Funds raised by SANBE are used to support our creative-learning grant program, which awards grants to teachers and other district staff members. These grants support innovative learning opportunities for students outside the usual educational scope. Our mission is to actively engage with our teachers and provide additional resources allowing them to greatly enhance the quality of educational programs in our district.
2021 - 2022 Grants Awarded
Kindergarten Team, Wilshire Park. Second Step Kindergarten Classroom Kits (N=3). Second Step is an evidence-based Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum. If you copy and paste this link, https://www.secondstep.org/what-is-second-step, you can learn more about the program and the benefits of SEL implementation during the school day and across settings. Since the 2018-2019 school year, some kindergarten teachers have been using the Second Step SEL curriculum. Now that we are seeing an even higher need for the skills that Second Step teaches, We would like to implement it for our entire grade-level. Kindergarten-wide implementation has proven difficult with the limited number of shared kits that we have available to us. Opportunities to teach the lessons are often impromptu or occur simultaneously with other kindergarten classes. If you do not have a kit at your fingertips, it is difficult to get the lessons taught and work through the entire curriculum. If each classroom has a kit, all kindergarten classes will teach the entire curriculum throughout the year. This will result in increased knowledge, common language and implementation of Social Emotional Learning in these areas: Skills for Learning, Empathy, Managing Feelings and Problem Solving. Students will know what skills they need in order to learn. They will know what to say and do if they accidentally hurt a friend. They will learn how to identify their feelings and those of their classmates. Having this common language and increased social skills fosters a healthy classroom learning environment.
Second Grade Team, Wilshire Park. A variety of materials, resources, and furniture to create an innovative learning space that is mobile, flexible, varied and connected. This will:
provide learners with an innovative learning space that promotes choice, community, collaboration, comfort, movement and sensory input;
create a learning environment that reflects the ever-changing, hyper-connected world we live;
establish effective and efficient practices to maximize the learning time with students;
capture and enhance the problem solving, flexibility, creativity, collaboration, autonomy, and self reflection of students within the walls of Wilshire Park.
Flexible classrooms foster an engaging learning environment that support students' academic, social and emotional needs in an endless variety of personal preferences. Students are provided with choice, and are able to take ownership of their learning space. Educators in turn change their pedagogy, moving away from the face-forward in your seat traditional instruction. The focus is instead on empowering students to take control and responsibility to improve academic engagement and collaboration with peers. Many of the resources we are requesting for flexible seating will support our learners who are challenged daily trying to maintain a calm body and have sustained attention. They need to move, fidget, and wiggle to stay focused and maximize their learning. We want to provide them with beneficial resources and relevant experiences to grow and succeed in our classroom. We want these resources and experiences to support learners not only academically, but physically, emotionally and mentally. We want to support the whole child. As we continue to read more research about the benefits of innovative learning spaces and flexible seating, we recognize the need for change. Gone are the days of “sit and get” from our past learning experiences. We need to be developing collaboration skills that not only foster growth and progress in academics, but also promote lifelong skills as these students enter the workforce some day.
Lisa Cartwright, Wilshire Park. Replacement 3D printer for the STEM lab. A more reliable and working 3D printer will allow me to teach 4th and 5th grade students how to create a 3D model using an online program. This ties in with MN State standards in engineering and computer science.
Emma Carlson, SAMS. Ipad, organization bins, and positive reinforcers that students can earn through the program Class Dojo. With the support from a large grant, the Sped department can start implementing Class Dojo; a token economy reward system for students with disabilities.
Steven Rice, SAVHS. 4 Sunspotter Telescopes. Don't look at the sun or you'll go blind!! Observing the nearest star, the sun, is very tricky and potentially dangerous. Homemade pinhole style observers tend to produce very small images and are wobbly. Filters for telescopes allow one student to observe the sun directly, though it is very easy to accidentally damage your eyes if proper precautions are not met. Digital, live feeds are an amazing technology, but they have a synthetic aspect to them - just another digital screen. This system allows multiple simultaneous observers, who are not looking in the sun's direction, to observe a large image of the sun live. We are coming out of solar minimum, meaning the number of sunspots on the sun will be increasing for the next 5 years. There will also be a 46% solar eclipse 14/10/2023 and a 73% solar eclipse 8/4/2024. Given an ability to safely observe the sun would provide an opportunity for students to get a deeper understanding and appreciation of our solar system. The sun isn't just a big bright light. It has an atmosphere and weather. It, too, rotates. Its weather actually can impact Earth and is related to sunspots.
