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Show Garfield County Schools Will Benefit From $700,000 Grant CEDAR CITY The Garfield County School District is among 13 school districts in southern Utah which will benefit bene-fit from a $700,000 in-service teaching grant received from the U.S. Department of Education. The grant was awarded to the Southern Utah History Partnership (SUHP), which partners Southern Utah University (SUU) and 13 school districts in southern Utah with a goal of raising student achievement achieve-ment by improving teachers' knowledge and appreciation of American History. Recipients of 60 grants in 33 states totaling some $50 million were recently announced by the Department of Education in accordance with the Teaching American History Grant program. pro-gram. The minimum amount awarded was some $386,000, and the maximum for individual grant was $1 million. SUHP was awarded exactly $700,623. When the SUU history faculty facul-ty received the call for applications applica-tions earlier this summer, they reacted immediately. The program pro-gram required a partnership with a K-12 school district and a university. uni-versity. In the SUHP, Iron County School District (ICSD) will act as the fiscal agent of the grant funds, and SUU will administer the content and pedagogical peda-gogical expertise of the Teaching American History program. pro-gram. The southern Utah school districts, which form the consortium consor-tium to benefit from the program pro-gram include Garfield, Beaver, Carbon, Emery, Iron, Juab, Kane, Piute, San Juan, North Sanpete, South Sanpete, Sevier and Tintic, covering 31 high schools. "Our objectives encompass linking rural and relatively isolated iso-lated history teachers with each other," Dr. Wayne Hinton, co-director co-director of SUHP and professor of history at SUU, explains, "with history, with education and technology faculty from SUU, and with nationally-recognized experts, in history and history education." The spearheading group at SUU was particularly attracted to this grant program because it directly supported educational needs specific to southern Utah school children. The Teaching American History project is especially sensitive to the circumstances cir-cumstances of disadvantaged and at-risk students. Southern Utah counties are at about 62 percent of the national average of per capita income level. History teachers in the region face challenging obstacles that stem from rural isolation, low funding levels, teaching out of content area, and limited opportunities oppor-tunities for meaningful and sustained sus-tained professional development. develop-ment. Additionally, a new core curriculum cur-riculum in American History is being implemented into the state school system in the year 2002-03 2002-03 with no state funds allocated thus far for in-service training to adequately prepare teachers for the new curriculum. But, in the most simplistic of terms, the faculty want to fulfill one of the original propositions of the grant program that is, to get history teachers to teach his tory, primarily and foremost. SUHP submits that its efforts will strengthen public education in the state of Utah. By forging . links between specifically Grade 8-12 history teachers and university faculty in history, "education and technology, SUHP intends to demonstrate a cost-effective and meaningful model for other content areas. SUHP has already begun calling for applications to fill slots for 30 American History teachers (at least two from each ' school district) to reflect on their ; teaching, to improve their con-; tent knowledge, and to work; toward board certification during dur-ing this comprehensive and prestigious three-year program. - |