Reporter-News photo by Nellie Doneva First-time teacher Carla Hutchins organizes and decorates her first-grade classroom at Bassetti Elementary. Nineteen new teachers will each receive a $200 grant from the Abilene Education Foundation to buy extra supplies for their classrooms.

Grants allow new AISD teachers to buy extra supplies

By Kathy Edwards

Special to the Reporter-News

Carla Hutchins and her new class at Bassetti Elementary will share a unique experience this year -- they will all begin the first grade together.

As one of 19 first-time Abilene Independent School District teachers, Hutchins, a recent graduate of Abilene Christian University, will be teaching first-graders in a classroom last used by a retiring teacher. She is left to the task of making it ready based on her own teaching style and organization.

The supplemental supplies and materials Hutchins may want in preparation for her young students will be funded in part through the Abilene Education Foundation's Giving for First Year Teachers grants. The $200 grant for each AISD new hire will help the teachers buy supplies as they organize and stock their classrooms for their first teaching assignment.

"This is the first year this grant has been available, and we are thrilled to make an impact in a new area for the district," said Jean McMillon, the foundation's executive director. "The district is so good at supplying curriculum-based materials for teachers. They don't lack for anything they need to teach the courses. But each teacher will want their room to look wonderful."

Depending on the age level and subject, a teacher may want posters, books for a personal classroom library, decorations and paper goods for bulletin boards or art supplies, McMillon said.

"I had no idea I was going to receive this grant," Hutchins said. "I am excited that the veteran teachers down the halls have donated lots of books for the kids to read and pocket charts I can use to help teach them sentence structure. The teacher who had my classroom is retiring, so she left a lot of materials and supplies that I can use."

Hutchins said she would probably use some of the grant money to stock up on crayons and other school supplies in case some of the students don't or can't afford to bring their own.

Retired teacher Martha Carlson made a donation to initiate the fund.

"We hope this grant will be available every year for our new teachers," McMillon said.

The Abilene Education Foundation is a nonprofit created in 2001 to promote and enhance excellence in education for AISD students. Contributions to the foundation may be sent directly to the AEF or to an endowment fund established at the Community Foundation of Abilene.