$86k awarded to Tyler ISD educators with ‘Grants for Great Ideas’

TYLER — $86,000 was handed out Tuesday at 17 Tyler ISD campuses. The Tyler ISD Grant Patrol delivered the news to educators that were named 2022-2023 Grants for Great Ideas recipients, our news partner KETK reports. “Grant Patrol is one of the highlights of our year. It’s a rewarding opportunity to partner on these projects with an amazing group of educators who aim to engage their students in new and creative ways,” Tyler ISD Foundation Executive Director Suzette Farr said. The 29 grants given to educators on 17 campuses will fund projects like honey bees at Tyler Legacy High School to supporting the district’s literacy bus and expand student learning in the STEAM lab at Orr Elementary School.

“Through these grants, we are going to be impacting more than 12,000 students,” said Suzette Farr, Executive Director, Tyler ISD Foundation. Farr said they wanted to make it a special day for the recipients. “Big day of celebration, drumline, cheerleaders to go out and surprise our grant recipients,” said Farr.

Tyler Legacy’s agriculture science teacher was met at her classroom with cheers and a $2,722 check. “I am excited for our program, for my students to be able to get this money to continue our bee program,” said Whitney Cleghorn, grant winner, Agriculture Science Teacher at Tyler Legacy. She runs a bee program at the school and said their equipment is old and needs to be fixed. “Before we were borrowing a hand crank machine,” said Cleghorn.

Farr said the grant money will go to the Tyler Legacy FFA to help them purchase better equipment to be able to harvest the honey. “Being to now capture that honey in a way for them to be able to give it out and send it on and source it out to the community,” said Cleghorn. Cleghorn wants this money to grow the program. “There are still so many students and teachers that have no idea we even have bees on campus,” said Cleghorn and her students will be able to harvest more honey from the 12 boxes they oversee.