SPANISH FORT, Ala. — Spanish Fort High School collected nearly one third of the more than $30,000 the Spanish Fort Educational Enrichment Foundation distributed recently to the four schools it servers.

With six grants totaling $9,246, SFHS can now set the bar even higher for both current and future students, said Principal Marty McRae of the proceeds from the annual SFEEF Teacher/Student grant program.

“Our teachers have embraced the fact that technology is part of our students’ future. The teachers and students that received these grants will utilize the new equipment to help our students reach new goals,” he said.

SFEEF officials distributed a total of $30,043 in supplemental funding via 21 grants to the four schools March 17 for use by May 31.

The grants awarded, listed in ascending order, are as follows:

• Family and consumer science teacher Joni Ojard, assisted by student Marissa Babbs, received $400 to furnish the department’s kitchen lab area with machines and resource cookbooks students can use to prepare nutritious, healthy recipes.
• Project Reach teacher Scott Parks was awarded $638 for the purchase of a simultaneous dual-band base station and wireless setup. The equipment will allow wireless access to the Internet as well as well as a network to backup all purchases from the Apple Store and other similarly approved sites.
• Librarian Patty Johnson, assisted by students Karissa Myers and Cory Dennis, received $1,577 for a mobile cart that contains all the tools necessary to present audio and video materials including a laptop, LCD projector, document camera, built-in sound system, battery pack and a lectern reading lamp suitable for small to medium groups.
• French teacher Ashby Daniels, assisted by student Savannah Merold, was awarded $1,631 to update technology used in her classroom daily, including the purchase of a Mac, iPod Touch and iPads. The idea, Daniels said in her request, is to make the classroom experience interesting and effective for all students to focus on projects that require 21st-century skills.
• Ninth-grade biology teacher Jack Watt, assisted by student Deanna Linder, received $2,500 for what he called a student participation clicker system. The equipment, he said, ensures every student has a “response device that is used to give feedback to give the teacher a quantitative way of measuring the student’s understanding.” In addition, the equipment allows the teacher the opportunity to remediate immediately based on student-specific data, and it can also be used to test without the use of paper.
• Physics teacher Crystal Richardson, assisted by student Jackie Smith, was awarded $2,500 for the physics lab that will allow students to use programs that will “illustrate physics principles,” while also better preparing students for college-level physics courses by setting a more firm base of physics. Specifically, the grant will be used to purchase five laptop computers for the lab.

McRae said he was particularly proud of how well SFHS students and teachers work together to create the “best possible educational environment” possible.