Public Education Partners awards teaching grants

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Public Education Partners awarded $24,000 to educators to fund nine Quality Teaching Grants for the 2019-2020 school year, along with two Mullins Grants for Quality Teaching.

“The purpose of our grants programs at PEP is to ensure we are helping provide resources for innovative classroom instruction, and to support administrators and schools in teacher retention and recruitment efforts,” Julie Smart, member of PEP’s board of directors and head of the grants committee, said in a news release.

The Building STEAM grant supports projects that incorporate aspects of science, technology, engineering, arts or mathematics. This year, seven projects were selected, representing elementary, middle and high schools and centers across Greenville County.

The winning Building STEAM submissions are:

• “Robo Revolution: Students will learn to compete in teams in various robotics engineering challenges,” by Chris Beyerle, Fisher Middle School.
• “FBLA/Special Education Joint Venture: To learn effective business strategies and skills that will be beneficial in the future,” by Kim Black and Angela Blakely, Sevier Middle School.
• “Innovative Photographic Surface Designs on Metals, Fabric, Paper,” by Katy Cassell, Zane Logan and Donna Shank, Fine Arts Center.
• “The Hovercraft Project: Building a fleet of fully functional, safe and reusable hovercrafts,” by Julie Cooke, Lake Forest Elementary School.
• “Ed (rone) ucation: Drone project to assist in designing campus improvements,” by Luke Drevets, Woodmont High School.
• “This Research is Full of STEAM: Project emphasizes traditional scientific research in the classroom,” by Monica Hughey, Berea Middle School.
• “Piloting Promotion with UAVs,” by James Willey, Wade Hampton High School.

The Mullins Grant for Quality Teaching supports schools as they create and pursue school-wide efforts to increase the likelihood of teachers returning to the same teaching site the following year. The winning submissions for the Mullins Grant for Quality Teaching are:

• “Stop, Collaborate and Listen: To help increase teacher's knowledge of social and emotional learning,” by Julie Cooke, principal of Lake Forest Elementary School.
• “Compassionate Educators Inspiring Excellence: Teachers participating in Compassionate Schools training and how it will support teacher retention,” by Adrienne Davenport, principal of Bryson Middle School.