By Pete Smith
The Carmel Education Foundation’s annual telethon will raise funds for classroom grants that are awarded to teachers throughout the Carmel Clay Schools.
For three evenings – 6:30 to 9 p.m. March 25, 26 and 27 – Carmel High School students, foundation board members and other volunteers will man the phone bank calling donors and members of the community to raise funds for the foundation’s grant program.
During the telethon on Bright House Channel 99, a recording of the foundation’s annual Music Showcase will be replayed. Behind the scenes, National Honor Society students and School Board members will call parents and past donors to solicit donations. But donations are always welcome at http://www1.ccs.k12.in.us/foundation/
It’s the foundation’s largest fundraiser of the year and a critical tool for making a difference in young students’ lives.
Carmel High School teacher Jim Peterson, the school’s director of theatre and film, said he’s seen it first-hand.
Last year his play production classroom received a $700 grant to provide professional playwriting instruction to produce anti-bullying plays for the district’s middle schools.
That helped fund a 4-day session with Andrew Black of the Indiana Writers Center, who helped the students write 15 short plays – 7 of which advanced in the Indiana Repertory Theatre’s Young Playwrights in Progress competition.
“It’s been great,” Peterson said. “It’s inspired at least one student to pursue it in college. He wants to be a playwright now.”
He also said having the professional in the classroom helped his students, but it also helped him as an educator, too.
“It’s a great opportunity, and I’m so grateful to bring a professional into the classroom,” he said.
The classroom grants from 2013
● $2,000 to College Wood Elementary to provide 20 radio units
● $1,000 to Prairie Trace Elementary to provide after-school tutoring
● $844 to Carmel Elementary, Woodbrook, Mohawk Trails to provide a Bal-A-Vis-X training kit and 3 group starter kits as a pilot program to help special needs children
● $750 to Creekside Middle School to provide African drums for the music classroom
● $750 to Forest Dale Elementary to provide materials to strengthen the social skills and regulation interventions for special needs children
● $650 to Prairie Trace Elementary to provide a web-based program that remediates and enriches students’ math and language arts skills in the 4/5 Challenge Program
● $960 Smokey Row Elementary to provide Boogie Boards to use to reteach and enrich both literacy and math concepts
● $1,074 to West Clay Elementary for a set of lessons centered around challenging the 4/5 Challenge students to use higher-level thinking skills
● $525 to Woodbrook Elementary to provide kitchen and craft tools for the FIATS and Lifeskills classrooms
● $700 to Carmel High School to provide professional playwriting instruction
● $700 to Carmel High School to provide partial payment to attend a convention to learn instruction to transform teaching
● $2,500 to Carmel High School to provide multi-screen software to control 3 screens of different video content projected on the planetarium dome
