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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Cook Center for Human Connection Offers up to $100,000 in Matching Grants for School Calm Rooms

Salt Lake City — The Cook Center for Human Connection, a nonprofit dedicated to mental health and suicide prevention, launched today at the Mental Health Summit, co-hosted with the America Association of School Administrators, the Calm Room Grant to enable schools to create an in-school safe space for students to reset when they feel anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, angry, or frustrated.

The Cook Center is offering a nationwide matching grant of up to $5,000 per school for up to 20 schools to create a Calm Room in their building. A calm room is a supportive therapeutic environment for students to go where they can focus on self-calming efforts and learn to self-regulate their bodies and their emotions. An important component of an overall mental health approach, calm rooms feature quiet spaces with low-stimulation decor and fixtures, soft furniture and carpet, and other materials that reduce stress and foster positive coping techniques.

“More and more schools are developing calm rooms as part of a strategy to improve student well-being based on new psychological research,” said Cook Center CEO Anne Brown. “We are thrilled to offer the grant program to expand these efforts to more schools across the country and help them address student mental health, which has become one of the most critical issues of our time.”…Read More

Fill personnel gaps with federal grants

Hiring additional reading and math coaches, counselors, school psychologists, and other support staff is a key strategy for meeting students’ academic and social-emotional learning needs.

When school systems use federal funding for personnel expenses, they must have a plan in place for tracking and reporting the time and effort that employees spend on grant-funded activities to protect current and future student support funding.

Join eSchool News and a panel of experts, including Kecia Ray, Ed.D, and Janet Hagood of Jefferson County Schools, to learn best practices and key strategies for completing this process successfully in your own district.…Read More

How federal grants can help staff your schools

Using federal funding for personnel expenses can seem daunting, but it can in fact be manageable with the right knowledge and tools in place.

Hiring additional reading and math coaches, counselors, school psychologists, and other support staff is a key strategy for meeting students’ academic and social-emotional learning needs.

When school systems use federal funding for personnel expenses, they must have a plan in place for tracking and reporting the time and effort that employees spend on grant-funded activities to protect current and future student support funding.…Read More

Dollar General Literacy Foundation Makes Nearly $5 Million Investment in Literacy Solutions Following New Research Report

Goodlettsville, Tennessee – March 31, 2022 – The Dollar General Literacy Foundation (DGLF) announced a commitment of approximately $5 million in grants to five national organizations working to address the critical literacy needs identified in its new State of American Literacy Report released today. The grant recipients, including Save the Children, The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, DonorsChoose, Discovery Education and the Children’s Defense Fund, are focused on advancing literacy instruction and access, developing learning tools and technology and providing professional development for instructors.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has set back many in their education and literacy learning efforts and threatens to deepen the literacy crisis,” said Denine Torr, executive director of the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and vice president of corporate social responsibility at Dollar General. “We know the devastating impacts of low literacy on an individual’s quality of life – limiting opportunities for advancement in the workforce, access to higher education, engagement in civic activity, and even effects on health. Through our research we are better able to understand the needs of the field and empower teachers, students and communities to harness the power of literacy and education at this critical juncture.”

State of American Literacy Report Findings…Read More

Vernier Software & Technology Names the Winners of Its 40th Anniversary Educator Grants

BEAVERTON, Oregon, December 13, 2021 — Vernier Software & Technology has named the 40 recipients of its 40th anniversary educator grants. The grantees—who represent a range of grade levels and geographic regions—will each receive $1,000 in Vernier technology of their choosing, a one-year subscription to Vernier Graphical Analysis Pro, and three hours of virtual professional development to further support their teaching.

“With more than 800 total submissions, we were truly blown away by the response we received from educators,” said John Wheeler, CEO of Vernier Software & Technology. “For 40 years, Vernier Software & Technology has supported hands-on science exploration, and we are excited to now support these 40 educators—from five elementary schools, eight middle schools, 23 high schools, and four colleges—as they use data-collection technology with their students.”

All the grantees were chosen by a volunteer Grantee Selection Committee, which consisted of current science and STEM educators, consultants, and members of the Vernier tech support team who are former educators. The committee selected the grantees based on various factors, including plans for implementing the Vernier technology and current needs of their school.  …Read More

National Park Foundation Provides Grants to Support National Park Service Education Programs During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

32 Parks Receive Funding to Pilot Hybrid Learning with Students 

WASHINGTON (April 20, 2021) — Students nationwide will be able to experience national parks in new and exciting ways, thanks to the National Park Foundation’s (NPF) Open OutDoors for Kids Hybrid Learning grant program. NPF is awarding grants to 32 National Park Service (NPS) sites and their partners to implement or enhance innovative distance learning programs to better serve educators and students, especially in under-resourced communities. 

“National parks are America’s largest classrooms, and the National Park Foundation is committed to helping students, teachers, and families navigate learning during the pandemic and beyond,” said National Park Foundation President and CEO Will Shafroth. “From green time to screen time to family time, the National Park Foundation is helping the National Park Service and parks community engage students with educational opportunities across the country.”  

With more than 400 parks across all fifty states and the U.S. territories, the NPS traditionally hosts more than 60,000 in-park and distance learning education programs annually, serving over 1.8 million students.  …Read More

Osmo Announces $2,000 Mini-Grants to Outfit Classrooms with Osmo’s Award-Winning Educational Technology

Osmo for Schools, in partnership with Osmo Cares, the charitable arm of award-winning STEAM brand Osmo, announces one-time mini-grants consisting of $2000 worth of Osmo for Schools’ educational technology.  A total of 20 in-kind mini-grants will be awarded to schools in time for the Fall 2021 semester.

“Osmo for Schools is so thrilled to offer 20 mini-grants for the first time ever,” says Jan Richards, head of education sales and marketing at Osmo for Schools, the division of Tangible Play that promotes in-classroom usage of Osmo’s devices. “We know there are many schools across the country which lack needed funding to purchase educational technology, so we decided to give 20 schools a gift. Their students and teachers will have something to look forward to when they return to in-person learning this fall.” 

Grant application will be open to public schools in the United States desiring to outfit a classroom with Osmo’s award-winning STEAM technology. Mini-grant recipients will be able to choose from a selection of Osmo for Schools products; only one recipient will be selected per school. Schools must already have appropriate tablets on hand, or a plan to purchase them–they are not included as part of the mini-grant.…Read More

Rosetta Stone Announces Winners of the Emergent Bilingual Educators of the Year Award Program

Rosetta Stone Inc. announced the 10 winners in its first Emergent Bilingual Educators of the Year award program. A total of $20,000 in grant donations and $75,000 in subscriptions to the Rosetta Stone® English for Education language learning program were awarded to teachers of English learners (EL).

Victor Machado, an ESL teacher at East Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, won the $10,000 grand prize, along with a schoolwide semester’s subscription to Rosetta Stone English. The two runners-up are Timothy McGrath and Virginia Valdez. McGrath is a K-5 ELL teacher at West View Elementary School, a small inner-city school in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Valdez is a kindergarten teacher at Minnie Mars Jamieson Elementary at Chicago Public Schools. Each won $5,000 grants as well as the schoolwide semester’s subscription to Rosetta Stone English.

Machado was nominated by the Bilingual Department Chairperson Brian Donovan who submitted an essay describing how Machado helps his students. Donovan wrote of Machado: “He is able to synthesize all the tools required to educate a student and turn his class into a fun engaging ESL lab, where technology is used to leverage student achievement and where students take ownership of their education.”…Read More