Education column: Barry lands national grant

link Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy

Clovis Municipal Schools

This past semester, Barry Elementary fifth grade teacher Sara Williams came across a notice from Discovery Education for their “Together Counts” campaign, inviting grant applications. The “2013-14 Find Your Balance Challenge” was open to K-5 elementary schools to reward student teams for taking steps toward achieving energy balance in their school communities.

The purpose of the grant was also to help students better understand the importance of maintaining a healthy balance in school and home environments in terms of physical activity, health and nutrition. Together, all of these contribute greatly to a student's academic success.

Williams got together with fellow fifth-grade teacher Christy Hughes and they examined the criteria for the grant. Realizing they were already headed in the right direction at Barry Elementary with many positives, they decided they could handle the challenge of data and information gathering required and write the grant.

The first step was identifying the energy balance needs at their school, in terms of nutrition and physical activity.

Teachers collected information through surveys to determine, for example, how many hours of video games and other computer activities compared to outdoor physical activity with students; also, information was collected on nutritional balance.

The second step was to write a goal statement and develop an action plan to help meet or address the needs they'd identified.

The third step was describing their vision for addressing long-term change for the school's energy balance needs.

Teachers talked about goals with students and the steps required to reach those goals. Adapting “Together Counts” templates, many of the activities were incorporated into lessons, aligning perfectly with existing educational standards, both national and state.

For example, one element in their action plan was modifying an existing physical fitness test for student levels, doing pre-tests and post-tests, and graphing the results to determine progress. While much of the work took place outside instruction time, fortunately most of the work was of sound instructional value.

The grant writing was finally completed, and Williams' class created a video with students and their teacher individually describing what they were doing, what they'd learned, and what they planned to do; then, sent the video to the company.

School continued as usual until the exciting day that Discovery Education contacted Barry Elementary with the news they won the grant for $30,000. Company representatives flew out to Clovis to visit the school. With all students present in the multi-purpose room, the company presented a giant check — along with a real one — for the $30,000. The whole school was thrilled with their success and, working together with the CMS

Operations Department, have great plans underway that will benefit the entire school.

Interestingly, I later learned that the Discovery Education committee was extremely impressed with the grant submission, saying it was one of the best they’d seen, adding that they’d never been unanimous on the winner selection until Barry’s.

Conrad Hilton noted, “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving.”

Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy is the Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Clovis Municipal Schools and can be reached at [email protected]