Looking back at years of Pewitt Education Foundation classroom grants
May 20, 2009

It’s become a fall tradition at Pewitt CISD.

It’s not one of the older traditions.  It’s not quite like the beginning of a new school year, full of anticipation for students and teachers. It’s not another “running of the Bulls,” a new Brahma football season full of potential and excitement for players and fans.  It’s not even quite like seeing the first falling leaves, hearing them crunch underfoot, and smelling the first crisp breezes of another autumn.

But it is exciting. It fills Pewitt teachers with anticipation. And it brings new possibilities and potential to Pewitt students.

It’s one of our newest traditions, even though it’s been around since the fall of 2002 when the first Pewitt Education Foundation Prize Patrol roamed the halls of Pewitt CISD to present more than $20,000 to elementary, junior high, and high school teachers and their excited students.

It’s the presentation of Pewitt Education Foundation grants to Pewitt CISD teachers.

The Pewitt Education Foundation grant program started with the first fund drive in 2001,  expressly for the purpose of collecting money to fund innovative ideas that Pewitt teachers wanted to pursue but couldn’t due to budget restraints. 

According to the Pewitt Education Foundation guidelines, “grants to Pewitt teachers and classrooms are intended to encourage all students to work to their highest potential; to support staff for innovative effort; to recognize staff for exemplary teaching; to build community awareness for the Pewitt CISD Education Foundation; and to inspire parents and community to participate with the school district in enriching education.”

Since the first grants awarded in 2002, each year the Pewitt Education Foundation has continued to raise money and award a percentage of their yearly fundraising dollars to Pewitt teachers. 

And one of the biggest fund raisers is coming up.

The Pewitt Alumni Association is an associated organization of the Pewitt Education Foundation, and every June these alumni throw a gala for alumni and friends of Pewitt. A large percentage of funds raised during the gala (from tickets and silent auctions) is donated to the Pewitt Education Foundation, which in turn donates to Pewitt teachers.

In fact, the Pewitt Education Foundation has managed to donate $79,411.30 to Pewitt Elementary, Pewitt Junior High, and Pewitt High School classrooms since its initial $20,016.42 donation in 2002.  It’s an astounding amount, and proof of the generosity and dedication of the community to the Pewitt CISD system.

Former Pewitt superintendent and Pewitt Education Foundation member Richard Kitchens commended the people of the Omaha-Naples area for their role in the Pewitt Education Foundation’s continuing success.

“We have had outstanding community support,” Kitchens said. “What people have donated allows the teachers a little extra funding than what they would normally see in their regular budget.”

Current Pewitt Superintendent Dr. David Fitts echoed Kitchens’ sentiment.

“The Pewitt Education Foundation is of vital importance to Pewitt CISD and its ability to maintain a high academic level,” Fitts said.

“We are fortunate to have the Foundation as an integral support structure. The Foundation provides to the school much needed technology equipment that helps to supplement what the district is able to provide.  This in turn helps us to have a district with cutting-edge technology equipment, therefore, better helping to prepare our students for life after school.”

Each year, the grants are used to purchase innovative teaching aids including technology that teachers have used to promote learning in interesting and exciting ways.

It’s actually hard to completely list all the great grant ideas teachers have been able to realize since the Pewitt Education Foundation began to award grants.

One early grant allowed the purchase of portable keyboards that have allowed Pewitt Elementary students to learn to type. Grants for elementary have also provided interactive classroom quiz systems; reading packs that students could take home and practice with their parents; interactive whiteboards and tablets; document cameras that work with computers and projectors; and educational games.

“I received a projector one year and I use it daily (minute by minute) in my instruction and to show [educational Internet] videos,” Pewitt Elementary teacher Christie Cox said.

“The support of the foundation is invaluable!” Pewitt Elementary Principal Laurence Johnson said. “[The grants] allow our teachers to be innovative, giving them the technology to provide Pewitt students a world class education.”

Pewitt Junior High School has earned interesting grants over the years as well, especially for its science department, which has been able to purchase wind turbines, a human body skeleton and models, and additional technology to enhance student learning.

“Seventh grade studies the human body for the entire third six weeks,” junior high science teacher Mitzi Crowson said. “We used the models constantly as we studied each body system. I still have the models displayed and we refer back to them when we review.”

“I am very grateful to the Pewitt Education Foundation for their generous gift!”

Junior high students like Megan Jarvis are just as excited as their teachers when their classrooms win grants. “I was really excited for Mrs. Crowson because I knew she would buy better science equipment for us to use to learn! We named the skeleton in our classroom Elvis.  He is really interesting because you can see all his bones. Thanks for the grant!”

Other junior high teachers have purchased interactive multimedia technology with their grants. The English department has been able to allow students to hear the music that goes along with their literature and to actually hear the literature read aloud to them from time to time using MP3 players their grant allowed them to buy. Not only does this grant help struggling readers, it enhances the entire reading experience.

“It’s nice to know that members of our community believe in our students and what we’re doing here so much that they freely donate to the Pewitt Alumni Association and to the Pewitt Education Foundation to support these annual grants,” Junior High Principal Ronny Herron said. “I know that everyone here at Pewitt Junior High—students, teachers, administrators—appreciates everyone involved in these grants.”

Pewitt Junior High and High School band students are also enjoying a richer musical experience thanks to the band program’s grant of iPods and related technology. 

“We have used the equipment almost daily in the band hall,” band director Mark Windham said.

“When we need a musical example played all we do is put our iPods in the station and go. No more CDs to fool with. We also used the stations at solo and ensemble to accompany the students who performed a solo.”

 Pewitt High School math and science departments have regularly written and earned their grants, and have put the technology they have purchased with those grants to use helping students more fully understand challenging topics.

 Thanks to grants over the years, PHS students are able to have access in their math and science classes to state-of-the-art computers and data systems.

 In fact, math teachers have used technology that was purchased this year from a grant in the Algebra classes for gathering data for time versus distance. 

 “The students walk in front of the [reader] to create a graph on the graphing calculator to visually see how movement is graphed and charted,” PHS math teacher Danny McCray.

“The math department uses the computer mobile cart that was purchased this year to house the laptops that were given the last couple of years by the grants. This allows for security and mobility from one classroom to another.”

Pewitt High School Science teacher Christy Williamson’s classes would be poorer without the technology that she has been able to purchase through Pewitt Education Foundation grants every year since 2003.

“I use the labquest handhelds on a daily basis in AP chemistry, AP physics, pre-AP physics,” Williamson said. “It has changed the way we do labs. My students in physics have done twice as many labs as we did last year!”

Other PHS department grants have been used to purchase ACT/SAT prep software, cameras, laptops, business simulation software, robotics kits, and life skills technology.

Former PHS Principal Bill Harp praised the Pewitt Education Foundation for great its support of Pewitt teachers.

“We are fortunate to have a system that provides additional money each school year to help teachers acquire materials for programs that the school could not afford under normal circumstances,” Harp said.

“The students and teachers are lucky that Pewitt is one of the very few 2-A districts that have a functioning and fiscally sound endowment foundation.”

If you are interested in contributing to the Pewitt Education Foundation in order to support the Pewitt Education Foundation grant program, please contact Karla Davlin at Pewitt CISD, 903-884-2136.

If you are interested in attending the Pewitt Alumni Gala on June 6, 2009, please contact Joan Cook at 903-884-2556. Tickets can also be purchased at area banks for $25.

The Pewitt Alumni website is available at http://pewittalumni.org, where you can find additional information about the grant program as well as about the Pewitt Alumni Association.