FES - Summer Reading Celebration
Tails & Tales with Jungle Terry

Every summer, the students at Fairview Elementary School are encouraged to complete a summer reading challenge. The purpose of the summer reading challenge is to help eliminate “summer slide”, improve students’ reading skills, maintain growth made during the school year, and continue to develop their love of reading. The entire school is included in this challenge, including the incoming kindergarteners and outgoing 4th graders.

To celebrate their accomplishments, Fairview Elementary
School has a Summer Reading Celebration Day in the fall. Students who completed the challenge are recognized and celebrated, including prizes and free books to take home. In addition, we always have an assembly to celebrate our love of reading and our hard work over the summer.

For this year’s theme, we collaborated with the Erie County public libraries and named our program “Tails and Tales”. This theme opened up fun experiences exploring different types of animals for our summer reading program. ‘Jungle Terry and Friends’ from Ohio is an educational animal show that specializes in schools and special events. This traveling zoo will visit Fairview Elementary and give the students a hands-on experience with live animals. This program is the perfect opportunity to celebrate and reward those summer readers, and learn about animals, too!

The Foundation proudly funded this project with EITC donations.

FMS - Anti-Bullying Campaign school-wide assembly

October is National Bullying Prevention month. As part of our school-wide initiative, JLine Dance Crew performed an assembly focused on messages of anti-bullying, respect, responsibility, and setting goals on Friday, October 8th.  Fairview School District's vision includes developing respectful students who are mindful of the needs of others. This presentation is a preventative school-wide intervention that emphasizes expected and appropriate behavior for all members of the Fairview community.

The Foundation supported this program through the Ann Moore Speaker Series fund.

FHS - Life Skills Community Inclusion Field Trips

The Foundation has partnered with other community members to provide funding for the Life Skills Community Inclusion field trips.  Their teacher, Abby Yatsko, is excited to give her students the opportunity to explore their community and enjoy many of the activities enjoyed by their non-disabled peers.  Students in community-based classrooms, such as ours at FHS, often take field trips to practice social skills. Studies have shown that it is imperative that these students gain social experiences outside of their classroom and school.  Ms. Yatsko firmly believes there are so many life skills that can be gained through getting students out into the communities they will one day be expected to live in.  The students need opportunities to see their community with the guidance of a caring adult and they need opportunities to practice becoming productive citizens in their communities.  These trips are more than just fun outings. They're growing experiences.
 
For example, students learn how to pick the right movie for everyone in a group and respect majority rules, interact with cashiers. They also learn how to manage small amounts of money when paying for tickets, keep tickets and practice socially acceptable behavior in the theater during the showing.

This is just one example! Ms. Yatsko and her team, turn every field trip into a learning opportunity.

The skills addressed by these field trips include:

Using transportation
Using communication systems
Shopping for clothes
Shopping for groceries
Choosing groceries from a list
Paying for items
Making change
Writing checks
Using other services available to the general population
Advocating for additional services
Exercising rights of citizenship
Using leisure time appropriately
Using appropriate behavior in a restaurant
Choosing items from a menu
Communicating menu choices
Using a laundromat
Washing and drying clothes
Staying safe


We are excited to see how these students grow!



FMS - Financial Literacy Project

Middle school teacher, Sophia Arnone, was the recipient of this grant from the Foundation.  As part of her curriculum, Ms. Arnone teaches her students about real world situations they will encounter such as applying for a job, receiving a paycheck, and paying bills. Currently, students are accessing an online virtual bank account to learn the important of managing, saving, and investing money through Stash101.com. Each student has the opportunity to manage a checking and savings account, pay bills, purchase assets, purchase from our class store, set up a 401K, and much more. This project introduces financial literacy to our students at an early age in 5th grade. Each student has a job that they have applied for. Each day, they clock in to their job on the website and get paid hourly. Once a month, students are required to pay a $100 bill for "desk rent." This helps students realize the importance of budgeting. With what is left over, students may shop at our classroom marketplace. Once a month, the classroom marketplace opens which is where the teacher incentivizes the financial literacy project.  This grant was used to fill the store to make sure there are enough items for each of Ms. Arnone's three periods to purchase items on that day.  Prior to this, she was funding the store out of her own pocket.  We are happy to fund this exciting program. 



FMS - Three-dimensional geometry tiles

Three-dimensional geometry can be a difficult area of study for 6th grades students since visualization and manipulation are challenging. Math teachers, Kim Gerber and Kayla Perdue, wanted to make abstract concepts more concrete for the students. With the use of magnet tiles, the students will be able to construct three-dimensional shapes and evaluate their characteristics. The tiles can also be manipulated to create nets and be used to calculate surface area and volume.   The Foundation was happy to purchase 7 sets of the Picasso Tiles to bring the curriculum to life.

