Arizona School Boards Association is giving back to teachers with $500 AZEdNews Classroom Grants awarded to teachers to enhance classroom learning for their students.

The two recipients of the $500 AZEdNews Classroom Grants for the first quarter of 2023 are Evalani Dela Cruz, a teacher at JB Sutton Elementary School in the Isaac School District, for the Afterschool Cool initiative, and Ralph Chiariello, a teacher at Anza Trail School in Sahuarita Unified School District, for the 3-D Math Lab initiative.

Dela Cruz’s Afterschool Cool initiative will offer first-grade students in her class tutoring after school is out and finishing the day with an enrichment activity through arts and crafts and tactile fun.

“Afterschool Cool blends learning and fun through reading and enrichment. Students work on reading and math skills in the first half of class with the end goal of using the targeted skill to complete an enrichment activity in arts and crafts or other tactile activity,” Dela Cruz said.

“Afterschool Cool will use classroom screeners to place the student in the class and through bi-weekly progress monitoring, targeted skills will be modified or adjusted to meet student needs,” Dela Cruz said.

Afterschool Cool’s goal of providing reading and math tutoring along with enrichment activities aligns to the districts goal of providing students academic and social emotional support, Dela Cruz said.

Chiariello’s 3-D Math Lab initiative will focus on important math standards in geometry for sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders. The six-week lab that would be used each year will focus on teaching a students how to measure shapes’ area, surface area and volume.

“Students often struggle to see the three-dimensional figures in terms of solving area, and the lab will focus on showing them how with hands-on activities,” Chiariello said.

“These  labs would focus on creating houses, sheds and other creative structures the students design and use math to figure out what the sizes are and necessary measurements they would need. An example would be for students to create their dream home and design their rooms in a 3-D model,” Chiariello said.

Students would see how their project turns out and based on a grading rubric, data could be collected to see the students’ achievement levels, Chiariello said.