2023 Budget Crisis Support - $87,325

Curricular Area: Across Subjects
Grant Focus: Professional Development
Schools: District-wide

When our schools experienced a significant financial crisis this year, resulting in devastating budget shortages, staffing reductions, and program cuts, we promptly responded by awarding a grant totaling $87,325. In partnership with our new superintendent, Rich Polkinghorn, we will be allocating those funds to address the specific needs of our schools.

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AVID Training (Advancement via Individual Determination) - $16,558

Curricular Area: Across Subjects
Grant Focus: Professional Development
Schools: Henkle Middle School, Columbia High School
Items Purchased: Implementation of the AVID Elective and AVID School Wide programs within two to three years. AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination.

Providing staff with the professional development necessary to implement the AVID program is part of a larger district-wide vision to increase rigor and opportunity for all students.

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Sensory Friendly Classrooms - $7956

Curricular Area: Across Subjects, Social Emotional Learning
Grant Focus: Equipment
Schools: WPSIS, Whitson Elementary
Items Purchased: Sensory Tools including wobble stools, wiggle cushions, noise cancelling headphones, and weighted lap pads, among others.

This grant provides tools that will help students with their emotional regulation, improve attention and focus, and help teachers promote different learning styles.

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Technology Class Enhancements - $1517

Curricular Area: STEM
Grant Focus: Equipment
Schools: WPSIS, Henkle Middle School
Items Purchased: Adruino Starter Kits

This grant provides Adruino starter kits to expand the the learning opportunities within the district’s coding curriculum. The Adruino kits will introduce both coding and electronics through fun, engaging, and hands-on projects. The tech class will use the starter kits to teach students about current, voltage, and digital logic as well as fundamentals of programming.

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TRUSTY Books Not MUSTY Books – $627

Curricular Area: Across Subjects
Grant Focus: Professional Development
Schools: District-wide
Items Purchased: enrollment in the “Managing Children’s Collections from Acquisition to Weeding” course

This is a project that invests in the White Salmon Valley School District librarians, through professional development. The goal of this project is to improve the school libraries in our district by equipping the librarians with the necessary library management skills to revitalize our libraries.

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Technology Classes and 3D Printers — $3,200

Curricular Area: STEM, Design
Grant Focus: Equipment
Schools: Henkle Middle School, W & P Stevenson Intermediate School
Items Purchased: 2 3D printers, filament

This project combines education goals around design and technology, using 3D printers to bring the digital world into the physical world. 3D printing offers students the ability to experience their projects from the model stage to actual creation of the model. This creates both excitement and a better understanding of the design process as they gain hands-on experience it from conception to creation, learning about and utilizing technology along the way.

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Learning & Leading with Video — $3,200

Curricular Area: Career & Technical Education, Arts
Grant Focus: Equipment and Professional Development
Schools: Columbia High School, Henkle Middle School, W & P Stevenson Intermediate School
Items Purchased: GoPros, Subscriptions, Professional Development

Video has the ability to motivate, captivate, and inspire. This grant seeks to leverage the power of video production, story-telling, student motivation, and student leadership to create a cadre of students at Columbia High School who can not only find an authentic and personal voice to portray their learning, but who can also lead others to build their own skills and understanding across a variety of curriculum areas.

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2D Design & Fabrication Laser Cutter — $6,000

Curricular Area: Career & Technical Education
Grant Focus: Equipment
Schools: Columbia High School, Henkle Middle School, W & P Stevenson Intermediate School
Items Purchased: Lasercutter

Our objective is to make a laser cutter available to a large sector of students who do not currently have access to a machine which is commonly found in manufacturing, engineering, commercial art, and secondary education. Students will use the laser cutter to gain hands-on experience in prototyping for speci?ic engineering projects. This machine revolutionizes the way traditional subjects like art and woodworking are taught, giving students the opportunity to develop skills in digital design and fabrication which will open new career paths for them.

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Painted Picnic Tables — $2,000

Curricular Area: Arts, Engineering
Grant Focus: Equipment
Schools: Whitson Elementary School
Items Purchased: Equipment to build and paint 10 picnic tables for outdoor education.

For this grant, we are proposing to create a community based project to build picnic tables for Whitson. The goal of this project is to help students recognize STEAM as a human endeavor as well as build a foundation of connection with our students and the larger community that we live in through science, engineering, and art.

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Culturally Diverse Books – $1,000

Curricular Area: Social Emotional Learning, English Language Arts
Grant Focus: Books
Schools: Henkle Middle School
Items Purchased: Books


By purchasing culturally diverse books for the middle school ELA classroom library, this project provides an opportunity for students to see themselves in literature. It will assist in social emotional learning as students are able to relate to books and see how others grapple with issues. The goal of more diverse books is to provide “mirrors, windows, and ladders” for students to see themselves reflect in classroom materials as well as a deeper understanding of others’ experiences.

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WPSIS/HMS Rhythm: Drums & Curriculum — $2860

Curricular Area: Arts
Grant Focus: Band Instruments
Schools: Wallace & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School; Henkle Middle School
Items Purchased: Equipment to build 11 small drum sets: Tubano drums, kick pedals, HiHat stands and cymbals, Drum lifts, Rhythm Lid snare clipss, Drum mute sets

This grant provides funds to purchase equipment to build 11 small drum sets for use in the WPSIS and HMS music and band classes. The drum kits will be used together with existing drum kits and the free Band Lab app to support a new rhythm and drumming curriculum designed by the instructor.

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1st Grade STEAM Play Kits — $1662

Curricular Area: Across Subjects
Grant Focus: Equipment, COVID Response
Schools: Whitson Elementary School
Items Purchased: Individual educational play kits

2020 COVID Response Grant

Teachers used this grant to purchase durable products and supplies to create individual kits for 2nd grade students so they could play independently while still social distancing. The products selected have long term benefit as well.

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