DIXON EDUCATORS RECEIVE NATIONAL NEA GRANT

A team of educators from Dixon Elementary School in Dixon, N.M., has been selected to receive a $5,000 Student Achievement Grant from The NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education.
Classroom teachers Kiva Duckworth-Moulton and Eugenia Cornelius (both members of Espanola-NEA) will use the grant to support a multi-media yearbook project designed to prepare students for technical and creative jobs. Students participating in the project will use technology to document the year’s events, design layouts and storyboards, edit and proofread writing and assemble a DVD presentation. Students will also visit a local publisher and discuss career opportunities with community members working in the graphics and design field.
The $5,000 NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grants are given to school staff to develop unique projects designed to foster high student achievement by implementation of creative, project-based learning. These break-the-mold ideas focus on closing the gaps in achievement that exist among various subgroups of public school students.
These NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grants are part of the The NEA Foundation’s Small Grants Program and are intended to reach directly into the classroom to improve teaching and learning. The NEA Foundation has presented 85 small grants totaling over $400,000 during the current school year.
“The innovation and creativity public school employees can bring to their students with just a little extra support is absolutely amazing,” says NEA President Reg Weaver. “These may not be the largest grants available to public school employees, but they’re oftentimes the little extra that makes the difference between success and failure for innovation in the classroom. It’s also important to remember that these grants fund ideas created by school employees themselves and not some outside organization’s preconceived idea about what should be happening in the classroom.”
All public school teachers, education support professionals and higher education faculty and staff are eligible to apply for The NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grants. These grants are available for all subjects, including the arts, literature, science, mathematics, social sciences and technology. Presented for the first time in 2000, The NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grants have funded hundreds of creative, locally designed projects.
The NEA Foundation was created by the National Education Association in 1969 and is sustained by an annual $1 contribution from each of NEA’s 3.2 million members as well as contributions from corporate partners.