Grants

Consider the Leon High School Foundation the academic booster club. Each year the Foundation distributes most of the income from the previous year’s fundraising efforts, mainly in the form of mini-grants to teachers, staff and support groups at Leon.

Applications for mini-grants are submitted in the fall of each school year and a Foundation committee decides which requests will be funded by the end of November.

Here’s what teachers have to say about how Leon students have benefited from the mini-grant money they’ve received.

For last 25 years the Leon High School Foundation has played an instrumental role in supplementing the wonderful academic and extracurricular programs that we offer our students. Their dedication and commitment to our school has been a key to our continued success. The Foundation is a vital member of the Leon Family and our students have greatly benefited from their dedicated service to our school.  With their ongoing support we look forward to continuing Leon’s academic tradition and commitment to excellence.  

Rocky Hanna, Principal

A few years ago, I came across an engaging activity used to teach evolution using several skull replicas. I could envision our students getting deeply involved in the investigation, but was disappointed by the expense of the skulls. Thanks to the Leon Foundation, I was able to purchase nearly three thousand dollars of primate, human, and fossilized hominid skulls for students to observe, measure, and infer evolutionary changes over time in a way that would be impossible without the actual models for students to handle.

Matt Guyton, Biology Department

Before the data projectors were installed, Leon classrooms only had the corner televisions - impossible to read any subtitles on the screen. The Foundation (several years ago!) provided foreign language with two large televisions and the CD/DVD players. Most of the CD/DVD players are still in use - now connected to the data projectors (two broke and were replaced). The televisions helped tremendously - clear pictures and readable subtitles. One television is in use elsewhere (student affairs), where a large TV is needed for developing news. The another is still used in advanced Spanish classes because it hooks up more quickly than the overhead data projector. In addition, these TVs were used/borrowed by history fair (CD presentations), Latin forum, and by other departments who needed a big TV and DVD/VCR player. Thus, that grant continues to help students at Leon High School.

In addition, class sets of books/Spanish readers we were granted are used every year. Students have enjoyed them thoroughly. I wish I could request additional titles!

My set of maps (six LARGE and labeled in Spanish, where Spanish is spoken) is hanging in my classroom. They are sturdy and still in wonderful condition (dusted regularly and unmarked). It is SO easy for me to point to an area of the world every time our curriculum presents an area. I have had so many compliments on my room. When students go on tours or mission trips they can point to the exact area, telling me where they were. Although I am teaching in a small corner of the world, I always feel I have the world around me. Once, a student told me, "Mrs. Taylor, I have learned more geography just sitting in this room."

The Foundation has been so helpful to foreign language in the past. Stop by!

Janet Taylor, Foreign Language Teacher

The Leon Band would like to thank the foundation for their support in constructing a new band tower. This new tower has greatly helped with our marching band rehearsals by allowing us to get a better perspective to clean our halftime show. To have a new, sturdy, high quality tower has and will continue to help our marching band get better everyday in the future. Thank you for your continued support!

David Thornton, Band Director

A few years ago I received a grant from the foundation to buy a classroom set of single topic history books. Time and time again students have borrowed these books or referred to them in class. I am convinced that many of these students would not have read such difficult books had they not been easily available in the classroom. Many of them have disappeared to students homes and not been returned, but who knows, perhaps their little brothers and sisters have perused these same books. Evan more important, perhaps mothers and fathers have checked to see what these great works hold and now appreciate the challenges their children face in this institution each day.

Lewie Tillman, Social Studies