Third Grade Team, Wilshire Park. Flocabulary Subscription - Hip-hop videos and instructional activities that promote literacy and spark creativity. We are asking for the lite subscription for our 3rd grade team.
Haley Peterson, Wilshire Park. A camcorder and tripod for Daily Announcement videos.
Katherine Johnson, SAVHS. TI-84 Plus calculators for 75 special education students.
Tami Peterson, Wilshire Park. Play-doh for economics lessons.
Emma Carlson, SAMS. The Special education department would benefit from the addition of adaptive seating and sensory materials/toys. These materials will allow for more differentiation in our classrooms to meet all of our students sensory needs.
Sara Karch, SAMS. 3 cafe height rectangluar tables, each includes 4 stools, to facilitate learning.
Katrina Peterson, Wilshire Park. 6 folding chairs for special education to loan out to teachers for any student to use on the floor in the classroom.
Rebecca Jill Zimmermann, Wilshire Park. 5 small ground chairs, one for each K class, in order to provide a designated seat for floor work for kids who are requiring this type of accommodation. Additionally, 6 bins and a variety of fidgets in order to create calming kits which could be checked out for classroom use.
Cammie Redford, Wilshire Park. Classroom books for students that provide representation of all cultures, experiences, and backgrounds.
Sarah Hample, SAVHS. Canon Cameras and Camera Bags for Photography classes.
Caitlin Theisen, Wilshire Park. We Thinkers! is a premier social emotional learning curriculum series for helping social learners ages 4–7 develop foundational social competencies. These practice-proven, evidence-based materials are designed for both typically developing children and those with social learning challenges to strengthen social perspective taking, self-awareness, executive functioning, social problem solving, and more.
Tami Peterson, Wilshire Park. 16 picture books for a Mock Caldecott unit.
Maya Kruger, SAMS. Funds to publish student-created "sensational stories". My students have spent eight weeks creating and developing fictional stories with interesting characters that change over time, unique plot lines, and thorough details. As a class, we have used these stories to learn about character development, identity, empathy, perspective, challenge, and grammar (ending punctuation, complex and compound sentences, commas, punctuating dialogue, paragraphs).
Sarah Luckhardt, Wilshire Park. I would like to purchase classroom library books, both to supplement what is lacking and diversify the titles to be more inclusive and representative of all of my students. There are also resources & materials that come with setting up a classroom and providing engaging learning experiences. I am looking to purchase some organizational items (ie. book bins for the classroom library, student tubs to allow for flexibility in seating throughout the room/day/small groups, and reading manipulatives for phonics instruction).
Aurora Wemer, Wilshire Park. I would really like to purchase more book series for book clubs. My students need a wide variety of ranges and I am in need of multiple copies. I also lost many books due to the pandemic and would love to replace them for my students.
Sarah Jean Gustafson, SAVHS. One of the books I use for AP Language and Composition is Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah. We purchased a small number of these books a couple of years ago when AP Language numbers were down. We now have 60 AP Lang students, however, I only have 21 copies. This book is extremely engaging for students who see Trevor Noah as a comedian/social justice advocate. It tackles hard-to-talk-about topics with humor and integrity.
Celine Kronback, SAVHS. For the last five years I have been teaching the Myth/Sci-Fi/Fantasy literature course. During the course, there is an independent/lit circle unit where students have the choice of a variety of texts to choose from to form mini book clubs. Most of the books for this unit are outdated and some of the content is not as relevant to the students as it once was. I would like to purchase new books that are more diverse, relevant and contain characters that are relatable to the students. Since most of the books currently used have white male main characters, I would like to be able to offer novels with female main characters and diverse characters.
Travis MacLeod, SAVHS. One of the books I use for AP Language and Composition is Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah. We purchased a small number of these books a couple of years ago when AP Lang numbers were down. We now have 60 AP Lang students, however, I only have 21 copies. This book is extremely engaging for students who see Trevor Noah as a comedian/social justice advocate. It tackles hard-to-talk-about topics with humor and integrity.
Nolan Patrek and Marissa Siegfried, SAVHS. Craft supplies to build model Viking Longships Teach engineering, construction, and historical relevance to global studies 9th grade students about the Vikings. Students will design, construct, and test Viking longship designs, while learning history along the way.
Nikoline Tushar, Wilshire Park. 12 Wipebooks (whiteboard flipbooks) to hang in our classroom. They would be for students and small groups to collaborate and work through problems on an erasable surface. We would also like to purchase magnets for hanging the Wipebooks, and dry erase markers to use with them.
