where science is cool for girls and that has really bled into our younger grades. It is so exciting to hear first and second graders asking about our robotics team and setting goals to join when they get into higher grades. Being a part of the Calderbot team has inspired all of our members to apply for STEM program at Barber and most are accepted in.
Grant: Imagination Station- $1,000
Campus: Bay Colony
Director of Project: Becky Snyder
Markerspaces are the current innovation in libraries, both school and public. These are areas with a wide variety of activities to promote logic, problem solving, and creative thinking. The materials requested would be used by students before school. I also plan to work with the staff so that students could use the area during the school day as enrichment or a reward. If there is interest also an after school group could be started too.
Grant: K.E. Little Math Game Night- $1,000
Campus: K.E. Little
Director of Project: Courtney Mull
A math night for parents and students of K.E. Little Elementary School. There are frequently parents asking what they can do with their child to help them with their math. While studying math facts is a huge help, there are other ways that are fun and engaging for the whole family. Courtney would like to put together a math night for all grade levels at K.E. Little.
Grant: Lobit Listeners!- $1,000
Campus: Lobit Elementary School
Director of Project: Sarah Bradford
In order to effectively implement daily guided reading instruction and literacy workstations, we need the resources to support our balanced literacy program. Our goal is for very First Grade classroom to implement good guided reading instruction with purposeful literacy workstations. To support our goals, we are requesting funding for a listening station in all First Grade classrooms. We would like to extend this station work by providing opportunities for students to hear community member and local celebrities read books aloud by recording them. For this project we are also requesting a voice recorder.
Grant: Math and Science Interactive Read Alouds $1,000
Campus: Silbernagel Elementary
Director of Project: Caitlin Otten
There are very few interactive read aloud for science and math. Studies shows IRAs have been successful in the guided reading program. Since nonfiction is a huge genre in third grade it would be beneficial to introduce IRAs during science and math. Hoping this not only brings up our nonfiction test scores, but also the love for reading.
Grant: A 3-D Perspective- $1,000
Campus: Barber Middle School
Director of Project: Callie Harmon
This school year the STEM Academy has been given the opportunity to have a 3-D printer for our students to use during the year. While this is a very generous opportunity, the use of filament (what make the 3-D items) is expensive, clear in color and also requires a great amount to be used when our students print their items.
Grant: Building Critical Thinkers- $1,000
Campus: Dunbar Middle School
Director of Project: Sharon Boudreaux
Students will develop critical thinking while playing tic tac toe relay while also increasing their cardio endurance. Students will develop thinking quickly/running faster, trust, problem solving, nonverbal communication skills, teamwork all while using strategies and analyzing solutions.
Grant: Mentors to Success! -$1,000
Campus: San Leon Elementary School
Director of Project: Denise Daniel and Tina Burkhardt
Daily implementation of reading workshop is DISD’s top priority in literacy. Within the workshop model, is mini lessons and interactive read aloud, in which mentor texts are utilized. Mentor texts provide the teacher and students a text that is vocabulary rich and engaging enough to support rereading them multiple times. In studying how authors have conveyed ideas through analysis of mentor text including word choice, text structure, and point of view, there is no better way to teach reading skills that to use mentor texts which focuses on building these components, and coupling them with comprehension strategies/skills to be lifelong learners. Writing standards emphasize task, purpose and audience as well as application of revision and editing to improve writing throughout all grade levels. Reading and Writing standards can be addressed through the use of mentor texts. San Leon Elementary School would like to utilize a mentor text set for K-1 teachers to improve students reading and engagement.
Grant: Leviacon - $1,000
Campus: Lobit Middle School
Director of Project: Sheri Howard
We want to hold a comicon type convention for one day to celebrate reading-especially the graphic novel and science fiction genres. We will also incorporate science by having students create or participate in activities showing the science behind super powers and science fiction technology.
Grant: Preparing for 21st Century - $1,000
Campus: Hughes Road Elementary
Director of Project: Robert Seals
Scott McLeod, Associate Professor at University of Kentucky explained 21st century teaching with a line from Mission Impossible “Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to take education truly into the 21st century. Technically it is the 21st century, but our schools are not there, and our challenge is to reinvent our schools-for the sake of our children, our students and the welfare of our world.” Not only are we as educators charged with preparing our students and schools for the 21st century, we must prepare ourselves as teachers to teach to and for the future. Part of that important step is to become familiar and be able to use technology effectively in the classroom. Of equal importance is the fact that more and more of our world are being directed to become a paperless environment.
In addition we are a Title 1 school with a large population of economically disadvantaged students. Many of these students are not exposed to technology except at school. Even with the students that are exposed, many do not know how to use technology to enhance their education. Teachers need to know how to train kids to have the skills needed in the digital world; students need to know how to communicate using multiple media; they need to know how to read and write from the web. By incorporating the iPad in classes, students will learn innovate ways to utilize technology and see it first hand by my application of technology in the classrooms.
Grant: Building Literacy with Your Books - $1,000
Campus: Dickinson High School
Director of Project: Kristle Steele
We need consumable novel funds for Reading I and Reading II. This will include metal book shelves and eBooks or audible books at student request. Reading coursework at Dickinson High School offers students the chance to change the trajectory of their lives. We don’t worry about students just passing their tests; we worry about students giving up on what they can do as citizens in our community.
Grant: MJHS Dance Mirrors ON WHEELS - $1,000
Campus: McAdams Junior High
Director of Project: Brittany Wright and Jonahira Cordero
The MJHS dance room (D104) has dance floors, but no mirrors. It is very hard for beginner dancers to learn or correct proper body alignment on their own without a mirror. A mirror can help the dancer visually see how they are moving and prevent injuries. With mirrors in the dance room, 7th and 8th grade students can excel in their dance technique and prepare themselves for high school. Students have a hard time finding a passion or activities they can “join”, this is a great experience to help them explore their opportunities.
Grants Awarded Total: $41,500