Two Spokane Schools Getting Gates Grants

Two Spokane schools will receive a total of $390,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help incorporate computer-enhanced teaching in the classroom.

Cataldo Catholic School will receive $150,000.

Mead Middle School will receive $240,000.

More than $2 million in grants went to 13 schools in Washington in the latest round of giving from the foundation, which will officially announce the donations today.

In March, the foundation began allocating $350 million as part of a three-year education initiative.

Spokane School District 81, which received $16.5 million from the foundation last month, was not eligible for this round of grants.

The 13 schools that will receive the money are identified as high-achieving schools that are committed to using technology to strengthen teaching and learning. About 200 schools applied for the grants. One hundred achievement grants will be distributed over the next three years.

Grant amounts were based on the number of students attending a school. Schools with more than 600 students were not eligible. Mead Middle School, with 595 students, received the largest of the 13 grants.

“For my school to get this kind of grant is like a dream come true,” said Alison Olzendam, principal of Mead Middle School. Two years ago, the middle school had two computer labs and no computers in the classrooms, she said.

Since then, the school has scrambled to put computers in each classroom and train teachers.

Olzendam gave this example of how techno savvy teachers can energize a classroom:

An old-fashioned lecture on the cities, history and commerce in Japan, for instance, can be transformed by computers as students take on the role of a travel agency that has been asked to create an itinerary for a business that wants to expand in Japan.

Students could research the city, find a place to stay, do a price conversion from yen to U.S. dollars. And they could suggest leisure activities, such as visiting cultural sites in each city. Then students could present their itineraries to the client, who ultimately chooses the best plan.

“Which would you rather have your own child do?” Olzendam asked.

Richard Pelkie, principal at Cataldo Catholic School, was ecstatic when he got the news Monday.

“It really accelerates our ability to continue the achievement of our programs,” Pelkie said. “We were the only private school in the state of Washington to receive the grant.”

The school serves 380 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, with 40 who receive some sort of financial assistance. The annual tuition is more than $3,000 per year. Limited resources had stalled the infusion of technology.

Pelkie knew his school was making progress, he said. He’d seen how impressive his sixth-graders were when they demonstrated problem-solving skills with computer programs such as Microsoft Excel, Access and PowerPoint.

One goal at Cataldo is to create electronic portfolios to track each student’s goals, work and progress.

Students get so involved with the technology that they sometimes don’t even notice when the principal walks in the room, Olzendam said.

That’s how it should be.

“What you want,” Olzendam said, “is for every child to get on a school bus in the morning and they can’t wait to get here.”