Chardon Schools Foundation is pleased to announce that as a result of its successful community auction event held in March, it has awarded over $14,000 in grants to Chardon Schools this year alone...
CSF Auction Benefits Hilltoppers
Chardon Schools Foundation is pleased to announce that as a result of its successful community auction event held in March, it has awarded over $14,000 in grants to Chardon Schools this year alone. CSF, a non-profit organization run by a small, but mighty group of community volunteers, has helped fund creative and innovative educational grants to teachers in the Chardon Local School District since 1989.
The Foundation’s 2020 grants, awarded in response to faculty grant review sessions held virtually in May and November, will enrich K-12 student educational experiences at all five Chardon schools in a vast array of areas, including literacy, interactive learning, community service, woodworking, music, agriculture, stress management and forensic science, in the 2020-21 school year and beyond.
At Maple Elementary School, kindergarten classroom libraries will be home to 50 new VOX nonfiction audio books, including titles from the Community Helpers, Insects Up Close and Mighty Machines series. The books, which can be wiped clean after each use, are equipped with built-in readers, thereby eliminating the need for connecting supplementary devices. Most importantly, the tactile experience of holding a book is retained while digital literacy is bolstered.
“As the VOX books are being used during language arts centers, students will be asked to communicate understanding while also strengthening their listening and speaking skills,” said kindergarten teacher Amy Ridgeway during her Nov. 12 grant proposal presentation.
In addition, school libraries at both Munson and Park elementary schools will grow virtually with the addition of over 250 licensed electronic-book titles, both fiction and nonfiction. The added collection of eBooks will promote student reading both in and away from the classroom and ensure library-access continuity for students during the pandemic and beyond.
The Chardon Middle School teaching staff is already in full swing with their CSF-funded subscription to Pear Deck, an interactive presentation tool that works in conjunction with Google Slides. The Pear Deck web-based application, already tried-and-true by CMS faculty during an earlier free trial subscription, is useful in many subject areas.
Principal Tim Velotta said Pear Deck is a great and engaging program that works well as a SMART Board alternative especially during the pandemic for both in-person instruction while maintaining social distancing and for virtual instruction that aims to replicate what students experience in the live classroom.
Also at CMS, many hands will make light funding work as CSF and Chardon Schools jointly sponsor a ceiling-mounted LCD projector for the CMS band/choir room. The Foundation has approved a grant for the frame-mounted screen while the district is financing the LCD remount components as well as the installation labor.
“The LCD projections will be larger and more visible to all students in this large classroom,” said choir director Fritz Streiff. “Because it will be more integrated into the environment, I expect that this will enhance student learning in the classroom during music theory study, daily sight-reading exercises and other learning opportunities.”
For the Chardon High School campus, a joint funding endeavor by CSF and Chardon’s Sherwin-Williams will enable Chardon Service Learning students to build contemplation benches for their recently initiated community garden project located near the tennis courts. CSF is funding the structural components for the benches, while Sherwin-Williams is donating the paint, stain, brushes and other items.
The benches will be constructed by students under the woodworking guidance of CSL advisers Rob Mizen and Scott Brown.
“Our Service Learning class students felt it was important to provide contemplation benches throughout the garden and in the woods overlooking a beautiful ravine to provide our students and senior citizens with a place to rest and enjoy the natural beauty of our garden,” said Mizen during his and Brown’s grant proposal presentation. “The attraction to the area will shed light on the possible community relationships and partnerships that can be developed through interactions between our students and senior citizens.”
Also with their sights set on gardening is CHS’ newly launched Creating Reliable Educated Workers program for grade levels 9-12. CREW is an industry-driven, work-based model designed to prepare students for the 4E’s they will encounter after graduation: Employment, Enrollment, Enlistment and/or Entrepreneurship.
As one of their initial projects, CREW students have been busy researching the establishment of an agricultural center with hopes that it will span many grade levels and years at CHS. For a soft start to the agricultural initiative, CREW students will be conducting a pilot greenhouse project using a hobby kit greenhouse funded by CSF.
Looking ahead long-term, teacher Kim Butala explained during hers and colleague Tracey Britt’s Nov. 12 grant proposal presentation that with the vegetables and herbs grown, the students hope to provide the cafeteria with fresh produce to be used for lunches within the district.
“In conjunction with the sharing of their produce, students will also develop a team to focus on marketing and sales of their product,” added Butala. “This will also help students develop their career readiness skills for jobs outside of agriculture while building those connections between a multitude of careers.”
CHS CREW program students also recently developed a vision for a dedicated soul sanctuary in their classroom, an idea stemming from their recent study of stress management. To support this student-led plan, CSF is funding a variety of items, including speakers, headphones, a room divider, stress balls, a Zen garden, motivational signs, coloring pages and more.
“The soul sanctuary will be a safe and comfortable space for students to regain their thoughts, and calm themselves in order to decompress and be able to return to their academic day and perform successfully,” said Butala. “A couple students are ready to learn how to paint, and all students are eager and ready to get the room set up and be able to use it.”
CHS juniors and seniors enrolled in Forensic and Literary Crime Drama, a new course launched this fall by science teachers Holly Mihalek and Jill Carpenter, have the tools to create and re-enact crime scene scenarios and investigations and record scenarios and findings for peer project analysis. The CSF grant for the course covers the cost of classroom and forensics simulation kits, as well as small camcorders.
All projects funded by CSF for Chardon Schools students are possible solely because of the Foundation’s strong base of community supporters, including sponsors, local businesses and individual donors.
CSF has a long-standing tradition of organizing two community fundraisers each year – the online/G-TV auction in March and the Firecracker 5K in July. However, in response to the pandemic, including restrictions on social gatherings and the understood economic impact on businesses, CSF did not host its Firecracker 5K in 2020 and will likely be forgoing its annual auction that would have been held in March 2021.
Community members interested in continuing to support the organization’s mission during this time are encouraged to send a monetary donation to Chardon Schools Foundation, PO Box 838, Chardon, Ohio 44024 or online through CSF’s website at http://www.chardonschoolsfoundation.org.
