School board approves $200K grant application

Talk about it

WORTHINGTON — The District 518 School board gave its OK Tuesday to a 21st Century Grant application that will be submitted early next week.

Jerry Fiola, the district’s community education director who is advocating for the grant, told board members he was seeking around $200,000 of the $3 million available in this grant cycle.

“We’re hopeful, we think we’ve made a case for our need,” he told them.

Grant monies would go to help three main groups: students at the lowest levels of academic achievement, students with limited opportunities to participate in extra- curricular activities, and those who are transitioning to a new school environment — namely kindergartners, sixth-graders and ninth- graders.

In effect, the grant would fund two more days a week of homework assistance for students, enrichment programs, service learning, expanded summer school programs for targeted students and a six-week orientation-style program for those transitioning to a new school.

“Have you discussed with the teachers the possibilities they might have?” asked board member Linden Olson.

In the case of enrichment programs, Fiola said, “There will be opportunities for teachers to suggest possibilities of what those might be. They told us they wanted to see the summer school program expanded to more weeks.”

The district received the federal grant once before, obtaining nearly $800,000 in the five years between 2003 and 2007.

In other business Tuesday, the board:

• Approved the 2008 Levy Payable in 2009 in the amount of $3,902,681, a 2.62 percent increase from last year’s levy.

• Agreed the Worthington Middle School and High School Concert on Sunday at the high school should be free to the public.

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