Document text
- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 17, 2006 ASF-funded projects ready to grow Four Ashland schools will have gardens this spring as part of 11 classroom-based grants By Jennifer Squires Ashland Daily Tidings Seeds planted by the Ashland Schools Foundation will help sprout gardens at four of the city’s public schools this spring. The foundation awarded 11 classroom-based impact grants for the spring semester on Feb. 8, including gardens at Helman and Walker elementary schools, the Wilderness Charter School at Ashland High School and Willow Wind Community Learning Center garden club. “You have a number of them that have to do with gardening, which is always a great experience for kids,” said Susan Bacon, the executive director of ASF. “It’s a really great thing. It gets kids out of doors and gets their hands during while they learn a lot of interesting things about sustainability.” The foundation has given money to support a number of gardening projects in its 17-year history, including a butterfly garden at Ashland Middle School last fall that students continue to work on. “To me it’s just incredible,” ASF volunteer Sandra Claypool said. “There are just some small grants — less than $1,000 — and the impact they have.” School employees can apply twice a year for the classroom-based impact grants to fund educational activities that directly engage students. When the spring grants are coupled with awards doled out in the fall, ASF has funded 30 grants totaling $16,923 this school year. The money can be the difference between a teacher’s good idea and implementation, according to Ashland Schools superintendent Juli Di Chiro. “What the grant program does is it allows teachers to implement very creative programs that are able to enhance the academic achievement of the kids,” Di Chiro said. Two cooking classes, programs in music, hands-on science and storytelling, and a westward expansion project in a fourth/fifth grade class at Walker were also funded by spring impact grants. “We actually ran out of money this year,” Bacon said. Community members established the foundation a year before Measure 5 passed, the state-wide ballot measure that drastically cut school funding, to be a local remedy for schools. In the time since, ASF has raised over $2.5 million to support Ashland public schools. ASF collects most of the money during its annual spring fundraiser, then applies for grants to augment that revenue. The funding goes toward the impact grants, as well as school-wide signature grants and district-level education support grants. “They have so many needs that it’s hard to prioritize,” Di Chiro said. Throughout the year, the foundation also gathers donations from local business to support the Buy-in For Books program. The program helps the school district purchase textbooks and has collected thousands of dollars this year. “The $10,000 is being divided between the high school and the middle school,” Bacon said. Ashland Middle School will take its $3,000 to build up the school’s book depository with sets of books — like novels — that classrooms can check out. Staff at Ashland High School hasn’t decided how to spend its $7,000 allocation this year. In the spring of 2005, the school purchased new ninth-grade global studies textbooks. Staff writer Jennifer Squires can be reached at 482-3456 x 225 or [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams