2025 Teacher Grants

2025 KAREN SINDERS MEMORIAL APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Advancing Biomedical Literacy Through Technology-Enhanced Learning

This project seeks funding to integrate virtual reality technology into biomedical terminology classes. The project aims to enhance students’ understanding of biomedical terms, foster collaboration across curricula, promote inclusivity and ensure long-term sustainability. By providing an immersive learning environment, the technology will serve as a catalyst for social/emotional learning and broaden access to biomedical career pathways, particularly for students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Amount Awarded
$1,775.20

School
Lufkin Road Middle School

Applicants
Jessica McQuaig

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Mirrors, Windows, and Doors

The project "Mirrors, Windows, & Doors" aims to support Multilingual Learners (MLLs) at the school by providing diverse book titles. The goal is to make MLL students feel represented and "seen" through books in their home languages and graphic novels to boost English literacy. The school has a growing MLL population (12.4% of students) speaking over 40 languages, but the Media Center lacks diverse titles, with less than 1% of books in languages other than English. The project seeks to address this disparity and provide appealing and relevant books for MLL students.

Amount Awarded
$2,500.00

School
Lufkin Road Middle School

Applicants
Jennifer Lomelino, Traci Snyder

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Flexible Seating for Diverse Learners

The classroom serves a diverse group of students with varying needs and learning styles. To create an inclusive environment, the classroom aims to incorporate flexible seating options, such as wobble stools and standing desks. Research shows that flexible seating improves student engagement, collaboration, and learning outcomes, particularly for students with ADHD, sensory processing needs, or anxiety. A grant is being sought to provide the necessary resources to support all learners.

Amount Awarded
$2,494.37

School
Scotts Ridge Elementary School

Applicants
Rachel Baldwin, Heather Uenking, Kristen Frandock, Maura Stubbolo, Dawn Hussey

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

NC’s First Dolby Atmos Classroom

This proposal seeks funding to establish the state’s first Dolby Atmos Classroom, providing Film, Television, and Video Production students with the unique opportunity to create and experience professional-grade audio productions. The proposed renovation of classroom 3224, which hasn’t been updated in two decades, will transform this outdated space into a cutting-edge learning environment equipped with a large theater screen, Dolby Atmos powered speakers, and the amplifier to power them.

Amount Awarded
$2,496.71

School
Middle Creek High School

Applicants
Luis Maldonado, Preston Williams

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Code, Create, and Move: Microbits in Action

We want to have students create, build, and code with the Micro:bit and Hummingbird tools to make education come alive. We will use it to show force and motion. The students in grades 3-5 will have hands-on experience studying force, motion, and energy transfer through hands-on, interactive coding and robotics activities using Micro:bits and Hummingbird kits. By integrating STEM concepts with real-world applications, students will explore how forces like pushes and pulls can change the motion of objects.

Amount Awarded
$1,719.17

School
Laurel Park Elementary School

Applicants
Tiffany Trent

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Bridging Language Gaps with Technology: Empowering English Learners for Academic Success

Apex is a rapidly growing community with an influx of new businesses bringing in diverse groups of people. In return, our school is welcoming a rich variety of cultures and languages. Many of our new students speak a multitude of different languages, they face challenges connecting with the curriculum, teachers, and peers. To support their integration and success, we aim to invest in technology that facilitates translation and communication. Most importantly, this technology will provide these students with the tools they need to feel connected, engaged, and supported at Apex Middle School.

Amount Awarded
$1,284.00

School
Apex Middle School

Applicants
Melissa Faircloth, Ayesha Kazi, Jennifer Lozada

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

iPads for Student Creation & Engagement

The purpose of this grant is to fund five new ipads to be used in our school library. Students would use ipads to create digital projects to showcase their learning on a variety of grade level specific curriculum and topics.

Amount Awarded
$2,095.00

School
Scotts Ridge Elementary School

Applicants
Ashley Clark

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Making Space for Making

This grant will fund field trips, STEAM materials, and tinkering tools for a project based learning unit designed to teach students about designing parks and outdoor urban spaces. 

