Foundation To Host Open House

The Foundation for Saline Area Schools is hosting an open house on Wednesday, Sept. 28 for the public to become acquainted with their mission and directly observe staff and students who benefitted from the funds spent on initiatives in the district.

From 6:30 to 8 p.m. at , the foundation will showcase a variety of educational enrichment activities and innovative teaching ideas that were a part of the or . Foundation trustees will direct the event and “imagine, innovate, inspire” the projects and programs which they have sponsored.

During the open house, students and staff will have resources and materials on display that were funded by the foundation. This “hands on” session will allow observers to witness teaching experiences and permit students to share what they learned. The emphasis is to highlight the twenty-three teaching initiatives that were funded by more than $18,000 in foundation grants during the 2010 grant cycle. These innovative projects impacted a significant number of Saline students.

Also in the 2010-11 school year, foundation accepted a challenge from the district to expand Project Lead The Way, an instructional approach geared toward preparing students to be extremely innovative and productive leaders in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics field and to make meaningful, pioneering contributions to our society in the middle school. The curriculum was implemented with the seventh grade class, and there are plans to expand in middle school and eighth grade. The foundation raised $65,000 in order to expand Project Lead the Way into eighth grade for 2011-12 and keep the program vibrant. This year, eighth grade students and their instructors will be engaged and display the in thought-provoking challenges and develop critical thinking skills activities through a hands-on project-based learning approach. 

Complementing the presentations will be the 2011-12 foundation strategic grant. The focus this year is teaching balanced literacy in Saline classrooms. This implementation will require the purchase of many trade books. Students in Saline Area Schools need access to many different books at reading levels that are “just right” for them.

The foundation aims to equip roughly 110 classrooms that primarily support the teaching of reading with rich and powerful text. To build these exciting and dynamic classroom libraries, we are setting an ambitious goal of $100,000. Members of the foundation invite the community to join us on our campaign “Saline Supports Lifelong Literacy!”

Founded in 1987, the foundation will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in March of 2012. The foundation continues to promote student learning opportunities, encourage the excellence and growth of all staff and facilitate community and school partnerships.

The Foundation for Saline Area Schools is a non-profit organization that provides private funding to support academic projects, enrichment programs, and other activities aimed at enhancing the quality of education in the Saline Area Schools. The foundation rewards excellence and innovation through distribution of individual teaching grants and funds for district-wide strategic goals.Grants distributed by the foundation serve as seed money for educational initiatives that cannot be funded by the general budget.

Find out more about the foundation at www.supportfsas.org.