8 Grants Awarded To Educational Programs At HPHS, DHS

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Staff at Township High School District 113 have been awarded eight grants from the District 113 Education Foundation this year.

Five programs at Deerfield High School and three at Highland Park High School will be formally presented with grants from the 2021-22 school year cycle at a future school board meeting, according to the foundation.

Grants also included the Linda Gordon STEM Innovation grant, named after a HPHS math teacher who spent more than 20 years at District 113.

It is awarded every year to applicants at each high school whose grants "inspire innovation and the fostering of real-life connections in STEM fields," according to the foundation.

At DHS, the innovation grant goes to William Stafford to buy new disks for students studying nuclear chemistry to measure decay rates using Geiger counters.

At HPHS, the STEM grant is headed to Christina Schriner to buy Pasco Wireless Smart Carts, which can collect a variety of forms of data for analysis.

According to the foundation, other grant awardees included the following:

At DHS, Niki Antonakos was awarded a grant to fund writing code to create a data-entry portal for the GrandTimes Archive project, William Stafford got a grant for bringing "life" to deadlifting to enhance strength training for all students, Madeline Stender received one to buy a cart for the workstation program and the foundation also awarded a grant to Dan Chamberlin to create a sensory room for students in its accelerated education or ELS programs with the highest needs.

And at HPHS, Robert Heelan receveid a grant for a game group for ELS classrooms to encourage independence during leisure time and Kristin Blair was awarded one to purchase Diablo Highway, a forensic science lab that allows students to solve true crime cases.

The D113 Educational Foundation is a nonprofit that, since its founding in 2007, has provided over $300,000 to more than 130 grantees at DHS and HPHS. The total amount of awards for the 2021-22 cycle was $14,560.