Thanks for your hard work! Bolivar is proud of our Teachers!

Most of the foundation-funded projects use new techniques or tools to help engage students in learning. Thirteen teachers applied for grants. Their applications were evaluated by a district curriculum committee and then by a foundation committee.

“It has to be something innovative or creative that they think is going to bring systemic change into the classroom,” said Julie Schmid, executive director of the foundation.

Two teachers from Crenshaw Elementary and Middle School — Lisa Gibson and Vince Beck — earned grants for math and language arts programs, respectively. Gibson, head of the school’s math department, received a grant for a program that uses hands-on experience to teach Texas math curriculum and apply math concepts to the real world, Schmid said. Gibson and other Crenshaw elementary math teachers use measurement kits, fake money, fraction dominoes, clocks and cubes to teach math, she said.

Beck was given a grant to use video conferencing technology to connect Galveston schoolchildren with schoolchildren in classrooms nationwide. Schmid said Beck’s program is almost a pilot program the district may consider expanding with time.

“When seventh-graders are reading a book about Vermont, they can conference with students in Vermont and talk about their state,” Schmid said. “This is something the district has wanted to do for a while.”

Jack Sheaffer, a music teacher at Rosenberg Elementary School, got a grant to buy instructional books and CDs to repair the violins, cellos and bows he uses during his after-school string program.