Grants Presented at Steubenville Board of Education
STEUBENVILLE-Three grants totaling $1,800 were presented to teachers for their creative projects during the Steubenville City Board of Education meeting on Nov. 15.
Jeff Oblak, director of special education at the Jefferson County Educational Service Center, recognized Pugliese West Elementary teachers Helen Casto, Heather Hoover and Dawn Takach as this year’s Best Practice Grants recipients for their district. Each teacher received $600 to implement programs aimed to inspire and educate students. Oblak commended the teachers for their ideas and continued success.
“On behalf of the Jefferson County Educational Service Center, we are proud to present three recipients with $600 each for earning the Best Practice Grant. There were 49 applications from all our districts and four applications from Steubenville City,” Oblak said. “All of the applications were excellent and innovative submissions. JCESC is pleased to provide funding to put these great ideas into practice.”
Casto, a kindergarten teacher, plans to utilize her funding for “Restorative Practices,” a classroom management project for the school’s 475 students. The goal is to enhance the Our Getting Along Together program by teaching restorative practices with classroom circles, calm down corners, and the use of restorative questioning to solve conflicts. The program helps build positive relationships with their peers and staff members, learn how to manage their feelings in a safe, appropriate manner, and allow them to talk through problems that may be causing them to feel such strong emotions.
“Pugliese West began the 2017-18 school year with the implementation of a restorative practice approach to helping children and staff safely manage their emotions,” Casto explained. “The grant is providing each teacher with materials to implement these strategies successfully and will benefit all 480 students in our school. I feel honored to receive this grant on behalf of the Restorative Practices Committee. I feel so thankful for being selected as a grant recipient because I know our students are going to be able to use the skills learned from restorative practices for the rest of their lives. I feel even more honored that JCESC believes in our program enough to invest in it.”
This is the third Best Practice Grant Casto has received for her school, with the previous projects focusing on literacy bags for preschool children to do weekend activities at home and developing a school garden.
Hoover, who teaches fourth-grade reading, math and Language Arts, will use her windfall to help about 80 students with her project, “Full STEAM Ahead.” She plans to purchase items that will challenge pupils to use critical-thinking and problem-solving skills and teamwork to enhance their abilities to perform, define, illustrate and apply higher level learning processes. Students will participate in hands-on learning activities and engaging developed lessons that allow and/or enhance each student’s ability to better understand science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics, or STEAM. The students will assimilate prior knowledge with new information and how it applies to real world applications.
Students will have the opportunity to participate in STEAM sessions once a week that include activities focusing on STEAM. Hoover said they will not only learn critical concepts about STEAM, but also know how to apply this learning during collaborative or self-directed activities. Hoover has previously applied for Best Practice Grants and received it twice before.
“Grants like this allow individual teachers to bring exciting ideas into the classroom to enhance their students’ learning experiences,” she commented.
Takach, who teaches fourth-grade reading, math and social studies, will use her allocation to implement “GO Ro-Bot-ics.” The project will give her 76 students an opportunity to collaborate and independently learn, study and research robotics and how they are connected to the world and with curriculum lessons.
“Students will engage in multi-level abstract thinking, as well as divergent and creative thinking while experiencing firsthand how robots can be designed to perform specific actions. These hands-on experiences will enable the students to employ complex processing and problem-solving skills while interacting with robots,” she said. “The Best Practice Grant will provide my students with hands-on learning experiences. These experiences allow students to directly understand what is happening or how to do something. The Best Practice Grant I was awarded will nurture creativity through design and application of exploring the world in which we live and work.”
Steubenville City Schools received 16 Best Practice Grants over the past decade.
STEUBENVILLE-Three grants totaling $1,800 were presented to teachers for their creative projects during the Steubenville City Board of Education meeting on Nov. 15.
Jeff Oblak, director of special education at the Jefferson County Educational Service Center, recognized Pugliese West Elementary teachers Helen Casto, Heather Hoover and Dawn Takach as this year’s Best Practice Grants recipients for their district. Each teacher received $600 to implement programs aimed to inspire and educate students. Oblak commended the teachers for their ideas and continued success.
“On behalf of the Jefferson County Educational Service Center, we are proud to present three recipients with $600 each for earning the Best Practice Grant. There were 49 applications from all our districts and four applications from Steubenville City,” Oblak said. “All of the applications were excellent and innovative submissions. JCESC is pleased to provide funding to put these great ideas into practice.”
Casto, a kindergarten teacher, plans to utilize her funding for “Restorative Practices,” a classroom management project for the school’s 475 students. The goal is to enhance the Our Getting Along Together program by teaching restorative practices with classroom circles, calm down corners, and the use of restorative questioning to solve conflicts. The program helps build positive relationships with their peers and staff members, learn how to manage their feelings in a safe, appropriate manner, and allow them to talk through problems that may be causing them to feel such strong emotions.
