Copenhagen, LaFargeville teacher unions win grants through American Federation of Teachers Innovation Fund
COPENHAGEN — The Copenhagen and LaFargeville teachers associations have received grants from a fund designed to help teachers mitigate the effects of COVID-19 in their communities.
The two unions were among 16 across the nation awarded funding through the American Federation of Teachers Innovation Fund.
Copenhagen won $39,000 to bring yoga and mindfulness curriculum to classrooms and expand its backpack program, while LaFargeville received $23,000 to go toward providing mobile internet hotspots for families to improve the virtual and hybrid learning experience.
“One of the things that we found in Copenhagen is that our kids are missing out on some of the physical education time that they would normally have,” said John A. Cain, president of the Copenhagen Teachers Association and high school history teacher. “For at least our younger kids, middle school or elementary kids, they’re in the same classroom all day.”
A big portion of the grant was yoga in the classroom, to get teachers trained specifically on yoga in the classroom, to buy classrooms sets of yoga mats and give that opportunity to students to get a little bit more physical education and movement in during the day.
Like many north country school districts, LaFargeville sends home backpacks with food each weekend.
Mr. Cain said the district was noticing a lot of what it was sending home was processed food, so the goal now is to send home a 30-minute recipe every other week that families can make at together with all the fresh meats and vegetables they’ll need to complete the meals. Videos will be uploaded to the school’s website so families can watch to see how things are done if they need to.
“We’ve got a little social emotional in there for our teachers too,” Mr. Cain said. “We’re going to implement some book studies and we’re planning a staff health and wellness day at Camp Oswegatchie which will probably happen in the fall before school starts to try to take care of our teachers a little bit too — for everything that they’ve gone through.”
With the goal to get kids moving this year while COVID is here, a longer lasting impact will also be to have teachers who are trained in yoga and mindfulness moving forward. This isn’t a skill that is going to go away — teachers are going to be able to use this throughout their entire careers. Part of the grant reasoning was everything LaFargeville is doing was meant to be sustainable, Mr. Cain said.
In LaFargeville, the grant was written for 50 mobile hotspots and the data plans through Verizon, according to Deanna L. Henry, library media specialist and president of the teachers association. “That’s the reason we’re getting them reliable internet access, so we can balance the educational playing field and give them access to high quality educational opportunities like the rest of our students,” she said.
The district is still in the process of surveying students and teachers to see how many are needed and is already up to 40 so far.
Teachers, administrators and community liaisons will work together to identify students who are struggling with reliable internet and assist in getting the devices into the right hands with the goal of ensuring the success of every student.
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