At the beginning of August, the Attica Community foundation presented Attica Consolidated School Corporation with grant awards totaling $14,250. This financial support will go to three programs, covering students at all grade level: elementary school, middle school, and high school. These are programs which go beyond classroom academics and strive to help students develop into health, innovative members of the Attica community.
One program receiving community foundation grant support was the Birthday Books program which Mrs. Janice Tague manages at the elementary school. With this program, student birthdays are announced during morning announcements (with special arrangements for summer and weekend birthdays). Those students then get to go to the school office and pick out a book to take home. It is Mrs. Tague’s hope that “this helps each student feel a little extra special on their birthday while also encouraging at home reading.”
Also receiving support from the Attica Community Foundation was a brand-new initiative: the Low Ropes Challenge. This project seeks to expand on the Peaceful Playground curriculum already implemented at the elementary school. Peaceful Playground was selected for AES as a proactive measure to help enhance learning, prevent bullying, and promote positive social interactions on and off the playground. The Low Ropes challenge course will help create hands-on, active learning experiences designed to promote a culture of connectedness and empathy. Attica program manager Mrs. Stacy Mattern says, “These challenges will specifically focus on the importance of soft skills that employers discuss as necessary such as teamwork, creative thinking, problem-solving, appropriate communication, collaboration and work ethic.” The Low Ropes course will be located near the Attica Jr.-Sr. High School on the Attica community campus.
Finally, the Attica Community Foundation presented grant support to the developing STEM and Robotics programs at AHS. Last year, Mrs. Barbi Balensiefer and Mr. Steve Post began a middle school competition robotics team, which was then coached by Mrs. Balensiefer and Mr. Nick Corduan, who also taught a junior high rotational STEM class based around VEX IQ robotics. This year, the STEM rotational has expanded and Mr. Corduan is beginning a high school competition team alongside the middle school team. The grant will provide funds to help with this hands-on learning and practice of engineering, project design, and computer coding through the medium of robotics.
The Attica Community Foundation, with president Mrs. Cindy Mason, is part of the Western Indiana Community Foundation. For more information, you can visit their website (http://www.wicf-inc.org/cf-attica), send an e-mail to acf@wicf-inc.org, or call them at (765) 793-0702, between 8:00am and 4:00pm, Monday through Friday.