The Surprise Patrol consisted of members of the Seguin Education Foundation, the Seguin ISD Administrative team, the Seguin ISD Board of Trustees and the Seguin High School Band.
Katie Edwards, executive director of the Seguin Education Foundation, says the group spent the entire day surprising those teachers whose grants were selected for funding. Edwards says the education foundation is pleased to be awarding such wonderful projects.
“First off, today just happens to be #GivingTuesday and we are very excited as an education foundation to be able to give back to our local students and teachers through our grant program. This year, we are giving just over $74,000 and that is 24 grant applications. This is the most grant applications that we’ve ever received throughout the past few years. It keeps on going up. There’s 59 incredible applications and we wish we can fund them all,” said Edwards.
Edwards says the group was impressed with the overall scope of grant applications that were submitted and selected.
“We are doing some exciting things — lots of fine arts, some physical education things such as archery and technology to help our students. There’s a wide array of things that we are very eager to see what these teachers can pull off with these grant funds,” said Edwards.
Among those surprised was Terri Roy, an instructional paraprofessional at Patlan Elementary. Roy, who just joined the campus staff over a month ago, says thanks to a shared vision with Assistant Principal Valerie McKinney, the campus is receiving a $5,000 education grant for a PBIS Behavior Management Program.
“We just connected immediately when I got here and we both kind have a heart for just students that aren’t identified but just maybe need you know need a little extra help and provide just kind of a space that they can kind of come to — just relax a little bit before they head back to the classroom. It’s kind of based on how they’re feeling. For example, we are going to create a classroom that a student can come in if they are having a rough day, a rough morning or anything — they can just come in. Ms. Tucker will be in there. Ms. McKinney will be in there. I’ll be in there assisting in anyway and we just kind of let them talk it out very quickly, play a couple feelings games maybe just to help them identify, why am I reacting this way? How am I feeling and until they are calm and then they go back to class and are ready to learn,” said Roy.
The behavioral program will utilize the Zones of Regulation curriculum. Again, the tool, according to the school, will help students acknowledge their feelings as valid and will help them find appropriate ways to emote those feelings.
Edwards says the foundation each year does what it can to help make a real impact in the lives of all students.
“We have our standard which is $5,000 for a campus or a team but we did raise the individual one. This is the second year that it has gone up to $1,500. So a teacher can individually apply for up to $1,500 and there’s been several grants throughout this program that if you look through — that were $850 — that we just gave for archery that is going to affect a lot of kids, $1,400 for classroom projects and those individual teachers are taking advantage of it and creating programs that are going to help the kids flourish,” said Edwards.
The idea behind the Seguin Education Foundation is to support and provide innovative classroom tools and lessons that otherwise can not be afforded through the regular school budget.