Jun. 18--Just in time for the summer, the Germantown Education Foundation has awarded just over $91,000 in grants to five public schools in the city.

Except for $500 going toward books, the bulk of the money will be spent on computerized technology, programs, laptops or computer labs.

Once the school does some rewiring, Houston High is turning an existing classroom into a computer lab. "It could not have happened if the Education Foundation wasn't there. This is huge. The county can't purchase everything for all the schools," said Houston High principal Leisa Justus. She expects the lab will be ready close to the beginning of school.

The grant recipients are:

Germantown Elementary will receive $24,420 for three mobile carts that will have a total of 40 laptops. It will be used to help at-risk students who are not prepared for first grade. Two minicarts with five laptops each will be used for kindergarten and first grade and a larger cart with 30 laptops will be used throughout the school, which has 750 students.

Riverdale School will receive $18,430 to equip 16 classrooms with interactive whiteboard technology. School officials hope the electronic board will engage students through various computer programs. They hope to eventually equip all 50 classrooms at the school.

Germantown High will receive $18,280 for additional equipment and programming to be used with the whiteboard technology in classrooms. If a teacher asks a question on the whiteboard, the entire class can select their answers with the click of a remote.

Houston High will get $16,288 for a classroom that will be turned into a computer lab with 16 desktop computers. The program provides students individualized instruction and assessment along with the aid of the A+nywhere Learning System.

Houston Middle will receive $13,175 for a program called Everyone Can Hog the CPS Remote. There will be two sets of remotes for each of the three grades. The remotes will be used with whiteboard technology for all of the school's 800 students. The school also got $518 for books for formative readers.

The city has given the Germantown Education Foundation $100,000 each year for past three years. In turn, the funds are doled out to the city's eight public schools through grant applications. Each school matches all or at least a portion of the grant the foundation provides.

-----

To see more of The Commercial Appeal or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.commercialappeal.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.