District 220 Foundation awards grants to schools

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Updated: February 20, 2012 8:35AM

The District 220 Educational Foundation recently announced the recipients of its Spring 2012 Helping Hands grants, totaling more than $8,200.

The foundation awards Helping Hands grants, up to $500 each, to provide teachers and staff within the District 220 schools with practical supplies and instructional pieces when no other funding source is available. Nineteen grants were awarded.

“Helping Hands grants have to serve an educational purpose,” said Deanna Griffin, the foundation’s publicity chairperson. “They have to be sustainable and have to fit into the technology of the district, but they don’t have to be technology.”

Kari Frankenberg, Helping Hands grants chairperson, said the foundation tries to do anything it can to help out the teachers,

“We are just trying to help the teachers because teachers spend so much of their own money,” Frankenberg said.

One project, which received $500, was Fit For Life for all grade levels at Roslyn Road School and Countryside School. It provided jump ropes, hula hoops and two CDs for the schools to share.

“I decided on my Fit For Life program because each day I see the tremendous need and benefits for promoting active, healthy lifestyles, including exercise in our district,” said Andrew Nettis, physical education teacher.

“We need to get these children moving and ‘hooked on being active.’ In District 220 we are fortunate to continue to have daily physical education. It provides 25 minutes of vigorous activity each day for students, but it is not nearly enough.”

The project will consist of two main phases. The first is a Jump Rope Club, and the other is a Walking Club. Both of these programs will be implemented and will be available to students at Countryside and Roslyn during lunch recess.

Another program, which received a $485 grant, is Summer Reading Buddies.

“The goal of the Summer Reading Buddies program is to provide struggling and/or unprivileged students with the opportunity to bridge a gap over the summer so that they may see the same success as their more fortunate peers,” said Laura Meehan, a 6th, 7th and 8th grade math teacher at Barrington Middle School-Prairie. “There is a population of students at our school that do not have access to quality literature over the summer.”

Meehan got the idea for the program after doing it independently with a student last summer. The student mentioned at the end of the school year that her mother couldn’t take her to the library during the summer because her family didn’t have transportation.

“So I sent her home with five of my favorite books from middle school and five self addressed stamped envelopes and we spent the summer communicating about the texts, and their connections to our own lives,” Meehan said. “This connection helped fuel her interest for reading and kept her connected to school at a time when she is typically isolated.”

Cathy Parker, a second-grade teacher at Grove Avenue School, received $489 for Book Room Titles. She said Grove’s book “room” is actually a hallway lined with shelves in the primary wing of the building.

“It has served as a resource available to all teachers as they plan and execute lessons designed to promote reading comprehension strategies in small groups,” Parker said. “There are multiple copies of the same book, organized by reading levels. Sharing materials has resulted in a way to make more books titles available to a greater number of classrooms.”

Funds received will go towards buying additional books to accommodate all reading levels.

High-Interest Low-Reading Level Books for Struggling Readers was awarded $224 to purchase additional materials.

“It’s difficult to find nonfiction and fiction that is both interesting and accessible to below-grade-level readers,” said Amy Breidenbach, a fourth-grade teacher at Grove Avenue School. “Some teachers may resort to ‘baby books,’ texts that are below the student’s reading and interest levels, but these are not interesting or motivating books. All students deserve authentic (real stories written by real authors), motivating texts. High Interest Low-Reading Level Books motivate lower readers to read, and the more they read the better they will read.”

Josh Wager and LaDonna Cavicchioni, fifth-grade teachers at Grove Avenue School, received a $500 grant to purchase six Kindle eReaders to use in their classrooms.

“Josh and I started letting the students use Kindles that we had purchased with personal funds at the end of last year,” Cavicchioni said. “... We are always looking for ways to boost excitement about reading. When students were struggling to find a copy of a specific book that they wanted to read in that moment, the eReader allows us to purchase it and have it in their hands in mere seconds. In one case, Josh had a student who generally does not like to read ask for a particular novel. When he could not find a hard copy of the book in the library or in other classrooms, he purchased it through the Kindle and handed it to the student.”

The two decided that having a set of eReaders for student use would be beneficial and align with 21st century learning skills and Common Core Standards. The plan is to integrate the six additional eReaders for student use during literature groups, inquiry learning, individualized daily reading and content area curriculum.

The District 220 Educational, established in 1999, is a not-for-profit, volunteer organization that has donated more than $1.5 million to District 220 schools.