Nearly 20 teachers at the island’s public schools received Christmas presents of their own earlier this month when they learned they will receive nearly $40,000 worth of free supplies.
The collection of items — Chromebooks, a 3D printer, music keyboards, graphing calculators, books and more — is thanks to the Chevron Fuel Your Schools Campaign, which partnered with Donors Choose, an online charity that supports teachers, to make the grants possible.
District Superintendent Michael Soltman said there was a lot of excitement the day before winter break, when he shared the funding news.
“It means a lot,” he said. “It really validates teachers when they are able to communicate a need and have it fulfilled.”
Soltman said he first learned of the granting opportunity in the fall, when an individual working with Chevron’s Fuel Your Schools campaign informed him that Chevron intended to fund $600,000 worth of projects for teachers in King County through Donors Choose. The focus for the campaign was science, math, engineering and technology (STEM)projects, and Soltman said he encouraged teachers to submit funding requests that fit with that emphasis.
In the end, 33 teachers applied, and 17 received $37,129 worth of materials from Chevron.
A sampling of funded projects includes five Chromebooks, requested by Harris Levinson at the high school, to add to the existing laptops for Japanese and Spanish students, a 3D printer, requested by McMurray science teacher Lea Heffernan, enabling her students to design and print their own creations, and five iPad minis for Chautauqua multi-age teacher Joleen McCauley, to help with math, reading, science and photography.
Fuel Your Schools is in its fifth year working with Donors Choose, according to Jason Yun, a program manager with the San Francisco-based charity, and has donated more than $8.6 million in that time to education. This year was Chevron’s first year funding projects in King County, and Yun said he expects Chevron will repeat the funding initiative again next year, though he is not certain.
Through the Chevron program, this fall when customers purchased eight or more gallons of fuel at participating Chevron and Texaco stations in King County, Chevron donated $1 up to $600,000 to fund school projects registered with Donors Choose.
In addition to the gas sold on Vashon, Yun said that island schools benefitted from gas stations that had generated funding in excess of what schools close to them applied for, as some of that money was funneled here.
On Vashon, this funding follows on the heels of nearly $10,000 worth of projects that Google funded through Donors Choose in September.
Soltman noted that government regulations direct a lot of what teachers do, and initiatives like this can broaden their work.
“More and more I am looking for ways for them to be creative within that latitude,” he said.
