COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The College Station Independent School District Education Foundation surprised teachers with $325,000 in grants.
The 72 grants will fund a range of programs including career and technical education, STEM, fine arts and special education.
“I received a grant so we can build a computer lab for another school in the district,” IT and Cybersecurity teacher, Michael Howard told 6 News.
A&M Consolidated High School’s IT class has been building computers for middle schools for four years now thanks to this grant.
Howard explained, “In the STEM and tech world being hands on is really important and so this gives them a full hands on opportunity to do something with the purchasing shipping do things with putting together, quality control, making sure the hardware works then in putting that entire lab.”
The health students also are getting an opportunity to use new medical equipment.
“We got a grant for two vital machines which sounds crazy, because they’re a lot of money but they’re very expensive. One of them has cardiac monitoring capability which means we can hook an EKG up to it along with blood pressure, heart rate that kind of stuff,” Kimberley Decker, Health Science teacher, said.
But the STEM classes aren’t the only ones getting grants, the special education students are looking to expand their artistic capabilities.
Life Skills teacher, Elizabeth Engelhardt described, “So this on is gonna be able to help us bring 3D printing into the art class where we’re able to print tools that we need that are modified because my students don’t have that fine motor skill, and we will be able to print things that will help them hold markers or little paint sticks so this grant is super huge for us to be able to be a part of all of the things.”