School foundation to consider grant proposals

The Clovis Municipal Schools Foundation is preparing to award its first round of teacher grants for the 2008-2009 school year.

The foundation’s board of directors will hear the grant subcommittee’s presentation Nov. 11.

Clovis schools superintendent Rhonda Seidenwurm, who holds the position of secretary on the board, said the foundation awards grants to  encourage alternative teaching methods.

“The grants are meant to fund innovative classroom activities that are above and beyond the district’s budget,” she said. “It gets teachers to think out of the box.”

The foundation is privately funded by community donations.

Seidenwurm said the foundation received donations ranging between $1,000 and $15,000 for its first year, but is planning a more public campaign.

Last year, a team of teachers at Yucca Middle School received $2,779 for an Archeology on the Eastern Plains project.

Tresa Pond, one of the teachers on the team, said the foundation offers teachers the opportunity to teach lessons in different teaching styles.

“Students learn in different ways,” she said. “Having the opportunity to take the students out of the classroom is helpful.”

Pond said that the archeology project incorporated history, science, English and some math. The grant proposal outlined how the team of teachers planned to integrate each of the subjects into the project. The grant funds paid for trips to the Blackwater Draw dig site and the Natural History Museum at Eastern New Mexico University, as well as for equipment such as fossil sets for science classes.

“We had hoped to create our own dig site with the fossils, but the people at Blackwater Draw created a simulated dig site so the kids could see how it’s done,” she said.

The CMS Foundation will review a second set of grant proposals next year, with a deadline of April 1.