Amount Awarded
$1,500.00

School
Scotts Ridge  Elementary School

Applicants
Jill Huffman

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Social Emotional: I’ve got a book for that!

This grant will provide social-emotional books that align with social skills lessons to make learning engaging and meaningful. These books will integrate literacy into the social-emotional curriculum, teaching valuable lessons such as problem-solving, empathy, and perseverance. Students with special needs, including those on the autism spectrum and with ADHD, require targeted lessons on social skills like conversation, emotional regulation, and friendship. Additionally, students who have experienced childhood trauma need social skills support to improve their mental health and self-esteem. The requested grant will fund these essential resources, making a lasting impact on students' social skills, confidence, and future success.

Amount Awarded
$465.58

School
Laurel Park Elementary School

Applicants
Crystal Killen, Sheri Allen, Mary Berentes

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Coding Across the Curriculum

The purpose of this grant is to provide students with a real-life connection to math and science concepts in the classroom. Students will work in teams to learn fraction concepts through the use of the arduino circuit board. Students will build and code their circuit board to perform engineering projects that require the understanding of fractions to solve. Students will code their circuit boards to monitor soil conditions for the butterfly bushes, collect data, and program the Arduino board to water the plants when dry.

Amount Awarded
$2,440.26

School
Baucom Elementary School

Applicants
Nathan Stack

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

“Journaling Reading Journeys” or “Empowering ML Students Through Read and WRAP Framework

Journaling Reading Journeys will provide our growing multilingual student population with access to books they want to and are able to read with access to books of interest and at comprehensible English reading levels. The book selections will be primarily visual, bilingual, high-interest, and reflect the multilingual community. Consistent journaling using the Read and WRAP Framework will help participants organize their thoughts while practicing English language development and share their ideas about reading in peer discussion groups.

Amount Awarded
$2,269.53

School
Middle Creek High School

Applicants
Linda Dextre, Stephanie Carney

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Engaging All Readers

There is concern with decoding deficits, even among older students. This grant will fund books that provide hIgh interest books to fill this gap. Content appropriate and interesting to older students help to engage more reluctant readers. In addition, having access to books with more complex sentence structures help older readers feel less self conscious as they gain decoding skills that help them to become successful readers with literacy skills that will help them through a lifetime. This project aligns with LETRs teacher training program.  

Amount Awarded
$1,146.69

School
Middle Creek Elementary School

Applicants
Alison Dreier, Taylor Beitler

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Middle School Practice Tuba

This grant will fund a practice instrument for Salem Middle School band students. The band program expects students to practice at home, but this poses a challenge for tuba players due to the instrument's size, weight, and fragility. To address this issue, many band programs provide students with less expensive practice instruments to keep at home. This approach reduces the need for instrument repairs and allows students to practice without having to transport the heavier, more valuable instruments.

Amount Awarded
$2500.00

School
Salem Middle School

Applicants
Casey Duryea

2025 APSF TEACHER GRANT RECIPIENT

Apex Button Company Color Printer

As a school based enterprise, the Apex Button Company (ABC) prides itself on bridging the gap between the Occupational Course of Study (OCS) students and the rest of the school and community. The program provides hands-on experience, teaching essential skills for employability after high school. Through the button-making process, students learn about supply and demand, workplace procedures, and quality control standards. By following specific standards, such as OPrep 1.5.01 and OPrep 2.5.01, students understand the importance of adhering to procedures and maintaining high-quality work. This experiential learning helps students develop vital skills for future employment. This grant will fund a color printer to resolve printing limitations due to reliance on a shared school printer that frequently breaks or runs out of toner which restricts the number of buttons students can create and sell, hindering their production and customer satisfaction. Having a dedicated color printer will enable ABC to increase production, meet demand, and ensure accurate color representation for custom orders. This will also enhance the teaching of quality control principles.

Amount Awarded
$2000.00

School
Apex High School

Applicants
Bryce Sneed