KELSO PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION
2022 SPRING GRANT RECIPIENTS
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS BETHANY WEBB BUTLER ACRES $500
The Battle of the Books is a reading incentive program designed to increase student reading motivation, expose students to quality literature, and promote teamwork and collaboration. Students who choose to participate in this activity read from a list of books throughout the entire school year. In June, the students form teams to compete in the "Battle", a game like the TV show Family Feud. Students work as teams to answer questions about the books from the list. The list of books chosen for the competition come from the current list of Pacific Northwest Young Reader's Choice Award nominees, Sasquatch Award nominees, and the Beverly Cleary Children's Choice Award Nominees. These books consistently cover a wide range of reading interests, genres, viewpoints and reading levels which expose our students to high quality literature. Students in grades 3-5 will be participating in the competition, but all students will have access to check out the books from our library. The "Battle" will be held at the Butler Acres library in June of 2023
BRINGING HOME READING
JEANNIE REVEAL LEXINGTON $287 JENEE ERICKSON LEXINGTON $287 SARAH SCHILL LEXINGTON $287
The grant will purchase classroom sets of the magazine Scholastic Storyworks for a 5th-grade classrooms at Lexington. These magazines are full of rigorous fictional and nonfictional concepts and align with 5th-grade common core standards. Reading these magazines will bring a sense of excitement every month for students. We can incorporate so many concepts that differentiate within the student population. We can chorus read as a whole group and incorporate whole group discussion and student talk. This subscription also includes access to the scholastic website. There are videos, slide shows, read-alouds, and rigorous work that will help students build an understanding.
STUDENT FEES
MELISSA BOUDREAU KHS $500
The grant will be used to assist students of low socio-economic status meet "student fee" requirements associated with:
1) Joining a school club that is state and nationally affiliated (example: DECA, FCCLA, FFA, HOSA and more)
2) Obtaining a certification required for gaining employment (Food handler's card, WABO, other)
3) Purchasing class uniform for technical classes (Fire Science, Police Science, Health Science, other)
4) Paying college application fees or tech school entrance exam fees
5) Paying college prep test fees (SAT/ACT, AP exams other)
BUTLERCODING CLUB-SNAP CICUITS
TRISH WATSON BUTLER ACRES $493
Coding students gain the most knowledge from interacting with Snap Circuits by Elenco. The kits provide directions that lead students to create a product that will have a reaction (helicopter wings that fly when programmed correctly, playing music from their Chromebook thru the circuits, etc.). The kits have 750 different programmable directions from beginning to expert. The grant will purchase 5 of these kits for our school and have them available all year instead of borrowing 2 kits from another elementary for a month. These kits will be used during a unit in 5th grade in December of every year and then again during Coding Club once a week for 20 weeks. My goal is to have students of all ages building circuits and creating code to make the desired outcome a reality.
EMPOWERING PARENTS
DEENA MCGHEE ALL SCHOOLS $500
HICAP SENG (supporting emotional needs of gifted) is a parent group with the Kelso School District. The parent group meets quarterly at KHS during HICAP student activities. While students engaged in activities with their peers, parents meet to discuss to discuss struggles they have with their students, share strategies, discuss academics, extracurricular activities and strengthen bonds between each other and the district. This grant will purchase new books and replace old books for the lending library that provide a resource for these parents.
EXPANDING THE HOLOCAUST UNIT
ANTOINETTE MINER COWEEMAN $416
In the fall they received a KPSF grant that was used to purchase books to expand the Holocaust Unit with a book study. At that time, they purchased copies of The Other Victims and Refugee to add diverse perspectives on victims of the Holocaust and other refugees. It was very popular, and most students really enjoyed the book they read and recommended I use that book again next year. Because of this I want to purchase some more copies of some of the more popular books, particularly some lower reading level choices. The grant will add 15 more copies of this very informative and popular book, and purchase copies of some of the lower-level books that were well-received.
ART MATERIALS TO PROMOTE SCHOOL CULTURE GIANNE CURRY KVA $500
KVA Cafe is a place students can come to help with their work. Staff have noticed students are reticent to interact with one another and have reported SEL concerns about students. We hope to allocate a small portion of the work time at KVA Cafe to gaming and artistic expression, so that we can build a positive school culture. The grant will purchase the supplies and games to be used by students. We know from research that these measures reap rewards in contributing to the building of immediate relationships, but also to engagement and self-esteem as adolescence is a time of an intense need for a sense of belonging.
NATIVE PLANTS FIELD TRIP
JENNIFER ECHTLE COWEEMAN $500
The field trip will help students discover the efforts of the Cowlitz Tribe to retain knowledge and resources regarding native plants. Students will learn native practices in terms of preparing food as well as growing and harvesting food. Student will tour the Native Plant Garden and participate in preparing a meal. Student then will have the opportunity to walk around a pond and identify native plants.