“Pugliese West began the 2017-18 school year with the implementation of a restorative practice approach to helping children and staff safely manage their emotions,” Casto explained. “The grant is providing each teacher with materials to implement these strategies successfully and will benefit all 480 students in our school. I feel honored to receive this grant on behalf of the Restorative Practices Committee. I feel so thankful for being selected as a grant recipient because I know our students are going to be able to use the skills learned from restorative practices for the rest of their lives. I feel even more honored that JCESC believes in our program enough to invest in it.”
This is the third Best Practice Grant Casto has received for her school, with the previous projects focusing on literacy bags for preschool children to do weekend activities at home and developing a school garden.
Hoover, who teaches fourth-grade reading, math and Language Arts, will use her windfall to help about 80 students with her project, “Full STEAM Ahead.” She plans to purchase items that will challenge pupils to use critical-thinking and problem-solving skills and teamwork to enhance their abilities to perform, define, illustrate and apply higher level learning processes. Students will participate in hands-on learning activities and engaging developed lessons that allow and/or enhance each student’s ability to better understand science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics, or STEAM. The students will assimilate prior knowledge with new information and how it applies to real world applications.
Students will have the opportunity to participate in STEAM sessions once a week that include activities focusing on STEAM. Hoover said they will not only learn critical concepts about STEAM, but also know how to apply this learning during collaborative or self-directed activities. Hoover has previously applied for Best Practice Grants and received it twice before.
“Grants like this allow individual teachers to bring exciting ideas into the classroom to enhance their students’ learning experiences,” she commented.
Takach, who teaches fourth-grade reading, math and social studies, will use her allocation to implement “GO Ro-Bot-ics.” The project will give her 76 students an opportunity to collaborate and independently learn, study and research robotics and how they are connected to the world and with curriculum lessons.
“Students will engage in multi-level abstract thinking, as well as divergent and creative thinking while experiencing firsthand how robots can be designed to perform specific actions. These hands-on experiences will enable the students to employ complex processing and problem-solving skills while interacting with robots,” she said. “The Best Practice Grant will provide my students with hands-on learning experiences. These experiences allow students to directly understand what is happening or how to do something. The Best Practice Grant I was awarded will nurture creativity through design and application of exploring the world in which we live and work.”
Steubenville City Schools received 16 Best Practice Grants over the past decade.
Steubenville City Schools Offers Advanced Career in Global Logistics and
Supply Chain Management- Project-Based Curriculum, in Fall 2017
In preparation for Steubenville High School 2017/2018 school year, Mrs. Amy Parikakis
completed an intensive Summer Teacher Training Institute to get ready to implement
Global Logistics/Supply Chain Management, an Advanced Career (AC) curriculum.
Steubenville High School is one of three schools in the state of Ohio to offer this
program. Focusing on an emerging career field, critical to the local economy, the
curriculum was developed by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) in
collaboration with states, business and industry partners.
Throughout the training, held at Rutgers University, in Piscataway, New Jersey, Amy
Parikakis became proficient in using project-based learning to engage students in
applying complex spatial problems on a global scale through careful research and
critical thinking about how to move people and products between points.
The AC pathway curriculum comprises a sequence of four ready-to-implement courses;
comprehensive training for teachers; access to tools and technology for project-based
learning; and end-0f-course assessments. AC Global Logistics and Supply Chain
Management engages students in applying their literacy and math skills while learning
technical content and solving authentic problems found in the workplace. AC students
learn to collaborate and work as a business problem solver and use important 21stcentury
skills to solve real-world solutions identified by the business and industry
partners that helped to develop the curriculum.
In addition to the implementation of the Advanced Career Pathway in Global
Logistics/Supply Chain Management, Steubenville City Schools also offers two other
Advanced Careers Curriculum: Innovation in Science and Technology (Course 1 and 2)
and Aerospace Engineering (Course 1 and 2)
Each AC course contains authentic project problems students must solve. Corporate
employees can serve a valuable role by providing advice to students as they research and
develop solutions to project problems. Students are required to make presentations
explaining their research findings and problem solutions. Corporate employees are in an
excellent position to participate as reviewers of student presentations.
To learn more about Global Logistics/Supply Chain Management and
SREB’s other Advanced Career curricula, visit:
https://www.sreb.org/publication/global-logistics-supply-chainmanagement
The Southern Regional Education Board works with states to improve public
education at every level, from pre-K through Ph.D. A nonprofit, nonpartisan
organization based in Atlanta, SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and
legislatures to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the
region. Today, SREB works with over 30 states throughout the U.S.