From staff reports
Three Franklin Area School District teachers will receive grants to enhance their classrooms.
The grants were announced at the district’s school board meeting on Monday, according to Diana Fesenmyer, president of the Pennsylvania Association of School Retirees Venango County (PASR).
Three grants of $250 each will be presented to Maggie Woods, Eva Hollidge, and Amanda Heller.
Lost instruction time in the classroom due to behaviors not meeting expectations, Woods said in her application, is what she’s hoping to reduce. She’ll obtain kinetic sand, squeeze stress balls, sensory foam and tube, and other sensory-related tools, and will use them to facilitate classroom discussion and modeling of positive behaviors.
Hollidge, a fifth- and sixth-grade learning support teacher at Sandycreek Elementary School, will use her grant to develop a sensory area for students to transition, self-regulate and take sensory breaks.
Heller, who teaches seventh through 12th-grade life skills, will use her grant to update her sensory room. She wants to provide an “immersive sensory experience” to help students process what they see and hear in class.
She also sees the room benefiting students’ fine and gross motor skills, self-regulation, and focus. The room helps students with issues like physical disabilities, learning delays, behavioral and developmental delays — among other things — and learn to independently self-regulate, and process in a calm environment.