FMS/FHS - Nathan Harmon speaker


The Foundation was proud to bring internationally recognized motivational speaker Nathan Harmon, from Your Life Speaks, to Fairview Middle and High Schools. Nathan's presentations powerfully address navigating adversity, mental Health, overcoming adversity, the power of choice, leadership, character development, and bullying. We recognize that this year student mental health is at a low point and students of all ages are struggling to treat each other with kindness and respect. Nathan's presentation is the impactful message that students need right now. Nathan provided four, hour long presentations (one for each grade block - 5th & 6th, 7th & 8th, 9th & 10th and 11th & 12th), a 45-minute breakout group for students identified as at-risk for mental health concerns, and a 45-minute teacher motivation presentation. This comprehensive presentation series will address many needs of our school community. All students participated in the school-wide presentation on character, bullying, and the impact of our words, a small group of at-risk students talked with Nathan about mental health and overcoming adversity, and teachers learned about self-care.

The Foundation funded this project with EITC donations.

FES - Virtual Reality Lab

Mr. Hineman and Mr. Bookhamer were awarded the funds for their grant request to expand the development of the Virtual Reality Lab at the Elementary School. This STEM based initiative is taking place in the Art Classroom at FES, exposing students to new technologies and software that allow them to design in the digital and virtual worlds. The VR Lab will expand the current virtual reality capabilities of the school district from small projects to whole grade level learning experiences. The VR equipment can be used for virtual art projects, computer science, and exploring a multitude of STEM concepts. The equipment will allow for multiple students at a time to learn, interact, and experience the Virtual Reality technology and curriculums.  As the district continues to develop VR platforms, we can incorporate all core subjects into the learning experiences.  FSD students will use cutting edge technologies to continue their learning pathway and prepare them for a future digital world.  The VR systems that we are building will be designed to be mobile. This will allow the school district to move the equipment for future projects and expansion to other locations at FSD.

The Foundation proudly funded this project with EITC donations.

FES - Kindergarten Readiness Kits

The Foundation is proud once again to be able to purchase Kindergarten readiness kits for all of our new “Tigers” that will be starting school in the fall. These kits have great information and skill-building tools that students and parents can work on together to ensure a successful start to their career at Fairview.  The kits include a usable draw-string bag, magnetic numbers and letters, scissors, a book about Kindergarten, crayons, a book of construction paper, and useful information about the Kindergarten teachers and other staff, as well as policies, procedures, and expectations at Fairview Elementary School.

The Foundation funded this project through EITC donations.

FES - author Jerry Pallotta visit

On April 6, 2022, Fairview Elementary welcomed award-winning author, Jerry Pallotta for a special visit.  Mr. Pallotta has written the best-selling series, Who Would Win, which is a high interest set of non-fiction books that match-up 2 animals against each other.

Jerry's talk is a behind the scenes tour of his various titles. While discussing his creative process, Jerry offers great lessons in problem solving, inspiration for writing, and lots of funny stories.  He conducted three separate presentations, each one hour long.  He also signed books for students and staff.

Having Jerry Pallotta visit Fairview Elementary School was very beneficial. Students felt empowered hearing Jerry's story of perseverance and how he was determined to follow his dreams.  They were inspired to read more, after hearing the impact reading has had on Jerry's life and being exposed to all of his publications.  Because many of his books are non-fiction, students will gained content knowledge through reading facts and information on a variety of topics. Contests were run before the day of his visit, encouraging students to explore his books and even write their own Who Would Win book.

The Foundation proudly funded this project with EITC donations.

FMS - AED trainers

Ms. Staab requested AED trainers to support the instruction of the CPR/AED unit in her 8th-grade class. This simulator teaches students how to use an AED in case of emergency and gets them comfortable hearing the prompts from an AED if they ever had to use one. The main goal is to teach students that it is possible for them to save a life!

FHS - Memory Project – Drawing and Painting

The Memory Project is a charity organization that allows art teachers and students to make portraits for youth around the world who may have been neglected, lost a parent, involved with violence, or lives in extreme poverty.  This project is a great way for some of Fairview High School’s best artists to use their talents to benefit others and to show kindness.  The organization will send the art teacher both a physical print and a digital image of a child.  The art student will draw or paint that child’s portrait.  It will then be sent back to the organization where they will hand deliver the finished portrait to the child.  The art student will receive a video record of the event.  This project is meant to help these impoverished children to feel valued and important – it also allows our students to become more empathetic and aware of what life can be like outside our small town.  The Foundation is proud and excited once again to participate in a small act of kindness that can bring a difference to a child in another part of the world.