Our SEL team recently spent a Saturday night at the PrairieCare Fund gala to show appreciation for a previous grant award, which provides interventionists and SpEd teachers across our districts with the School-Connect 4.0 curriculum through 2028.
PrairieCare Fund accepts new grant applications each year, and members of our SEL team helped Hinckley-Finlayson to write a grant for a behavioral coaching cohort model they want to implement. This is part of the PBIS classroom strategies implementation that each of our districts is working on in some manner.
Well, PrairieCare Fund really liked that grant application, and it turns out that Marty Chorzempa's partnering foundation wanted to fund a long-term project on the small scale that Hinckley-Finlayson had envisioned. Our SEL team didn't know about any of this, so they almost fainted when they were summoned on stage and Marty surprised them with the funding for Hinckley's behavioral coaching project!
Our SEL team is still coming down from the shock. They are tremendously honored at this unique acknowledgement of the work they're part of, thrilled for the endeavor Hinckley-Finlayson is taking on, and excited for all of our districts to continue making progress in their PBIS classroom strategy implementation and for knowledge and resources to continue cross-pollinating.