FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE N.R. #233, 6/17/98
Date: June 17, 1998
Contact: Irene Cromer
703/791-8720
SCHOOL DIVISION EARNS GRANTS
Several Prince William County Public Schools departments and schools have received grants to support their programs. The schools, projects and project directors are summarized below.
Kilby Elementary School
Kilby Elementary School has been awarded a Kaiser Permanente Building Hope grant in the amount of $1,813 to fund a kindness recognition program designed and administered by the students. "Kilby Kids: Kind and Caring" will recognize kind and caring acts each day on the Kilby Morning News broadcast. Students will receive rewards, certificates and other incentives and will be featured on a hallway bulletin board. The grant was submitted by Ellen Bearden, Kilby's guidance counselor; Mary Jo Shufelt, fourth grade teacher; and Pamela Chryst, reading teacher.
Springwoods Elementary School
Springwoods Elementary School has also been awarded a Kaiser Permanente Building Hope grant. The $800 award will help fund a volunteer evening tutoring program for academically challenged students in grades kindergarten through five. Most of the tutors are
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provided through the community church cluster group assigned to Springwoods by the Superintendent of Schools. The funds will be used to support an introductory activity, such as a parent/student/tutor dinner, and a closing activity for the program, such as a picnic. Materials to be used during the year to support the program will also be purchased with the grant funds.
Rockledge Elementary School
The Northern Virginia Technology Educational consortium (NOVATEC) has awarded a grant of $500 to Rockledge Elementary School for its project "Read Across the USA with HyperStudio." The grant funds will be used to purchase HyperStudio software which will be used in conjunction with a second grade reading incentive program designed to encourage students to read at home. The purpose of the grant is to help educators develop innovative applications of technology to instruction. The grant, which was submitted by Kellie Weisenbeck, third grade teacher, and Gloria Esteline, second grade teacher will be awarded this summer. The project will be implemented in the fall of 1998 and will be presented at NOVATEC's Power Up! Conference in the spring of 1999.
Prince William Network
The trustees of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation have awarded a grant of $75,000 to the Prince William Network (PWN) to partially fund two satellite television broadcasts into schools. The funds will support the third phase of ArtsCore, a project funded by Dodge over the last two years in which the school division is collaborating with the Kennedy Center, New Jersey Network, the New Jersey Department of Education and Alliance for Arts Education/New Jersey (AAE/NJ) to provide distance learning programs in the arts. The grant will also support the
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production costs of the live national broadcast of the 1998 Geraldine R. Dodge Festival on Thursday, September 24. Ben Swecker, supervisor of Media Production Services, is the director of the Prince William Network.
The Prince William Network, in collaboration with the Prince William County Public Schools Education Foundation and the Kennedy Center, has also been awarded a grant in the amount of $10,000 by GTE. The grant is for expenses associated with the production of the 1998-99 Kennedy Center Performing Arts Series, including transportation costs to allow 5,000 students to attend the program and broadcast. Swecker and Bob Boardman, executive director of the Education Foundation, are the project directors.
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