Staff Board of Trustees
News From Reaching Heights
For Immediate Release - October 27, 2004
For More Information contact: Susie Kaeser, 932-5110
During the fall grant cycle Reaching Heights received a “bumper crop” of grant requests to support innovative projects in the Heights schools to help students achieve.
Reaching Heights awarded $10,710 to 12 of the 18 teams that applied for funds in October. When combined with grants awarded in July, 21 teams of teachers will use a total of $19,710 to implement new initiatives in nearly every school in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district during the 2004-05 school year.
“The projects reflect district priorities, and demonstrate our teachers' creativity and serious commitment to making a difference,” said Susie Kaeser, Executive Director of Reaching Heights in announcing the latest round of approved grants.
Funds for the grants are raised from the community through the annual Reaching Heights Adult Community Spelling Bee. The 14 th annual bee is scheduled for February 23, 2005 at Cleveland Heights High School . Teams of three adults each spell in the friendly competition and pay a $500 entry fee that is used for the grant program. The public is invited to enter a team by February first, or to cheer at the bee.
Additional funds are provided by contributions from families to Reaching Heights in honor of a highly valued teacher, and a donation from the DiGeronimo Family Foundation.
The grants will provide students from pre-school to middle school with new opportunities to become strong readers. A project at Millikin Early Childhood Center will give preschoolers with disabilities and their parents access to new interactive books. Reading will also be supported with interdisciplinary units involving the arts for fifth graders at Oxford Elementary School and seventh graders at Wiley Middle School, new reading resources for home use at Boulevard Elementary School, a reading incentive program and new library books at Gearity Elementary School, and an evening program for parents to create homework games at Canterbury Elementary School.
Science will come alive for Monticello Middle School students with a forensics science adventure at the Great Lakes Science Center , for preschoolers at Millikin with visits from the Natural History Museum, and for the Robotics Team at Heights High.
Foreign language study at Heights High will be enriched with access to German television programs, and the entire Canterbury School community will help create an oral history of their school as it celebrates its 75 th anniversary.
Reaching Heights has awarded over $170,000 to more than 180 projects since the grant program began in 1990. It has been a consistent resource for teacher innovation and collaborative problem solving.
