This grant funds Room 111. Room 111 is a program of Arts in Education of the Gorge which is provided two days a week to every 5th and 6th grader at Wallace and Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School. Working across three rotating workstations staffed by teaching artists, students engage in hands-on creative projects — photography, storytelling, cooking, and visual art — explicitly tied to core academic content in writing, math, science, technology, and culture, while also supporting the social-emotional development students navigate during the transition from elementary to middle school. The 2026–27 program will deepen curriculum integration with arts projects aligned to specific unit plans, from ratios and fractions to personal narrative writing to earth science, building lasting lesson materials for teachers and students well beyond the grant period.
Read MoreCurricular Area: Health and Physical Education, Career and Technical Education
Grant Focus: Equipment
Schools: Columbia High School, Henkle Middle School, W & P Intermediate School
Updating the nearly 30-year-old kitchen learning space at CHS to provide hands-on, real-world knowledge and skills to students from intermediate school through high school during school hours and after school programming.
Read MoreCurricular 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.
Read MoreCurricular 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.
Read MoreCurricular 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.
Read MoreCurricular 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.
Read MoreCurricular 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.
Read MoreCurricular Area: Across Subjects
Grant Focus: Technology; COVID Support
Schools: Wallace & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School, Henkle Middle School
Items Purchased: Classwork Zoom license
Classwork Zoom licenses were requested to provide educators with better tools for distance learning during COVID.
2020 COVID Response Grant
Read MoreCurricular Area: Across Subjects
Grant Focus: Technology; COVID Support
Schools: District-wide
Items Purchased: GimKit license
The Columbia High School Technology Team recommended a GimKit license district-wide to provide educators with better tools for distance learning during COVID.
2020 COVID Response Grant
Read MoreCurricular Area: Across Subjects
Grant Focus: Technology; COVID Support
Schools: District-wide
Items Purchased: PearDeck license
The Columbia High School Technology Team recommended a PearDeck license district-wide to provide educators with better tools for distance learning during COVID.
2020 COVID Response Grant
Read MoreCurricular Area: Arts
Grant Focus: Supplies; COVID Support
Schools: Henkle Middle School, Wallace & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School
Items Purchased: Art materials
This grant provided students with high-quality art materials for projects completed at home during distance learning. While the WSVEF doesn’t typically use grant funds for “consumable” supplies, this was seen as a welcome break from screen time, and allowed for art to continue to be part of the curriculum during 2020-2021 COVID crisis.
2020 COVID Response Grant
Read MoreCurricular Area: Across Subjects; Crisis Support
Grant Focus: Equipment, Technology; COVID Support
Schools: District-wide
Items Purchased: Chromebooks and hot spots
Forty Chromebooks and 5 hot spots were purchased for the schools to enable distance learning for all students during the COVID crisis.
2020 COVID Response Grant
Read MoreCurricular Area: Social Emotional Learning
Grant Focus: Books
Schools: Whitson Elementary School, Wallace & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School
Items Purchased: Books
Curricular Area: English Language Arts
Grant Focus: Books
Schools: Wallace & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School
Items Purchased: Books and teacher research time
The teacher applying for this grant noted that the classroom libraries didn’t fairly represent the diversity in our student population. This grant will compensate the teacher for research time as well as the purchase of novels and nonfiction literature for WPSIS 4-6th grade English Language Arts classroom libraries. Books will be by diverse authors about diverse topics featuring diverse protagonists.
Read MoreCurricular Area: STEM
Grant Focus: Equipment
Schools: Henkle Middle School; Wallace & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School
Items Purchased: Beehives and beekeeping supplies
This grant provides for the installation of an observation beehive at Henkle Middle School and at Wallace & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School. This hives will be part of the project based learning curriculum, helping students understand why honeybees are an important part of the agriculture in both local and national production.
Read MoreCurricular Area: Health and Physical Education
Grant Focus: Equipment
Schools: Wally & Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate
Items Purchased: Basketball Hoop Height Adjusters
Together with funds from the School District and the WSCY basketball program, this grant allows for the purchase and installation of height adjusters on the backboards at the small gym at Wallace and Priscilla Stevenson Intermediate School.
Read MoreCurricular Area: STEM
Grant Focus: Curriculum
Schools: W&P Stevenson Intermediate
Items Purchased: Engineering is Elementary curriculum (3 units for 4 classrooms); professional development
This grant is aimed at promoting high-quality and rigorous instruction to integrate engineering concepts into math and science lessons through hands-on learning.
Read MoreCurricular Area: STEM
Grant Focus: Professional Development
Schools: W&P Stevenson Intermediate
Curricular Area: Across Subjects
Grant Focus: Technology; Professional Development
Schools: W&P Stevenson Intermediate
Items Purchased: iPad apps; training
Curricular Area: STEM
Grant Focus: At-risk students; Technology; Curriculum
Schools: W&P Stevenson Intermediate; Henkle Middle School
Items Purchased: