Student Excellence Grants

Student Excellence Grants fund innovative ideas to enhance student learning at all grade levels. Grants are awarded to District 200 educators in a competitive process grounded in the Foundation’s mission.  

“The Student Excellence Foundation really gives us dreamers the hope and resources that we need to keep pushing forward.”

—One of our grant recipients

Over the past six years, we’ve funded 181 Student Excellence Grants totaling $242,000. Here are a few examples:

(K-3) Guided Reading and Word Study Resources: “Letter manipulatives give children a way to interact with the alphabet through hands-on play.  They can SEE and FEEL the differences between letters and arrange multiple letters to form words. The picture cards and word sort help increase students’ vocabulary, learn phonics skills and allow students to study how words work.”

(5th Grade PACE) Math Manipulatives: “It was wonderful for my 5th graders to be able to construct shapes as we explored surface area and volume this year. They really seemed to have a deeper understanding of these concepts. A standard that was mastered by 33% of my class on the pre-test grew to 88%…” 

(K-5 Special Education) Representation Matters Library: “This project has benefited students [by] giving access to books they wouldn’t normally have a chance to read [and] choice over what they read.”

(3rd Grade) Whiteboard Tables for Collaboration: “The students are more likely to expand on their thinking and dive deeper into a math problem or a reading response with the unrestricted space of the whiteboard table vs. the small boards we have had before. We had 57 students directly impacted this year.”

Student Excellence Grants are funded by donations to the Foundation from individual community members, parents, and educators (via the WWEA), as well as local businesses.

Donate Today to support Student Excellence Grants and our other programs.