Seventeen area teachers were recently surprised when Santee Electric Cooperative employees showed up at their schools with up to $1,000 each in grant money. The money came from a cooperative grant program called 'Bright Ideas,' which allows teachers to compete for funding outside of often limited school district resources.
Santee Electric Cooperative employees, armed with balloons, flowers, goody bags and 'big checks,' arrived at Williamsburg Academy, East Clarendon Middle School, Georgetown High School, Kingstree Senior High School, Walker Gamble Elementary School, WM Anderson Primary School, Kenneth Gardner Elementary, Kensington Elementary School, DP Cooper Elementary School, Tara Hall, and Lake City Alternative Center for Education in the 'Prize Patrol' van to surprise the 2013 Bright Ideas winners. Many surprised teachers and students were thrilled when the doors of their classroom opened and a co-op representative announced they were winners!
Bright, excited educators have come up with numerous ways to utilize these funds to teach their students. Keshiea and LaTasha Scott of WM Anderson Primary will make learning exciting and kinesthetic by bringing an Xbox 360 Kinect system and educational games into the classroom. Annette Washington of Walker-Gamble Elementary and Rebecca Cox of Williamsburg Academy will purchase e-readers for their students to use as they learn to read, while Brandy Alexander of Kensington Elementary will buy many graphic novels for her class. Audio books are the route Michelle Burks at DP Cooper Elementary will go to involve her students in reading.
Many teachers are also enhancing science curriculum through the 'Bright Ideas' grant. Urica Brown at Georgetown High School's grant was named The Chemistry of Water and Soil while Crystal Mitchum at Kenneth Gardner Elementary School titled her grant Mad Scientists. Also at KGES Jacqueline Simmons wrote a grant titled SWAGS (Students Working to Achieve Goals in Science). Other science topics were Growing at ACE by Debra Koger, Christy Evans, Kevin Graham, and Megan Sanders all of the Lake City Alternative Center for Education, and Down to Earth submitted by Sheri Sims of East Clarendon.
A few teachers even will use the grant for teaching art, history and critical thinking skills. Crystal Griffith at Tara Hall will immerse the Tara Hall boys in South Carolina History by taking them to see the Yorktown and Fort Sumter. At C E Murray High School Andrea Singleton-McCray will teach her students to make self-portraits. Devin Nunez of Kingstree Senior High, asking for technology to provide critical thinking experiences, also excelled in her grant writing skills and her students will benefit from the grant she received.
'The idea behind Bright Ideas,' according to SEC's President and CEO Floyd Keels, 'is to empower good teachers and to provide support outside of normal school funding for deserving classroom projects that need extra assistance.'
In all, $12,264.47 was awarded to schools in Williamsburg, Georgetown, Clarendon and Florence counties. All certified classroom educators were eligible to apply if they taught in grades kindergarten through twelve in the co-op's 4-county service area. Teachers were awarded grant money if they could prove in an application that they had an innovative idea for a classroom project. Each school was eligible to submit more than one application, but individual teachers were limited to one application per school year.