RESOURCE READERS
MAURA ORTH WALLACE $416
Access to a reading materials opens new possibilities for student growth and practice of comprehension. A strong reading program allows students to skim a story through the first time without interruption, then read aloud a second time with staff while strengthening support independence and a third time sharing the story with peers who do not judge decoding struggles and word formation. The grant will purchase books that are being requested, are lower reading level that provide cued repetition. The staff supports students to apply the letter sounds/words from the story to pictures and then increase student independence of words to pictures. Providing a reading center allows for students to learn working within small groups and with more than the 1:1 peer as they share.
Scholastic Action Magazines
for Multilingual Students
KAREN KRIEDER KHS $312
Students who have been identified as Multilingual Learners (formerly English Language Learners) are enrolled in a Language Arts class that is specially designed to help them strengthen their English language speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills while earning a Language Arts credit. This class is designed to help ML students develop their academic language skills and confidence with the English language. In order to help students build confidence, it is important that they have access to materials that are written at the appropriate level of difficulty. The Foundation Grant will support these students by providing a subscription to Scholastic Action magazine for each student. This monthly publication contains a variety of high-interest short fiction stories and a range of informational texts that address topics of interest to teen readers.
SCHOLASTIC SCOPE
TAMMY TRAFALET HMS/CMS $470
The grant will provide a yearly subscription to the Scholastic SCOPE Magazine that will provide the at-risk population with lessons that: -are relevant and pertain to current and past world events -encourages exploration, collaboration, and discussion -increase understanding and appreciation for cultural similarities and differences -reinforces literacy skills that align with WA State ELA standards, as well as the WIDA standards (Multilingual Standards). This will increase student engagement, build cultural awareness, and support language proficiency in literacy.
SOARING BLUE JAY READERS
BETH WEBB BUTLER ACRES $500
The K-2 "Soaring Blue Jay Readers" program was initiated in 2017 to fill the absence of the Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) program which was discontinued during the 2016-2017 school year. With generous funding from Kelso Public Schools Foundation grants, this program has continued to provide books for K-2 students through the 2019-2020 school year. With the impacts of COVID the program was expanded to include all K-5 students during the 2020-2021 school year. The program was expanded once again for the 2021-2022 school year with the addition of Transitional Kindergarteners. The grant funds will be used to offer free books for our TK-5 students through two distributions during the 2022-2023 school year. The books purchased will be from a wide range of reading levels, include a variety of genres and incorporate content from various cultures.
THERAPEUTIC LISTENING
SARAH DAHL LEXINGTON $447
The grant will be used to purchase additional equipment for the Therapeutic Listening program implemented by the occupational therapist for use by students in special education at Lexington Elementary. This project was awarded a KPSF Grant two years ago and has become so successful and meaningful to the students involved that we are now requiring an additional set of materials to expand the program. Therapeutic Listening is a specialized program, developed by occupational therapists, where music and nature sounds have had the frequencies manipulated in order to target various areas of the brain. For example, if a student is working on attention and social skills, the OT would select music for the student to listen to that has frequencies that target these areas of the brain. The goal is for the listening to make progress more quickly in their areas of need than if they had not been exposed to the music. This program is currently serving 4 classrooms at Lexington.
MATH GAMES
KELLI STEWART BARNES $470
The goal of this project is to help bring supplemental math games into Barnes Elementary. With A previous KPSF grant, they were able to supply basic reading/ELA Frog Games which have been used in the Special Education and Title Setting to engage reluctant learners. The Barnes Elementary staff has been working with Title support on ways to possibly improve our Title Math. Kelso School District is looking into a new math curriculum, but we simply cannot wait to get intervention materials. Even if Frog Games were used with purpose once or twice a week with a group of kids, they are practicing all foundational Common Core Math Standards and can be used as a way for evaluation of understanding. We have created a plan on how we'd like to roll out supplemental math support. -First Step: Purchase Materials and review them. Link each skill packet of cards to the math common core standard appropriate at each grade level. The grant will purchase the materials needed for this project.
GROWING THROUGH GARDENING
JULIA JABUSCH KVA $409
KVA students K-2 will learn about the lifecycle of a plant, seed germination and cultivation and preservation of nature through gardening. Each student will receive their own seeds to grow in tandem with the seeds grown in class. Observation of the plants indoor versus outdoor and the use of our class meetings as a time to discuss and engage on this important subject in K-2 life science will make the online learning more engaging and hands-on. As KVA does not know where we will be housed next year, a portable indoor garden and outdoor rolling planter cart means that no matter what building the Academy is housed in, there will be planting possibilities. This life-long skill will encourage students to cultivate and preserve plants that they grow and nature around them. Help us grow knowledge through gardening