The “Prize Patrol” was on the prowl again Monday morning.
Plastic hand-clapper noisemakers? Check. Three colorful balloons? Check.
Most important, the oversized, green poster board check? Affirmative.
Time, then, to burst into the classroom of Tessa Wilson, first-grade teacher at Hazel Dell Elementary School, with good news.
“Oh, thank you!” a beaming Wilson told a small posse of Vancouver School District Foundation leaders there to deliver a genuine $791 award.
“Thank you very much. You just made my year,” Wilson said.
Her homeroom pupils and all other Hazel Dell first-graders will soon have age-appropriate “Time for Kids” magazines they can read with parents at home to improve literacy skills, Spanish versions included.
As quickly as they came, the visitors departed, only to regroup 10 minutes later at Lake Shore Elementary School. Then again, moments later, at Thomas Jefferson Middle School.
So went another lightning round of happy interruptions engineered by Jim Sork, foundation chief, a few staff colleagues and a shifting cast of volunteer foundation board members.
Starting on Friday and ending today, Sork and company will dole out $85,000 in classroom enrichment foundation grants. The awards go to 80 instructors at 35 different school sites picked from applicants this year, courtesy of the nonprofit fundraising booster group.
At Lake Shore, $3,750 will go for extra social outings critical to young special education pupils. At Jefferson, nearly $2,000 will pay for glass art supplies and for two visiting artists to impart new dance styles to seventh- and eighth-graders.
Used to be, grant winners were called en masse to a mandatory social tea, where they sipped and waited, Sork said. A half-dozen or so years ago, the Prize Patrol was born to perk up the process.
“They hated (the tea),” Sork said. “We came up with this idea. The kids get excited, the (school) staffs get excited; much better deal. We’ve had teachers cry and sob,” he said. “We try to make it a fun thing.”
No tears early Monday, but smiles were wide, jaws dropped and most students joined the cheers at each stop. Even if they were unsure of the motive.
“It was a little overwhelming,” said Christine Ingalls, who teaches dance at Jefferson. It was her first foundation grant, to be split with colleague Deb Mata.
“My students were so surprised, too. They thought it was my birthday or something,” Ingalls said later.
But she knew, immediately: “This is big,” she mouthed to students before explaining its purpose: Visits from professionals to teach Renaissance dance (think 17th century ballroom style) and hip-hop. The latter, especially, drew accepting nods among her tween students.
At Lake Shore Elementary, Everett, a golden retriever service dog-in-training with special education teacher Andrea Brooks, barely arched an eyebrow. But there was joy for Felida Elementary first-graders in Pat Desormeaux’s class.
A “really cool” Learning Carpet will help them physically work out mathematics principles and problems, Desormeaux said. They had no trouble Monday grasping the scope of “Four-hundred and forty-one dollars” granted from the foundation, eyes widening, hands clapping.
“This is so awesome. Wait ’til you see it,” Desormeaux said.
For school principals such as Hazel Dell’s Woody Howard, Monday’s visit was nifty.
“When teachers do a great job and get rewarded, it’s a great day,” Howard said.
Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.
