Recently both Mize and Starside Elementary schools were each awarded $50,000 grants. Mize got their grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project and Starside got their grant from The Kansas State Department of Education through the state’s 21st Century Program.

“It’s amazing for a small community like De Soto [school district] to get such a large grant,” Mize Elementary Principal Lori Bradley said.

Students will be able to interact in a variety of different ways which creates more learning opportunities. With more learning opportunities coming to Mize and Starside, the academic scores of the students should increase more than they already are now.

“By bringing in other ways to learn, we should see even stronger academic scores than we do now,” Principal Jeff Green of Starside Elementary said.

Mize Elementary also applied for the Clorox grant. The Clorox grant is what helped them get the Pepsi grant. However, they did not win the Clorox grant completely. They still are in the running to be judge’s choice to get $25,000.

Linda McPherson, the music teacher at Mize, helped organize the Pepsi and Clorox grant idea. She did mention how everyone worked together to get the grant in the end and how she was extremely happy that they got the Pepsi grant.

“I’m glad we won. Mize had a lot of district and staff support. We were able to show the other schools in the district that they could do this too,” McPherson said.

Mize will be buying 25 laptops and a laptop cart, as well as 22 smart boards and nine response systems. Bradley and McPherson think that the learning materials being bought with the money will be useful for the kids.

“I think this will bring great interacting into the classrooms and into the curriculum,” McPherson said.

Starside Elementary is looking into getting iPads for the students. They will be using the money they get to create a natural playground, which will utilize logs, shrubs and trees to create a natural playground area. Also the money will go to helping out with after-school programs like Sparkle and enrichment programs such as running club, choir, Lego robotics, Spanish club and earth keepers, which is a recycling and earth-friendly projects group. The iPads especially will help the children take on their learning in enhanced ways.

“It will provide students a variety of means to engage in their learning. iPads and the apps will provide students greater opportunities to support learning and to create new projects,” Green said.

Teachers will be able to utilize the technology in a more efficient way. Both schools got the grant because it would help expand the students learning skills and opportunities.

For Mize and Starside this has been a wonderful experience. They are both very happy that they got the grants and are thankful for everyone’s help in getting the grants.