CSISD Education Foundation gives over $350,000 in grants to teachers

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - Tuesday was College Station Independent School District’s (CSISD) Grant Patrol, and they handed out over $350,000, their largest donation of grants in their history.

“We give out as much money as we can after we learn what we’ve raised,” said CSISD Education Foundation Executive Director Teresa Benden. “This year, we gave out 94 grants in one year, which is a record for us.”

These grants, Benden says, will impact all 14,000+ students and 2,000 educators across all 19 CSISD campuses. Educators like Spring Creek Elementary School’s Alison Wamsley and Melissa Crouch.

“We got about $13,000, and it’s going to [build] like an outdoor classroom so students can go outside and get to learn in a different environment,” Wamsley explained.

Other teachers to receive grants included A&M Consolidated Middle School teacher Matt Bywater, who received over $6,600, which will go towards giving his applied engineering students real-world experience.

“These students will learn how to wire up junction boxes and switches and plugs, and it gives them an opportunity to get that hands-on experience in the classroom before they get out into the workforce.”

Benden says this day is about showing teachers how important they are to the community.

“We hope this day tells our teachers how important they are to us, how impactful they are to our students and our classrooms, that the work that they do every day is so important,” Benden noted.

Jacklynn Corrales teaches at College View High School. She received her first grant of $2,600 this year.

“We found these really interesting cardboard cutters,” Corrales explained. “Our hope is that the kiddos can be a little more creative and intricate with their cuts. We mitigate some of the risk for them when they’re building their stuff. they’re still kiddos, they’re big kiddos, but they’re still kiddos.”

Since the CSISD Education Foundation began in 1999, they’ve handed out 983 grants totalling $3.1 million to support innovative teaching across the district. Benden has been the executive director for the last 17 years and is proud of how much the grants have grown.

“To be able to grow this foundation and see where we’ve come, we gave out 15 grants the first year that we started in the amount of $33,000,” Benden emphasized.

Benden said they received nearly $66,000 this year from the recent Brazos Valley Gives event. But other donations this year came from places like Amarillo National Bank, BMW of College Station, St. Joseph Health, Van Stavern Small Animal Hospital, and VLK Architects.

“We’re super excited to be able just to impact our teachers. They work so hard every day, and so it’s such a blessing to be able just to give them the tools that they need to take learning to the next level,” Benden added.