My Two Cents
The dreaded covids has caused yet another disruption, dramatically changing the format for one of my favorite events each year: Snyder ISD’s convocation.
For the past several years, I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited to convocation to announce the recipients of the Snyder Education Foundation’s classroom grants.
I first learned about the grants from the newspaper coverage of foundation members going from campus to campus to hand out the grants in the winning teachers’ classrooms.
I’ll never forget one of the first classrooms we visited after I’d been invited to serve on the foundation board. The students in that primary school class were even more excited than their teacher, jumping up and down cheering, with several of them exclaiming, “You’re rich now!”
Each year the Snyder Education Foundation gives away more than $5,000 in classroom grants for projects ranging from STEM lessons to flexible seating to escape rooms. Several years ago something called an Ozmo was the hot item.
This year the foundation is awarding 10 grants worth more than $5,200 that will be announced during the school district’s convocation.
Normally, foundation members get to stand on the stage at Worsham Auditorium and greet the winning teachers as they are announced. Getting to say a few words about each teacher and project is very rewarding, although public speaking appears nowhere on the list titled: Activities Bill Enjoys.
While I’m disappointed I won’t be announcing the awards in person, I will be announcing them virtually. In fact on Tuesday I’ll head over to the school district’s STEAM lab at Snyder Intermediate School. Having volunteered at several Maker Fairs there, I know they can do pretty cool stuff with the green screen studio.
Since I’m getting tired of the August heat, how about making the announcements as I ski down a snowy mountain? Or maybe I could hit the beach and make the announcements while hanging 10 on my surfboard while catching a groovy wave? The possibilities are endless.
But way more important than green screen backgrounds is the important teaching that the grants will help facilitate. There were 26 grant applications this year — each one of them as impressive as the next. Thank you to each of the teachers and teaching teams that submitted applications. While the foundation would have loved to have provided a grant for each one of the applications, we had to narrow the list and think we’ve chosen 10 very worthy projects.
And also thank you to all the faculty and staff at Snyder ISD, Ira ISD and Hermleigh ISD — as well as Snyder Christian School — for the hard work you do each year to help make sure our children are prepared for the future by imparting a solid education. It’s never an easy job and the circumstances in which you’ll work this year make what you do each and every day even more impressive.
We’ll be able to share more details about the winning applications and how the teachers will use their classroom grants following convocation.
In the meantime, what do you think: beach or mountain?
Bill Crist is the publisher of The Snyder News. Comments may be emailed to publisher@thesnydernews.com.