2020 - 2021 Grants Awarded
Kari Page - Wilshire Park Classrooms. Increased book selections for students to promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of our students who don't necessarily see themselves widely represented in other materials. Allowing access for all students to more authors and characters who are BIPOC will increase the belief that all students are welcome in all classrooms at Wilshire Park.
Nikoline Tushar - 5th grade Wilshire Park classroom. iPad to help make lessons that are more engaging and better suited for distance learning, especially in math. Laptops and desktop computers do not make it easy to write numbers and math symbols, so a device that would allow me to do that would make creating lessons much easier. The other tools, keyboard and Apple Pencil, would open up more possibilities for me to create easy to follow lessons entirely on the iPad.
Amy Kujawski - 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. 5 additional iPad, Apple Pencil, Keyboard, Apple Care.
Jon Veitengruber - SAVHS Kuta Software Desktop Software for Geometry and Calculus. The objective of purchasing this software is to create a well organized and differentiated set of assignments that students can access to improve their learning. This software can be used in two ways, first to supplement the curriculum that has already been made and two to create curriculum that is independent of the textbook.
Joan Nelson - SAVHS for new literature class at SAVHS - Young Adult Literature. The goal of this class is to expose students to contemporary literature that is written for a Young Adult (teenage) audience. Many of our reluctant and struggling readers have signed up for this class to meet their graduation requirements in English.
Ellen Isaacs - Wilshire Park. To purchase developmentally appropriate multicultural books at their independent reading level. These are books that we would be able to use in classroom library, guided reading groups, as well as sent home for part of our "Book in a Bag" program that encourages students to read at home with their families or people that they live with. Something that I love about these readers is that a lot of them have main ideas surrounding multicultural subjects but there are also many that are not stories about a certain culture BUT the characters represent a vast array of skin colors, cultures, etc.
Cole Nelson - SAVHS - Subscription to Kuta Infinite Algebra 2 math problem-writing software. This software will significantly streamline my formative assessment creation and grading time, which will allow me to give more timely and more useful feedback to students, while focusing on my ability to deliver high-quality virtual lessons during our hybrid instruction this year.
Kelsey Tuominen, Sarah Bestul, Amy Cooper, Gail Beall, DeMonte Baker - Wilshire Park. Manipulatives and items to help 120 second graders learn and practice math skills! We need dry erase sleeves, dry erase markers, stylus pens for working and writing on the iPad, base ten blocks, dice, and bags to make math toolkits to send home to the distance learners.
Kristine Schwintak - SAMS. In learning about green roofs, students will learn that green roofs replace traditional roofing with a living environment of plants and soil, reduce the amount of water that flows into sewer systems, store excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lower radiant heat in the summer, and provide extra insulation to buildings and last two or three times longer than traditional roofs.
Amy Anderson - Wilshire Park. This mini grant application is for teacher funding for learning resources specific to distance learning. I have recently been designated as the distance learning teacher for kindergarten. So many quality resources are appearing for use in distance learning with young learners. We have been fortunate to secure some of these resources with building funds. As I move from partial distance learning to becoming the sole distance learning teacher in kindergarten, I would love to have resources readily available so I can purchase memberships and materials as needs arise and on the timeframe that I need them.
2017 - 2018 Grants Awarded
Mr Rademacher – SAMS Language arts 8th grade language arts library expansion. This grant was used to fill in the gaps in the classroom library. Specifically, books were purchased that represent diversity and groups that are not fully represented. These books will help with a project involving analyzing novels through the lens of individual and cultural identity.
Additionally Mr. Rademacher received a SANBE “mini” grant earlier in the school year to create a better reading environment in the classroom. This grant provided books to fill out the classroom library with high-interest books.
Renee Nettleton – SAMS Partnership with 1000 Petals to bring a five-week program for 6th graders enhancing social & emotional skills. Students will practice social and emotional skills including breathing, yoga, guided relaxation and mindfulness. School staff will also be trained (partially funded by SANBE)
Margie Jones, Anne-Marie Fischer and Erika Hudson – Preschool and ECFE To create an outdoor classroom and learning environment. This environment will be modeled akin to a nature center that enables children and their families to explore, experience and discover the wonders of nature. Some families in the community have limited options for children’s to play outdoors then they are at home. The goal of this outdoor classroom is to engage the while child, family and community. (Partially funded by SANBE)
Jill Westermeyer and Chris Ravndal – SAMS This grant will commission a music composer to write a piece of music for St. Anthony Middle School students that involves students in the creative process. This will be collaboration between students and the composer. After participating in the creative process, students will perform the work in a concert.
